Mike Peng

Hey Mike — congrats on launching Weatherstone. came from a similar-ish path (IB → growth equity) and been thinking a lot about services origination lately. would be good to connect.

Hey Mike, we both landed in PE from different angles — I came through banking at CS & Greenhill in London rather than McKinsey into a search fund like you. origination was always the same story for me — clear thesis, decent relationships, but no proprietary system of record. the people, tools and ideas were never really connected. every deal virtually sourced from scratch, nothing compounding over time. curious if that's still how most funds operate or if I'm behind the times? — Russ

Hey Mike, we both ended up in PE, though from different directions — I came through banking at CS & Greenhill in London into growth equity, not consulting at McKinsey into building a search fund like you. the pattern I keep seeing with most funds is weirdly consistent — strong thesis, solid network, but no proprietary system of record. the people, tools and ideas are never really connected, so every deal is virtually sourced from scratch. nothing compounds on itself. curious if that resonates or if you've already built something different at Weatherstone? — Russ

hey Mike — no worries if the timing's off. most funds I talk to have tried some version of building origination in-house — analyst pulling from Grata or Pitchbook, maybe using ChatGPT to help qualify, dumping it into a spreadsheet. each piece kind of works, but there's no system of record tying it together. the people, tools and ideas are all disconnected, so nothing compounds. been helping a fund like Mentmore work through that — similar stage, niche services verticals. curious if you've hit the same wall at Weatherstone? — Russ

totally get it if origination infrastructure isn't top of mind right now — most funds have 10 things ahead of it on the priority list. the funds I've seen crack it early just tend to compound deal flow in a way that's hard to replicate later. if it ever moves up the list, I'm easy to find. — Russ

Mike — Congrats on officially launching Weatherstone — saw your post about it being a long time coming. Getting the backing lined up and already having conversations with owners before you've even formally announced is a great spot to be in. We share a somewhat parallel arc: I went from banking (Credit Suisse NYC, then Greenhill in London) into growth equity at Treis, where I was deploying €10-30M tickets into European companies. The part that nearly killed me was sourcing — spending weeks hunting down the right businesses, tracking down owners, writing outreach that didn't sound like every other buyer's email. So I built SearchLoop to solve it for myself, and now run it for other funds. Given your focus on established service businesses across healthcare, industrials, and consumer — two clients that might resonate: Mentmore Capital, a UK search fund using it to map specific service verticals using geographic and operational data to find targets, and Backer Group, who use it to source service and light manufacturing businesses → get owner contacts → run personalized outreach that actually lands meetings. The whole thing is built custom to your stack — plugs into your CRM, email, calendar. You can see exactly what's happening at every step, which matters when you're running a relationship-first process and don't want owners getting generic spam with your name on it. Especially early on with a lean team, figured this could free you up to focus on the conversations that actually matter rather than the hunting. Worth a quick call to see if it fits? Russ searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23