LP Experience Valued Over Returns
Surveys show reputation, transparency, and investor experience now weigh as heavily — and sometimes more — than performance when LPs decide where to invest.
LPs prioritize operations transparency
Source: Funds Europe 4
LPs value consistent communication
Source: Edelman 2024 3
LPs value reputation above returns
Source: Edelman 2024 1
Where Operations Break Trust
2-3 week
onboarding
Onboarding drag
Investor onboarding can stretch 2–3 weeks for cross-border LPs, with lawyers and advisors filling gaps at high cost.
36% of LPs lack analytics
Fragmented systems
SS&C Intralinks’ 2025 LP Survey noted 36% of LPs cite lack of analytics and 28% cite multiple dashboards as top frustrations.5
Manual &
error-prone
Custom reporting chaos
Personalized or real-time reporting demands push GPs into manual, error-prone rework.
Cross-Border compliance
Compliance blind spots
Jurisdictional KYC/AML burdens slow deals, strain staff, and open regulatory risk.
This Isn’t About Saving Hours.
It’s About Protecting Capital.
Fundraising Drag
Bain research shows even small frictions ripple into slower closes and missed allocations.6
Silent Churn
When investors are unhappy–they don’t invest again, often because of poor communication. 7
Reputation Risk
One lost anchor investor can trigger cascading doubts across the network of investors.
What It Means To You
CFO
Delayed calls, unpredictable distributions.
Investor Relations/Operations
30–50% of team hours wasted in manual reconciliation.
Compliance
Escalating audit and cross-border risk.
CEO/Managing Partner
Brand perception at stake in every packet and report.
A Case Story
“It wasn’t performance.
It was perception.”
A $2B credit GP assumed their investor relations operations were fine.
Mid-raise, an anchor investor threatened to withdraw due to onboarding confusion and late reporting.
The GP saved the investor — but lost weeks of fundraising momentum and credibility.
Post-mortem revealed it wasn’t performance that almost cost them the anchor.
It was perception.
How Leading Firms Reframe Investor Operations
Treat investor experience as a product
Standardize transparency: one dataset, many outputs
Hard-wire governance signals into workflows
Are You Leaking Capital, and Not Even Seeing It?
Most firms underestimate how much trust and capital slip away through onboarding, reporting, and compliance friction.
Some want to see the number. Others want to fix it now.
Footnotes
1 Edelman Smithfield. 2024 Global LP Survey.
2 Preqin. Transparency in Private Markets, 2024
3 Edelman Smithfield. LP Due Diligence Report, 2024
4 Funds Europe. Operational Transparency & LP Decision Drivers, 2024.
5 SS&C Intralinks. Global LP Survey, 2025
6 Bain & Co. The Rising Cost of Operational Drag in Private Capital, 2024.
7 Private Equity International (PEI). LP Sentiment Survey, 2024.