The next value-creation lever is AI-first.
Financial engineering, cost cuts, and bolt-on M&A have been largely arbitraged away. AI-first transformation is the next underexploited lever — and the funds that build the capability early will generate outsized returns in their next vintages.
Margin, velocity, and multiple.
Structurally higher EBITDA
A third to a half fewer people, each 3–4× more productive. Payroll falls; a smaller token-cost block replaces part of it. The net is a durable step-change in margin.
Faster decision cycles
Cutting internal coordination overhead by ~80% means leaner teams that move faster — value created sooner inside the hold period.
Expanded exit multiples
An AI-first operating model is becoming a priced-in capability. Portfolio companies that have it are simply worth more at exit.
Deploy it across the portfolio.
We don't reinvent the engagement for every company. The 4P Framework and the 100-day transformation are a standardized, fund-wide methodology — diagnose, redesign, deploy, measure — that drops into portfolio company after portfolio company.
Aurora Works gives each company the same AI-native operating system, so you get consistency, comparability, and compounding institutional knowledge across the fund.
Readiness
AI readiness assessment per company.
Roadmap
A transformation roadmap with milestones.
Aurora Works
The platform, live in the company.
KPI dashboards
ROI tracked to the P&L, fund-wide.
Deliverables.
- AI readiness assessments
- Transformation roadmaps
- KPI dashboards tied to the P&L
- Aurora Works deployment
- Ongoing advisory across the hold period
The mandate.
Lower-middle-market funds acquiring companies in the $5M–$100M EBITDA range, where operational improvement is the primary value-creation thesis.
Also a natural fit for family offices with operating assets, and search funds and independent sponsors.
Run the playbook on one company first.
Pick a portfolio company. We'll prove the model, then scale it fund-wide.