Sean Smith

Hey Sean — similar PE background, been deep in search fund origination thinking lately. Would be good to connect.

Hey Sean, similar background, weirdly — I'm from Zimbabwe, did growth equity in London, not building a search fund like SFV. most search-oriented funds I talk to are running on PitchBook or Grata, maybe Affinity, and then basically Excel and email for everything else on the origination side. but proprietary deal flow stays inconsistent. nothing connects systematically — the firm's thesis and network intelligence don't feed into each other, so origination never builds on itself. does origination look different at SFV? — Russ

Hey Sean, similar background, weirdly — I'm from Zimbabwe, did growth equity in London, not building a search fund like SFV. most search-oriented funds I talk to are running on PitchBook or Grata, maybe Affinity, and then basically Excel and email for everything else on the origination side. but proprietary deal flow stays inconsistent. nothing connects systematically — the firm's thesis and network intelligence don't feed into each other, so origination never builds on itself. does origination look different at SFV? — Russ

hey Sean — one more thought on origination. after hitting this wall myself doing growth equity, I ended up building origination infrastructure for funds full-time — Mentmore Capital, Axiom Equity, Noble Rock, a few others. at my old fund we had a solid stack and smart people, and origination still restarted from scratch every cycle. the funds who systematise it early end up compounding deal flow — the ones who don't keep resetting. curious if SFV has cracked that or if it's the same pattern. — Russ

hey Sean — appreciate the connect either way. we documented the origination infrastructure we've built across funds — tech stack, workflows, prompts. free to share if it'd be useful at SFV. either way, I'm around if origination ever becomes a conversation worth having. — Russ

Hi Sean, looks like we share a similar PE path — though I'm from Zimbabwe and ended up doing growth equity in London, not building a search fund platform like SFV. most search-oriented funds I talk to are running on PitchBook or Grata, maybe Affinity, and then basically Excel and email for everything else on the origination side. yet the off-market pipeline stays weirdly thin. the intelligence is all there but it's scattered across tools and inboxes — so nothing compounds into a real origination edge. does origination look different at SFV? Russell searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23

hi Sean — been thinking more about origination. after hitting this wall myself doing growth equity, I ended up building origination infrastructure for funds full-time — Mentmore Capital, Axiom Equity, Noble Rock, a few others. the pattern I keep seeing is that the funds who systematise it early end up compounding deal flow in a way that's really hard to replicate later. happy to compare notes on what's actually moving the needle if you're interested. Russell searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23

hi Sean — something about this keeps rattling around. when I was doing growth equity we had every subscription going — PitchBook, CRM, enrichment tools, the lot — and I still spent half my time manually pulling origination together across all of it. always wondered if that was just us being disorganised or if it's genuinely universal. imagine SFV has a way more dialled setup — but figured I'd ask. Russell searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23

hi Sean — completely separate from all that. we've got a PE origination playbook — covers the tech stack, workflow design, prompts, all of it. happy to send it across if it's relevant at SFV. Russell searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23

hi Sean — I'll leave it here. the origination playbook is yours whenever — no expiry on that. I'm deep in this space all day, so if it ever becomes a conversation worth having, I'm around. Russell searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23