Raising a fund is the hardest sales process in finance. The product takes 10 years to deliver. The buyer has to underwrite the seller's people for that decade. And every other GP in the market is calling on the same pool of LPs simultaneously.
Preparation: the year before the road
Before the first LP meeting, the GP team prepares a Private Placement Memorandum (PPM), a track-record analysis, an organisational deck, a market research pack, and a draft LPA. They run a pre-marketing phase with anchor LPs to test interest and refine positioning. They appoint legal counsel (Kirkland, Debevoise, Simpson Thacher are the dominant US shops) and often engage a placement agent for distribution reach.
Track-record presentation is the single highest-stakes piece of the materials. It must reconcile to audited numbers, attribute returns to attribution-eligible deals, and survive a Big Four diligence call. Cosmetic adjustments to the track record are the fastest way to lose institutional credibility.
The Due Diligence Questionnaire
Most LPs send a standardised DDQ — often the ILPA template — covering organisation, investment process, deal track record, ESG, compliance, technology, and conflicts. Answering a 200-question DDQ is a 4–6 week exercise and shapes the LP's first analytical view of the fund.
The roadshow
Over 6–12 months the GP team meets every plausible LP in a sequence of 1-hour meetings, deeper due diligence sessions, on-site visits, and reference calls. Sophisticated LPs will request access to portfolio company management, prior-fund LPAC members, and the firm's internal data. Final decisions go through the LP's investment committee.
First close to final close
Funds typically have a first close 6–9 months into the raise (anchor LPs fund), interim closes, and a final close 12–24 months in. LPs joining at later closes pay an equalisation interest to compensate first-close LPs for the time-value of capital already deployed. The final close locks the fund size; the GP must then deploy.