What a decline looks like when it is written down properly.
A pass that names the four dimensions carrying the downside is worth more to a founder than a polite no, and it costs us nothing but the discipline to write it.
§ 02 / 11
The bridge
Three seats at the table. We are paid to hold the hardest one.
Venture capital underwrites whether a thing can work. Private equity underwrites whether a thing that works can be optimized. Between them sits the passage in which a proven technology becomes a company, and that passage is the whole of our mandate.
Figure 1The bridge
Mid-market growth equity
Mid-market growth equity
01
Venture capital
Underwrites the science.
- Risk
- Technical
- Owns
- The proof
- Horizon
- Open-ended
02
LeverVenture
Underwrites the commercial inflection.
- Risk
- Execution
- Owns
- The build
- Horizon
- Defined
03
Private equity
Underwrites the optimization.
- Risk
- Financial
- Owns
- The margin
- Horizon
- Fixed
Figure 1 states the seat, not a claim about any single transaction. Companies arrive at the middle seat from either side, and the work in that seat is operating work.
§ 03 / 11
Strategic focus
One mandate, five places it shows up.
Life sciences and healthcare is the whole of the mandate. Inside it we look for the same shape every time: technical risk retired, commercial risk live, and a management team that would take an operator on the cap table over a board observer.
Life Sciences & Healthcare, with AI as the accelerant inside the mandate.
The mandate, stated onceSaving, extending and improving lives: from early detection and diagnostics through to personalized treatment across biotechnology, longevity, and physical and mental rehabilitation.
Artificial intelligence is not a sixth sector on this page and is not a sector in the fund. It is the layer that compresses the timeline inside each of the five below, and it is underwritten that way.
Figure 2The mandate
Five sub-sectors
Five sub-sectors
Artificial intelligence runs under all five, not beside them.
Discovery, triage, imaging read, trial design, evidence generation, clinical workflow and the commercial motion itself. We underwrite AI where it shortens a specific timeline in a specific company, and we discount it where it is a description of the software rather than a change in the economics.
Sub-sector is a starting filter, never the thesis. Mandate fit is decided on stage, size and the condition above, in that order.
§ 04 / 11
LeverSolutions
Decades of operator-grade execution, wrapped around the check.
LeverSolutions is the operating wrap on every position: the work a company would otherwise have to hire, learn or survive. It de-risks the plan, pulls the timeline in, and offsets fees against real delivery.
The bench is not advice sold back to the company. It is a group of operators placed against a named gap, staffed from day one, named in the investment documents, and reviewed on the same cadence as the financial plan.
Four pillars carry twenty-four named workstreams. Scope is chosen from that list before anybody signs, and the engagement letter states which lines are live, who owns each one inside the company, and the date the work is finished. Nothing is invented after close.
Fees are offset against delivery, so the wrap has to earn its place in the plan every quarter. When a gap closes, the bench stands down rather than staying on the payroll.
- StaffedFrom day one, against a named gap
- ScopedTwenty-four workstreams, chosen before signing
- ReviewedOn the financial-plan cadence
The wrapFour pillars
Twenty-four workstreams
Twenty-four workstreams
01
Strategic commercialization
Go-to-market design, pricing, channel architecture, key-account capture, and payer or specifier strategy.
Revenue architecture built by people who have run a commercial organization and owned its revenue target, not advised on one.
Six workstreams
02
Operational excellence
Manufacturing scale-up, supply chain, quality systems and regulatory, and finance and FP&A maturity.
The unglamorous half that sets the ship date, and the half most often missing when a plan slips.
Six workstreams
03
Expert teams and network
Senior recruitment, board placement, fractional CXO cover, and scientific and medical advisor sourcing.
The people a company needs before it can afford them, placed against a named gap rather than a title.
Six workstreams
04
Efficient capital use
Non-dilutive capital, bridge structuring, secondary facilitation and mergers and acquisitions advisory.
Making the balance sheet do more work, so the next round is a choice rather than a rescue.
Six workstreams
Controlled environmentGMP cleanroomWhere the evidence is made
§ 05 / 11
How we grade
The LeverRating markOn every rating, report and file
The LeverRating. One scale, six dimensions, a stated verdict.
Every opportunity is scored on the same house framework and written up the same way, so two deals a year apart are comparable and a decline is as legible as an approval. The framework declines. That is the point of having one.
Figure 3The scorecard
Worked example
Worked example
Subject A
An illustrative composite
Not a portfolio company
An illustrative composite
Not a portfolio company
71
Composite / 100
Conditional proceed
The red tick marks 60, the floor of the conditional band. Below it the house answer is a pass or major conditions, and it is written down as such.
| Dimension | Weight | Score | Weighted | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 25 | 60 | 15.0 | |
| Market | 20 | 80 | 16.0 | |
| Product | 20 | 80 | 16.0 | |
| Traction | 15 | 70 | 10.5 | |
| Financial | 10 | 60 | 6.0 | |
| Thesis fit | 10 | 75 | 7.5 | |
| Composite | 100 | 71.0 |
| Score | Rating | House answer |
|---|---|---|
| 90 – 100 | Exceptional | Strong proceed |
| 75 – 89 | Strong | Proceed |
| 60 – 74 | Moderate | Conditional proceed |
| Below 60 | Weak | Pass or major conditions |
Where six becomes ten
A regulated asset gets its own rulers.
For a device, a diagnostic or a therapeutic, the six dimensions expand to ten so that regulatory position, clinical evidence, reimbursement and freedom to operate each carry their own weight instead of being blurred into a single product score. Both rulers are run, and a rating that only holds under one of them is reported as unresolved.
What it is used for
The number is the summary, not the work.
Behind every rating is a written diligence file: the claim, the primary source that settles it, and the open items that would change the answer. Names are never published, and neither are the files.
Subject A is an illustrative composite built to show the instrument. It is not a company, a portfolio position or a live opportunity, and the scores are not a rating of anything real.
§ 06 / 11
People
Investors by trade. Operators by record.
Two Managing Partners who have built and run the companies this fund underwrites, an investor-relations team, and an advisory bench with clinical, capital and corporate depth.
Managing Partners
Investor relations
Investor relationships are held at the partnership. They are not published, and they are not passed to a placement desk.
Advisory Board
Each advisor is listed under the office they hold and the question they are here to answer. The marks show the organizations named in each biography and belong to their owners. Showing a mark does not mean that organization endorses the fund.
§ 08 / 11
Service partners
The bench behind the platform, named against the work it does.
A fund is only as institutional as the people who audit it, administer it, paper it and staff it. Each partner below is listed against a scope of work rather than shown as a badge.
Figure 4Service bench
Scope of work
Scope of work
§ 09 / 11
Research
The State of Growth Equity
Our annual read on the passage between venture capital and private equity: who is funding it, what it costs, and where the companies that stall in it actually stall.
2026 edition · First edition
The State of Growth Equity
01The middle seat, sized
02Where the capital actually sits
03The commercial inflection, measured
04Operating wraps and what they are worth
05What breaks in the passage
Executive summary · 9 pages
Full report · 64 pages
Published annually
Full report · 64 pages
Published annually
Executive summaryFree · No form
The findings, the method and every chart that carries one. Complete, not a teaser, and the same text that opens the full report.
The full report64 pages · By request
The complete data set, the underlying method, the company-level tables and the appendix. Sent by a person, not by an autoresponder.
Request recorded
A partner will send the report from a named address. This board is a design prototype, so nothing was transmitted.
§ 10 / 11
Insights
Written by the people who did the work.
Companies at this stage rarely fail because the model was wrong. They fail because the first commercial hire reported to the founder, the pricing was set by the first customer, and nobody owned the number. The fix is unglamorous, it is available, and it is almost never funded.
The passage is not underfunded. It is funded by the wrong seat.
Venture money prices technical risk and buyout money prices financial risk. The company in between carries execution risk, and neither instrument is built to underwrite it.
Scale-up is a supplier problem before it is a factory problem.
The qualification calendar, not the capital plan, sets the date a growth-stage manufacturer can actually ship at volume. It is knowable a year ahead and it is rarely modeled.
§ 11 / 11
Contact
One message, read by a partner.
Founders, co-investors, institutions and prospective limited partners all reach us the same way. There is no switchboard and no shared inbox behind this.
Reach usOne form
One reply
One reply
Tell us what you are building, or what you are looking for.
Every message lands with a Managing Partner and a copy goes to the team address, so nothing sits behind one person's calendar. A first reply usually comes inside one business day, and it comes from a named person.