Mike Faremouth

Hey Mike — similar path (IB → PE). been thinking a lot about proprietary origination in lower middle market industrials lately. would be good to connect.

Hey Mike, looks like we share a similar IB → PE path, though I was in London at CS & Greenhill not coming up through Ernst & Young and Danaher 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, looks like we share a similar IB → PE background, though I was in London doing growth equity deals at Treis not in Cleveland focused on lower middle market manufacturers and distributors 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 built something different at Watervale? — 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 Pitchbook or Grata, 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 really compounds. been helping a fund like Mentmore work through that in a similar niche industrial space. curious if you've run into the same thing at Watervale? — 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 — We've been building custom deal sourcing systems for funds targeting lower middle market industrial and consumer product businesses — pretty close to what Watervale does. also, incidentally, we share a similar-ish path: I spent time in PE doing direct investment into B2B service and industrial companies before building SearchLoop to solve my own sourcing problem. Of our active clients, two are probably most relevant to you: Backer Group and Mentmore Capital, both in the UK. Backer sources service and light manufacturing businesses — the system scores targets on owner readiness and acquisition fit, then runs personalized outreach via LinkedIn, email, and even personalized letters to get meetings with founders in the diary. Mentmore uses a geographic mapping layer with Companies House and Google Maps data to find targets in niche industrial verticals. Both are small teams, so the system handles origination while they focus on deals and portfolio. Everything integrates with their existing CRM, email, calendar — fully transparent, and runs in the background. Given we've already built out this infrastructure for funds similar enough to yours, I wondered if you wanted to take a look under the hood? might be relevant to how you're sourcing at Watervale, or you might be all covered, which is no prob. I'm fairly free this week and next, just let me know a time that suits. very best, Russell searchloop.ai linkedin.com/in/russellt23