For lower middle market private equity
Your Operating Partner for organic growth
Every value creation plan assumes organic growth. Very few value creation teams are built to design and build it. That is the half we own, whether or not you have an operating partner in the seat.
The gap
The half of the plan that assumes itself
Cost, procurement, working capital, integration. Most value creation teams are built for those and they are good at them. Then the model carries a revenue line that grows, and the plan says the company gets there through better go-to-market.
That line is rarely owned by anyone in particular. Not because the team is thin, but because designing and building an organic growth motion is a different discipline from the ones the team was assembled to run. It asks for someone who has carried a revenue number, run operations, marketing, sales and service, and launched a digital channel from nothing. That person is usually not in the building, and one portfolio company cannot justify hiring them full time.
The gap is capability, not headcount.
We fill it across your portfolio rather than one company at a time. You get an operating partner for organic growth who shows up in the portfolio company, works with the team in the seats, and is accountable to you for the growth half of the plan.
What we own
Three tracks, one operating partner
The flywheel has one axle and three levers. Sponsors usually start with the lever that hurts most, then add the others as the motion takes hold.
The CRO track
We architect pipeline, align sales execution, and build the revenue predictability sponsors and boards demand.
- Pipeline architecture and forecasting
- Account segmentation and GTM motions
- Sales leadership and revenue alignment
- Pricing and packaging strategy
The CMO track
We drive full funnel demand, content strategy, org design, and measurable pipeline growth.
- Marketing org design
- Full funnel demand generation
- Content and creative tied to pipeline
- Marketing KPIs, dashboards and workflows
The CDO track
We connect digital to every function, reimagining how the business operates, competes and scales.
- Martech modernization (CRM, MAP, CDP, AI)
- Digital GTM and sales enablement
- eCommerce channel planning and execution
- Workflow automation and data unification
How we work
We build the capability, not a deck
A strategy the company cannot execute is a cost, not an asset. Everything we design is built with the people who will still be running it after we step back.
01
Agree the exit before we start
The first document defines how the engagement ends: what capability has to exist, who owns it, and when. If we cannot describe the exit on day one, we do not know what we are building.
02
Diagnose against reality
We test the growth half of the value creation plan against what the company can actually execute, with the team, the data and the systems it has today.
03
Design the motion
Segmentation, coverage, pricing, demand and digital, sequenced so each one feeds the next rather than competing for the same quarter.
04
Build it with the team
We work inside the company, not alongside it. The commercial teams in the seats build the motion with us, and ops, finance, IT and HR are at the table while we do it. That is the only reason it survives our exit.
05
Install the operating rhythm
Forecast call, pipeline review, go-to-market cadence, and one scorecard that the CEO, the board and the sponsor all read the same way.
06
Open the ecosystem, and the pricing
Operators, agencies, platforms and specialists we have already used and would use again. We also negotiate their pricing on the portfolio company’s behalf. We have sat on the buying side of these contracts and we know where the discount levers are, so the first quote is rarely the price and the savings are usually hefty. It is included in our scope at no extra cost. The company just has to let us do it.
Leadership talent
The hiring manager you do not have
When a portfolio company hires a CRO, CMO, CDO, CCO or President, someone has to be the hiring manager. In most lower middle market companies that person does not exist yet. The CEO has never run the function. The sponsor is not close enough to the craft. So the decision gets made on chemistry and a resume.
We take that seat. We write the scorecard against the motion the company actually needs, interview the finalists as a peer who has held the role, pressure test the first hundred day plan, and recommend the offer. Your head of talent or your retained search firm runs the process and keeps the mandate. We make the decision defensible.
Included inside the retainer, or scoped as a fixed price project, whichever your fund prefers. We do not run searches or compete with your search partners.
Across the hold
Where we plug in
Before close
We pressure test the organic growth thesis before it gets underwritten, and tell you what it will take to deliver it.
First hundred days
We turn the growth half of the plan into a motion with owners, dates and a number the CEO will sign up to.
Mid hold
Flat pipeline, a stalled channel, a commercial organization that cannot show what its effort produced. This is where most of our work begins.
Before exit
We make the growth story legible and defensible to a buyer, backed by a motion and a record rather than a forecast.
Holds have stretched. We are built to be useful at any point in one, including more than once in the same company.
The boundary
What we do not claim
We own the growth half of the value creation plan. We do not claim cost takeout, procurement, working capital, supply chain, IT infrastructure, interim CEO work, or a fiduciary board seat. Those belong to your team and to specialists who are better at them than we are.
We say it out loud because a firm that claims everything is telling you it has never been accountable for anything.
The record
20+
Portfolio companies impacted in under three years
$1.5B+
Incremental revenue delivered without raising budget
$500M to $35B
Revenue scale of the companies where we held the CRO, CMO and Chief eCommerce Officer seats
Today
Retained as operating partner across the portfolios of multiple lower middle market sponsors
Operator led, in their words
Demystify is led by Animesh Kumar, who ran revenue, marketing, service and digital organizations as a C-level operator before building this firm. Read his background.
Led with clarity, speed and precision. A force multiplier for any business.
Managing partner, mid market PE sponsor
The catalyst we needed. Hands on work with the team that made all of us better.
CEO, PE backed distributor
An uncanny ability to simplify complexity, cut through noise, and lead organizations to real outcomes.
President, global technology distributor
We do not publish the names of sponsors, portfolio companies or the people who lead them. References are arranged on a call.
Questions sponsors ask
Is this a fractional operating partner arrangement?
Functionally yes, and most sponsors will recognize it as a fractional operating partner or fractional CRO, CMO and CDO engagement. We avoid the word because it describes how we are paid rather than what we are accountable for. What you are hiring is an operating partner for organic growth across your portfolio, retained by the fund or by the portfolio company, in whichever structure suits you.
We already have an operating partner. Where do you fit?
Alongside them, on the part of the plan they are not staffed for. Most value creation teams are built for cost, operations and integration. Very few are built to design and build an organic growth motion. Our best relationships are with funds that do have an operating partner in the seat, because that person knows exactly what is missing and exactly what to hand over.
How many portfolio companies can you carry at once?
More than one, by design. The model is an operating partner at the top with senior CRO, CMO and CDO operators designing and building underneath. That is how the capability scales across a portfolio without thinning out inside any single company.
Do we have to start across the whole portfolio?
No, and most sponsors should not. Start with one company and one track, usually the one where the number is furthest from the plan. Portfolio level arrangements follow once the first engagement has proved itself.
How does the engagement end?
On terms we write at the beginning. The first document in an engagement defines the exit: the capability that has to exist, the person who owns it, the numbers the scorecard has to hold, and the date we are working toward. Most consulting firms are built to land and expand, so the end of an engagement is a renewal conversation. Ours is a handover against criteria both sides agreed to before the work started. Sponsors bring us in for a specific problem at a point in the cycle. We fix it, hand it over, and leave. It is not uncommon for the same company to bring us back two or three years later for a different problem, and that is the only kind of repeat work we want.
How are you paid?
A retainer at the fund or portfolio company level, or fixed price for a defined build. Leadership hiring support sits inside either one.
Growth doesn’t need to be complicated. It just needs to be demystified.
If organic growth is the half of your value creation plan that nobody owns, that is the conversation to have.