Nobody Needs Another LP Database
The devil made us do it
We see these Substack and LinkedIn posts with LP lists, VC lists, lists of lists…
Who needs another list?
Do you want to, like, go through an LP’s garbage cans at 5:34 a.m.?
We already do that.
What I do know if that all emerging fund managers, whether they’re in private equity, VC, credit, infra, hedge, whatever, want to know the answers to three questions, because, well, we meet with 2% of the fund managers in North America and this is what they tell us.
They have three questions when they are addressing to fix their working capital gap (the #1 cause of death for funds $50M-2B). It’s pretty simple. They want to know 3 things:
Who knows me and my team?
Who funds first, second or third time fund managers that have not done a lot of institutional fundraising?
Who is deploying right now?
Here’s what we’re seeing.
Fundraising timelines have extended to 18-24 months for fundraises.
Currently, everything we are working on right now is for August ‘27 to Feb ‘28. If the fund does not have a Q3 or later ‘27 close date, it’s not happening.
Yes, close timelines were 6-12 months long during the ZIRP days. For context, that time period was 2009-2022. Unfortunately, that period ended four years ago. (To track if your fundraising speed is what it needs to be you can check your GP Velocity here.)
Here’s the tricky part. The personal net worth of an emerging fund manager in North America is usually $1-5M. So let’s call the median $2.5M. That means the amount of money that their spouse/partner will let them drop on their investment firm is generaly $60k-300k.
Typically one emerging fund shuts down every day. The number one cause of death for emerging funds is called the working capital gap, and here’s how it ends funds.
Significantly Extended timelines
Extended personal capital burn before management fees from new fund even START
GP decides: "I can't really afford to keep subsidizing this operation with my own money ($60k-300k)," and then either 1) stops fundraising (which kills the fund because no capital = no deployment = no track record), or 2) walks away entirely.
Here’s how it all breaks down.
1. Who knows me and my team?
The 2026 Problem: What happened was that due diligence stretched from 3 months to 6 or 9 months. Cold outreach in a 24-month cycle is super dangerous . LPs are searching for reasons to delay, not speed up. They have many reasons to do this but the main one we’re seeing right now is the denominator effect and liquidity crunch.
The Killer Stat: As you may recall from speaking to startup founders, cold outreach converts at 1%. Warm outreach converts typically at 4%+ and sometimes as high as 20%.. In a 24-month timeline, that’s the difference between closing in month 8 and month 18. You’re talking 10 months of personal runway burn for one relationship.
Our take: We thought it would be really damn smart to know who already knows you (who’s reading your Substack, who’s following your content, etc.) before you burn a bunch of time on cold lists.
2. Who funds First-Time Funds?
The 2026 Problem: Right now, institutional LPs are DPI-starved (there’s no cash coming back from their old VC/PE investments). The Flight to quality means their capital is concentrating on Blue Chip funds. Family Offices are NOW the only really reliable capital source for emerging managers.
The Killer Stat: 80% of Fund I capital comes from Family Offices. Most databases optimize for Pensions/Endowments (90% of coverage). So, if you’re in some $30k/year database? You’re searching the wrong list.
We’ve ingested the “Un-Googleable” regional Family Office spreadsheets (Texas, Florida, Zurich) where real Fund I capital actually sits.
Our logic was, get access to actual Builder Capital, not some whale-optimized databases. We only work with emerging fund managers who are going after about $50M-2B in capital formation.
3. Who is deploying this quarter?
The 2026 Problem: An LP who deployed 6 months ago may have already allocated their 2026 budget. Nearly every GP and MD we know is working on funds closing in Q3 2027, Q4 2027 or Q1 2028 right now. Those are the intros we are doing. We are happy to help you with LP intros. Here are our guidelines.
Pitching them in, say, month 12 of your 24-month cycle wastes critical months.
The Killer Stat: “Flight to quality” means only abut ~20% of the potential LP universe is actively deploying right now. Databases lag 6–12 months behind annual report data. We obtain very timely updates to show you who is ACTUALLY active and deploying today, across ALL asset classes (VC, PE, growth equity, credit, infra, hedge). We do this while listening to Pentagram and Blue Öyster Cult. It is the only way we know.
What our fund manager need: Real-time intelligence on active capital, not historical databases. The want data from the last 24 months, and especially from the last 26 weeks.
ECONOMIC TRUTH: A 24-month fundraise with 6-9 month due diligence windows means you and your team are burning personal capital for about 18+ months before your fund’s management fees start.
The old database model? It was built for speed. If you have a time machine and can travel back to 2021 with Marty McFly drink a Pepsi Perfect with him for us. The 2021 method is worthless for survival. You don’t need more lists. If you think you do, ok, let us know how it goes.
You need speed and precision on relationships that are very warm, capital that’s actually available, and LPs deploying right now.
If you would like to know what we have done to solve this problem in the next few weeks, and how your fund can join the 148 funds that work with LP Blueprint and be a part of it, feel free to reply to this email.