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A New Kind of PE Firm

Lee McCabe

05 Oct 2025 — 1 min read

If I were building a PE firm from scratch today, I wouldn’t start with capital, I’d start with the platform. The traditional model, raise a fund, source deals, optimize EBITDA, exit in 5 years, feels increasingly outdated.

With elevated entry multiples and a higher cost of capital, financial engineering alone no longer drives returns. The firms that will lead in the next decade will be built on a platform-first model, where operational capability is the core differentiator.

BayPine is one of the few firms rethinking this from the ground up. Reportedly, they’ve embedded digital transformation and operational rigor into every phase of the investment lifecycle. This isn’t a bolt-on operating team or generic “value creation” talk, it’s a real, repeatable system that should deliver results.

If I were building a firm today, I’d follow a similar approach: assemble a cross-functional platform of growth, tech, marketing, data, and RevOps leaders. Build proprietary tools and systems. Drive outcomes first—then raise capital around that engine. Not just to win deals, but to earn the right to own and improve the businesses we acquire.

Now you’ve got a machine that doesn’t just underwrite risk, it systematically drives alpha. The future of PE isn’t about capital access. It’s about value creation capability at scale. The capital will always be there. The capability is what matters now. Would you build the firm or the fund first? Who else is rethinking the PE model from the ground up?

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News (w/e 1/9/26)

Deals (w/e 1/9/26)

Private equity has quietly entered a new sport: competitive talent hoarding.

AI isn’t coming for middle management. It’s already rearranging the job description.