Kyle Cruz

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

Hey Kyle, looks like we share a similar IB → PE path, though I was in London at Greenhill not Goldman in NYC. 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 Kyle, looks like we came up through a similar IB → PE path, though I was in London doing banking at CS & Greenhill and then growth equity at Treis — not in NYC at Goldman and Centerbridge 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 Cross Rapids? — Russ

hey Kyle — 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 everything ends up out of sync. been helping a few funds like Mentmore work through that. curious if you've run into the same thing at Cross Rapids? — 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

Kyle — We've been building custom deal sourcing systems for funds focused on industrial and service businesses — pretty close to what Cross Rapids does from what I can tell. also, incidentally, we share a similar-ish path: Goldman to PE on your end, Credit Suisse and Greenhill to growth equity on mine — figured it made sense to reach out. One of our clients, Backer Group in the UK, uses a bespoke system we built them to source and engage owners of service and light manufacturing businesses. it scores targets on owner readiness and acquisition fit, then runs personalized outreach across email, LinkedIn, and even physical letters — all integrated live with their CRM. Small team, so the system handles origination while they focus on closing deals and managing the portfolio. Another client, Mentmore Capital, uses a geographic mapping layer we built on top of Companies House and Google Maps data to find targets in niche industrial verticals. Pretty useful for the kinds of sectors where the best businesses don't show up on any list. Given we've already built out this infrastructure for funds doing similar things, I wondered if you wanted to take a look under the hood? no worries if you're all covered on sourcing. 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