10 PE takeaways from SuperReturn US West

Operators and investors,

2 days of unmissable insights during SuperReturn US West with capital allocators managing over 10 trillion dollars combined and dozens of PE firms sharing challenges and opportunities in driving alpha and delivering value creation in this economy.

Today’s issue is focused on the 10 core takeaways shaping PE’s thesis in the next few years.

1. The return model inverted (EBITDA growth now carries the deal)

A buyout GP on the value creation panel put the number at 90% of value creation coming from EBITDA growth. Another said his firm deliberately uses less financial engineering than peers and reinvests the difference into value creation levers.

I wrote about this back in April:

The market data says they are describing the whole industry, not their own preference: Bain's Global Private Equity Report calculates that cheap leverage and multiple expansion produced 59% of PE returns from 2010 to 2022, and both tailwinds are gone.

With debt at 8 to 9% and entry multiples still elevated, operational growth is not the upside case anymore. It is the underwriting.

2. 1.44x in two years is the starter benchmark

The cleanest line of the conference: "In two years, we should see realistic 1.44x business growth, otherwise we don't see the expected 20% YoY returns."

That is just 1.2 squared, and it translates fund math directly into an operating plan. But is the math done accurately at the front door - that’s the average question LPs ask before backing a fund.

Bain frames the same shift as "12 is the new 5": a typical deal now needs 10 to 12% annual EBITDA growth to return the same 2.5x that took 5% growth in the 2010s. If you are a portfolio company CEO or CRO, this is the number your board is now testing every plan against.

I also discussed the CFO role as a value creator here: https://insider.growthshuttle.com/p/longer-hold-periods-make-the-cfo-a-value-creator 

3. DPI dethroned IRR

An anecdote said on stage, word for word: "IRR is not real until you exit. I can't pay my mortgage without a liquidity event."

LP panels priced realized cash over paper marks all week. Distributions have run below 15% of NAV for four consecutive years, the worst stretch since the 2008 crisis, against a 10-year average around 26%, per MSCI.

Behind that sits Bain's count of roughly 31,000 to 32,000 unsold portfolio companies worth $3.7 to $3.8 trillion. Every operating decision that shortens the path to a defensible exit is now a fundraising decision too.

Liquidity looks different in PE transactions compared to public markets, but was still historically priced at a 5-year average. With hold periods higher and financial engineering no longer performing predictably, tension is understandable.

4. Secondaries taking the lead

Two years ago one panelist described continuation vehicles as carrying a "bottom feeder mentality."

This week a secondaries veteran called them "the fourth exit" and a panel estimated over 80% of GPs have now run one.

Statistically speaking, CVs have been used as an optional exit in practice. Half-year reviews put H1 2026 secondary volume above $120 billion, a 20% jump on H1 2025, with GP-led deals at 53.7% of volume, after 2025 cleared $200 billion for the first time.

The room treated the CV as a planning object with its own timeline, not a fallback when the sale process fails.

5. Single-asset CVs perform, but only one or two portcos in ten qualify

The stage claim was that single-asset CVs perform the same as buyout funds if not better, and we can see published examples backing this theory. Morgan Stanley's review of 2018 to 2024 vintages has continuation funds at a median 1.4x MOIC against 1.3x for buyouts, with visibly tighter dispersion, summarized by HarbourVest.

The constraint is eligibility: GPs on stage said maybe 1.5 out of 10 portfolio companies can carry one, because a CV is underwritten like a company rather than a fund: standalone equity story, management team that stays, and data that survives diligence.

"CV-ready" is a new, higher grade of exit-ready, and most of the gap is an information problem.

6. Holds run seven years now, pushing for alternative plans

Over a third of portfolio companies are now held past five years, a number we see continuously in PE media and social conversations.

Bain has buyout holding periods at exit hovering around seven years, up from five to six across 2010 to 2021.

The GPs who sounded most comfortable with that math push technology investment "as early in the hold as possible" to widen the differentiation moat, and their reinvestment questions were concrete: how do we hire more salespeople, how do we hire more engineers. No matter the AI augmentation, product innovation and meeting customers directly aren’t going anywhere.

A three-year value creation plan against a seven-year hold leaves years four through seven unmanaged, and that back half is exactly where the CV or the strategic buyer shows up.

7. Operating teams have playbooks, but execution varies widely

A takeaway from Accordion’s team during the event:

"Every GP believes they have great operating teams. It's doing the work and execution that matters."

The fundraising panels said the same thing from an LP standpoint: allocators want the excruciating detail of how value creation was actually executed, five deals in a row, told as real stories (case studies) rather than numbers on a page.

We see that firsthand at DevriX. PE firms are structured similarly, with similar deal and operating teams and VCPs available, but we enter sponsor relationships solving different gaps depending on expertise and operational alpha theses. In some cases, we enter conversations over a year after an acquisition, and the first 100 days set a plan that has barely moved in the coming months.

Different firms treat problems differently, depending on what worked for the company beforehand and the core skill set of the firm or the operating partner. Execution looks different even with very similar playbooks.

8. The 10-year-old fundraising pitch is dead

"The pitch you had 10 years ago isn't relevant."

What LPs asked for instead was specific:

• a forward pipeline

• realistic exit timelines

• honest runway

Do something others don't. Stay top of the stack through the relationship, because "PEs are fundraising all the time" now.

On structure, the advice was a barbell:

"You can be small and nimble or large and set course, but definitely not sit in the middle."

And despite $1.3 trillion in buyout dry powder, the floor consistently described a capital-constrained market, because LP capital only recycles when distributions return. This is takeaway 3 again, seen from the LP chair.

9. AI showed up on both sides of the model

Inside funds: deal sourcing, QoE, and process work are being rebuilt around it.

Inside portfolio companies, the consumer panel was the most concrete: agency work that took months now takes minutes, a 19-year-old can produce and test creative on TikTok in an afternoon, and influencer channels return faster than any paid line.

We see this modeling in specific industries, but also understand the specifics of why and when this is the wrong strategy. In online distribution, the space is saturating quickly, and the quality of AI content is now apparent to consumers. Certain industries tolerate that, but others clearly cannot take advantage here.

That said, AI augmentation in so many roles is inevitable, and each industry adapts what their audience can handle.

The caution came from the credit side, where desks are openly questioning software valuations under AI devaluation risk.

So AI enters the model twice: as the cheapest operating lever across the portfolio, and as a multiple risk sitting inside every software asset you already own.

Underwrite both.

10. Sector rotation was said out loud: defense, industrials, data centers, and healthcare's patent window

A JP Morgan MD plainly listed the shift into "new economies": defense, business services, industrials, and data centers.

The healthcare panels added a dated catalyst: pharma loses roughly $250 billion in revenue to patent expiries within five years per the stage, in line with published estimates of $200B+ in branded revenue losing exclusivity by 2030 across ~69 blockbusters, concentrated in a narrow 2026 to 2028 window.

A framing I took a note of is: pharma companies are commercial and distribution machines, not developers, in a country spending $6 trillion on healthcare against roughly $600 billion on all of tech. Putting this in perspective for tech and VC is an interesting angle on growing opportunities in healthcare and budgets exceeding the opportunities in tech outside of the AI space alone.

Following the FMCG and the healthcare events, I referenced these with digital GTM and social/marketplace channels, because ultimately the beverage/food industries are still largely driven by Walmart or Costco, and pharma is indeed a distribution or logistics system.

Deploying capital is more efficient when the system is understood and mapped properly - with product/development on one side and delivery/distribution on the other.

Three checks worth running this week:

1. Take your largest portfolio company's current plan: does it bridge to 1.44x in 24 months line by line, or does it quietly rely on a multiple you no longer control?

2. If an LP asked tomorrow for your last five value creation stories in full detail (what was done, when, by whom, and what it moved), could you produce them from data rather than memory?

3. Score each asset against the single-asset CV bar: standalone story, a bench that stays, data that survives diligence. Which clears it today, and what is missing for the next two?

If you’ve enjoyed the recap, hit Reply and let me know. Happy to run individual breakdowns and future event series in the coming months.

And share it with your PE firm or OPs.

Mario

🪨 Resource security is becoming a mid-market PE thesis. At SuperReturn, sponsors eyed businesses that control a constrained physical input, from rare-earth processing to water rights, where contracted access buys pricing power a services business cannot match.

🔗 47 integrations and still no single trustable revenue number. When finance, marketing, and sales each report a different pipeline, it is an architecture problem that compounds until exit, and buyers discount for it.

🛠️ A prettier CRM is not a change in the numbers the IC reads. RevOps work wastes a hold year when Salesforce gets rebuilt but win rate, sales cycle, and forecast accuracy stay flat, which makes it an enterprise-value decision rather than a technology one.

🤖 AI has moved inside the fund, not just the portfolio. Wrapping up SuperReturn US West, the clearest shift was private capital using AI to source deals, run quality-of-earnings, and streamline its own processes.

🎙️ On the inverted return model, Transom Capital reinvests what it saves on financial engineering into operating levers like accounting, customer service, and forecasting. - by Russ Roenick

🎙️ On the CFO as a value creator, the finance seat at Genstar Capital now underwrites the 1.44x growth plan instead of reporting on it after the quarter closes. - by Melissa Dickerson

🎙️ On DPI dethroning IRR, Coller Capital's model prices realized cash over paper marks, the exact shift LP panels pushed all week. - by Tom Clarkson

🎙️ On secondaries as the fourth exit, Warburg Pincus' partnership-solutions desk treats GP-led continuation vehicles as a core liquidity tool rather than a fallback when a sale stalls. - by Vishnu Menon

🎙️ On single-asset continuation funds, HarbourVest's evergreen-solutions work puts them near a median 1.4x MOIC against 1.3x for buyouts, with only one or two portcos in ten qualifying. - by Monique Austin

🎙️ On operating execution, the gap is rarely the playbook: every GP believes they have a great operating team, and value creation turns on how the last five deals were actually executed. - by Otilia Ciotau

🎙️ On the death of the ten-year-old fundraising pitch, capital formation now turns on five value-creation stories told in full detail rather than numbers on a page. - by Adam Biren

🎙️ On AI showing up across the model, the "autonomous economy" is emerging as the next layer now that the hype cycle has matured and infrastructure bets are playing out. - by George Bandarian

🎙️ On AI reshaping the fund side, the SuperReturn panel asked whether AI is now disrupting the disruptors in venture itself. - by David Blumberg

🎙️ On the credit caution around AI, BC Partners' latest Quarterly Credit Check reads markets as resilient even as desks weigh software valuations under devaluation risk. - by Ted Goldthorpe

🎙️ On capital rotating into healthcare, Healthier Capital backs AI-driven care platforms like Ezra and Hyro to widen patient access. - by Amir Dan Rubin

Private credit stress keeps building. US private credit defaults climbed to a record 6.3%, which tightens refinancing and covenant headroom for any sponsor-backed borrower on floating-rate debt.

A major growth investor is hedging AI concentration. Insight Partners' Deven Parekh explains why the firm is diversifying while others bet the farm on OpenAI and Anthropic, a sign that even AI bulls are pricing concentration risk into a portfolio.

Benefits inflation is minting platforms. Health-benefits platform Thatch reached a $1B valuation as healthcare costs surge, a reminder that the rising-benefits line squeezing portco margins is a growth market for whoever helps employers manage it.

Social engineering now turns users into their own attackers. ClickFix scams are tricking Mac and Windows users into hacking themselves, an endpoint and identity risk that runs straight to credential theft and downtime across a portfolio.

ANA Trading consumer-tech ecommerce brand: established brand selling consumer-tech gadgets and accessories since 2022, with growing DTC channels and repeat customers. $550,000

OneAll user-integration SaaS platform: social-login and identity platform processing millions of user profiles for tens of thousands of websites and apps, a recurring infrastructure business with a large embedded install base. $750,000

fromthelawyers.com legal lead-gen SaaS: pay-per-lead brands in the law vertical running at roughly $35K MRR and 60% margins since 2023. $797,264

High-margin automotive ecommerce store: DTC automotive store generating $2M revenue at a 45% profit margin with strong growth potential. $2,300,000

For PE partners and operators seeking alpha

🌐 Scaling $50M - $500M+ mid-market companies with value creation through RevOps, data engineering, and WordPress. DevriX provides full RevOps consulting + delivery with GTM enablement for PE-backed portfolio companies, traditional tech, healthcare, finance, and professional service businesses pacing toward revenue growth initiatives. Our standard retainers between $10K and $60K include revenue lifecycle services for marketing and sales leaders, FP&A for financial teams, pipeline enrichment through websites and dozens of lead sources, automations and delivery integrations, CRO and ongoing testing, product delivery and platform integration solutions, and more through our consulting solutions.

🚀 1:1 Advisory retainers. Supporting operating partners, private equity funds, family offices, and mid-market executives in different capacities, from value creation through due diligence to portfolio digital GTM management in my async advisory programs via Growth Shuttle.

📈 GTM while scaling. European and international businesses can opt in for doola LLC and their “Business in a Box” model. Scaling founders can find smaller digital opportunities on Flippa. And additional opportunities across my investments can be found here.