Competitive intel on a PE firm, in under an hour.
A competitor PE firm is bidding against you on the same auction. Or your portfolio company has just received an inbound from a larger fund. Or your LP advisor wants a comp on a fund they're evaluating. Here is the workflow that compresses three days of associate-track-record research into one hour, with every claim cited to SEC ADV or a public LP disclosure.
The scenario
Tuesday afternoon. The competitor PE firm has just submitted a bid. Your investment team needs to know the competitor's posture by Thursday's IC. You want to understand:
- What sector concentration does the competitor have? Are they over-allocated to this category and likely to push price?
- What are their hold-period patterns? Are they late-cycle in their current fund and chasing one last big platform?
- Who are the partners on this deal? What do their public track records show across the prior fund?
- Is there public LP-disclosed performance data on the competitor's prior funds?
- How aggressive has the competitor been on dividend recaps versus operational improvement?
- Any partner departures across the last 24 months that hint at fund stress?
The traditional answer is to assign a senior associate to two days of PitchBook clicking, ADV reading, and partner-LinkedIn-stalking. The MentionFox answer is one report that surfaces the public-record posture in roughly an hour.
Why this matters
Most competitive-intel-on-a-PE-firm research is duplicative. Every firm pays for PitchBook. Every firm reads ADV filings. Every firm pulls Crunchbase data. The differentiation is in the synthesis: what does this firm's portfolio composition tell you about their next move? What do partner-departure patterns tell you about fund stress? What does the gap between fund-vintage pacing and AUM growth tell you about LP demand?
The signals that matter most:
- Sector concentration over time. A firm that has built up 40% of one fund in healthcare-services PE is going to behave differently from one with broad sector spread.
- Hold-period analysis. Funds in years 6-7 of their hold cycle are aggressive sellers. Funds in years 1-2 are aggressive buyers. The Form D filings tell you which.
- Partner-departure pattern. When senior partners leave a firm, it's a signal the firm itself doesn't always disclose.
- Public LP-disclosed performance. CalPERS, CalSTRS, and a handful of other public-pension annual reports disclose fund-by-fund returns. These are gold for triangulation.
- Portfolio-company governance signals. Forms 8-K and 10-K from publicly traded portfolio companies signal CEO turnover, restatement events, and material-event activity during the PE firm's hold.
What to verify on a PE firm
- Firm profile. Founding date, headquarters, AUM band, primary strategy. SEC IAPD ADV Part 1 is the canonical record.
- Fund-vintage history. Each closed fund's Form D filing, vintage, fund size, GP and management entity.
- Portfolio composition. Sector concentration, geography, hold-period analysis, platform-build versus single-asset patterns.
- Exit history. Realized exits with public outcomes (IPO, strategic sale, secondary sale).
- Partner track record. Each partner's career arc, prior-firm tenure, deal attributions where publicly disclosed.
- Regulatory and disciplinary history. ADV Part 1 disciplinary disclosures, SEC enforcement actions where public.
- Public performance disclosures. CalPERS, CalSTRS, university-endowment annual reports where they publish fund-by-fund returns on the firm's funds.
- Press and litigation surface. News coverage of major deals, exits, partner departures. CourtListener civil case search bounded by litigation-activity disclaimers.
What an IC team's hour looks like
Open the PE Firm Vetter
Type the competitor firm's name. Confirm the right firm via the Crunchbase + SEC IAPD candidate match. Click "Generate Vetting Report".
Vetting Report returns
Twelve sections, 3,000-6,500 words. Sector concentration analysis. Fund-vintage pacing. Partner track records. Public LP-disclosed performance where available.
Read sections 4 (portfolio composition), 6 (partner track record), 8 (public performance disclosures)
The three highest-stakes sections for the bid. Pull the load-bearing claims with cited URLs into your comp deck.
Cross-reference partner track records on LinkedIn
The report's partner section gives you the names. LinkedIn confirms current titles. Spot any recent partner departures the report flagged.
Pull two-three load-bearing public LP disclosures
If CalPERS or another public LP discloses returns on the firm's funds, surface those numbers in the comp with the specific PDF URL cited.
Comp deck draft
Sector concentration + hold-period stage + partner stability + public-disclosed performance + bid-implication summary. Every claim links back to its public source.
Pricing for this use case
One PE Firm Vetting Report
Standard IC competitive intel.
1,000 credits
Twelve sections, 3,000-6,500 words. Returns in 6-8 minutes.
Three PE Firm Snapshots — landscape mapping
Map three competitors at once before deeper dives.
600 credits total
3 x 200cr snapshots. The right tier for triaging which competitors warrant a full report.
Credits are platform-wide. A Pro plan includes a credit grant monthly; pay-as-you-go credit packs are available. See pricing for current plans.
Related
PE Firm Vetting Reports → VC Firm Vetting Reports → Methodology: PE Firm → Use case: VC Due Diligence →