Mark Rothert

Ashley Smith of Vermilion Capital just closed Fund ll. What advice would Ashley Smith give her fellow emerging managers about fund raising for a vc fund? part 3 Create a formal re-up campaign. Begin with existing LPs early, share a clear Fund I review, specify what remains unchanged, explain what changes in Fund II, and ask directly for renewal and increased commitments. Vermilion kept its thesis but increased check sizes, a simple and legible evolution. Make community a fundraising asset. Smith credits a network built over nearly two decades—former colleagues, founders, CEOs, co-investors, and LPs—not transactional networking. For an emerging manager, regular high-value convenings, useful introductions, transparent updates, and helping others before asking are compounding fundraising infrastructure. Protect focus and underwriting discipline. Smith emphasizes passing on good companies that are not “her company.” That discipline is fundraise-relevant: LPs are ultimately underwriting whether the manager can preserve a differentiated strategy when attractive but off-thesis opportunities appear. The key takeaway For a new GP, the goal is not simply to accumulate LP commitments. It is to create enough clarity, evidence, and relationship equity that initial backers want to recommit at a larger size. Smith’s result—95% dollar-weighted Fund I re-up participation—suggests that repeatable specialization and LP trust are more powerful than broad but shallow fundraising reach.

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Most deals don't fail at the table. They fail in the data room. If you're running M&A due diligence or a fundraising round, the platform at https://vdr.ai was built specifically for the pressure those processes create. Investors and acquirers move fast. They request hundreds of documents. They need instant access, version control, and a clear audit trail showing who viewed what and when. A generic file-sharing tool doesn't cut it when the stakes are this high. VDR.ai uses AI to organize and index documents automatically, so your team spends less time filing and more time closing. Deals that used to take weeks of back-and-forth can move in days. Security is where most platforms cut corners. The https://lnkd.in/gcVYs6ne page lays out exactly how VDR.ai protects sensitive documents, covering enterprise-grade encryption, granular access controls, and permission settings that let you decide precisely who sees what and for how long. That level of transparency matters when you're sharing cap tables, financial models, or IP documentation with outside parties. Some context on why this is worth paying attention to: global M&A volume exceeded $3 trillion in 2023, and the majority of those deals involved a virtual data room at some stage. The quality of that room shapes how buyers perceive your organization. A disorganized data room signals a disorganized business. If you've been through a deal process recently, what was the biggest friction point in managing documents and access for your counterparty? #MergersAndAcquisitions #DueDiligence #VirtualDataRoom #DealManagement #DocumentSecurity #MAtech

Most acquisitions don't die at close. They die 6 months later - when the cash runs out. Buyers spend months obsessing over purchase price and SBA terms, then get blindsided by something far more mundane: not having enough working capital to actually run the business they just bought. Daniel Duran and I recorded a webinar breaking down exactly how to avoid this: → The 5 ways to fund working capital at close (searcher equity, investor equity, seller working capital, permanent bank working capital, and lines of credit) → How to actually estimate what your business will need in year one → The financial model we use with Acquisition Lab members - walked through live → The most common misses first-time buyers make when sizing this number → How to spot an under-capitalized deal before you sign If you're searching, under LOI, or just closed - this is 30 minutes that could save your deal. This is exactly the kind of underwriting rigor we bring to every deal we back - if you're building a search and want that support from day one, come talk to us at Acquisition Lab. 🎥 Watch it here: https://lnkd.in/ecnghdUq #ETA #SearchFunds #SmallBusinessAcquisition #SBA #AcquisitionEntrepreneurship #AcquisitionLab

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Most family office principals don’t set out to become the operators of a complex institutional structure. Yet that's often what the role demands. Staffing, governance, vendor oversight, cost management—it compounds quickly. Understanding how to balance what stays in-house with what gets outsourced is foundational work, not a detail to revisit later. This article offers a look at how experienced principals are approaching that question: https://lnkd.in/eXjqWrRe

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