Happy Super Thursday and welcome to another edition of Beyond TVPI.

As many of you know, I was invited to a webinar with with EELP last Tuesday. During the Q&A Conor asked:

“I really liked the newsletter about placement agents - and I was just wondering, given your tenure as an LP, the kind of role of the placement agent in the value chain: did that kind of increase over time? And what do you think of their role as gatekeepers going forward - will it increase?"

My short answer: “Yes and yes”.

My longer answer: “In 2016, placement agents were more brokers and marketers. Increasingly, their role was to be gatekeepers for not only the hot raises, but also the harder raises - if you have a story that’s tougher to understand, don’t take it to the LPs who only do clean and safe stories. That’s a waste of the GPs time, which is why placement agents are not only important for GPs as gatekeepers in the hot raises, but also the tough raises”.

When we originally posted the edition Conor refers to there were 500 readers of BeyondTVPI. Now, we’re more than 1,100. In this SuperReturn week, we will give you the opportunity to revisit it below.

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When I left my former job, there was no scramble to pass key relationships to my soon-to-be former colleagues. They already had years of data available to them. Here’s how we built that infrastructure.

Let's talk about placement agents.

When I started as an LP, I thought placement agents were highly paid used car salesmen. I'd sold a house, worked with real estate agents - I understood they provided value to the GP. Raise the fund. Find the investors. Move on.

But value for me as an LP? I couldn't see it.

Why would I pay attention to someone whose incentive was just to get me to commit? Weren't they just another layer between me and the GP, another voice telling me why this fund was different, this team was special, this strategy was the one?

That was me in year one.

By year ten, my view had changed completely.

Over time, I started noticing a clear pattern.

Some placement agents kept pitching me funds that were obviously irrelevant - credit, venture, strategies far outside my mandate. Those were easy to ignore.

Others behaved very differently. They filtered hard. They only came with opportunities that actually fit. They knew what we valued - and remembered it.

That’s when it clicked: placement agents aren’t just intermediaries for GPs. The good ones become gatekeepers in both directions.

Take a recent example that’s been discussed publicly: Nautic Partners raising with Evercore. I don’t have any particular insight into that fundraise, and this isn’t meant as a behind-the-scenes account. But it illustrates a broader dynamic that’s become increasingly common.

In highly sought-after raises, capital itself isn’t the constraint. What matters is speed, certainty, and execution risk.

In those situations, the role of the placement agent isn’t really distribution. It’s screening:

If you’re not already known as someone who can move decisively, you may never even see the opportunity.

Over time, two things materially changed how placement agents worked for us - and both were fully within our control as LPs.

First: Communicate your strategy clearly and consistently.

I had a clear mandate: Mid-market buyout investor, US and Europe. $500M to $5B fund sizes. That's it. I told every placement agent this up front.

The ones who kept pitching venture or credit or mega-buyout? I felt like a line-item in the CRM, “see how many LPs we know and can contact”.

The ones who respected it - and only came with relevant opportunities - became long-term counterparts. Not because they were charming, but because they were precise.

Clarity compounds.

Second: Be as transparent as possible about your process.

Even oversubscribed GPs care deeply about execution risk. Can this LP actually close? How long does diligence take? What causes delays or passes?

When placement agents understand your process end-to-end, they can credibly vouch for you. They can say, “Yes, this LP is serious. Yes, they’ll give you a clean answer. Yes, they can hit your timing.”

And that vouching? That's when it gets valuable.

A few years ago, a brand-name GP I'd been tracking for years suddenly had a spot open. It was one of those funds you don't get into unless you're already in. Highly oversubscribed. Moving fast.

The placement agent called me.

They knew our strategy. They knew our process. They knew we could move quickly without drama. And our ticket size was just right.

We got the commitment.

Would we have gotten that opportunity cold? Not a chance. Would we have gotten it if I'd treated placement agents like used car salesmen for the previous five years? Also not a chance.

The relationship mattered. The consistency mattered. The fact that they could vouch for us mattered.

So here's what I'd ask: Are you treating placement agents like gatekeepers working both directions? Or are you still treating them like salespeople trying to push product?

Because if it's the latter, you're leaving money on the table. Not every placement agent deserves your time. Many won't provide value. Some only do it rarely. But the ones who do? The ones who actually listen, who bring you relevant opportunities, who can vouch for you when it counts?

Those relationships are worth building.

It will be back to regular programming next week.

This newsletter is written by Steffen Risager, the founder of FundFrame, a platform for LPs to manage their private markets investments.

Before that, Steffen was CIO at Advantage Investment Partners, a Danish Fund-of-Funds.

Steffen has a decade of experience as an LP, and has made commitments totalling approx. $6bn across fund- and co-investments.