Portfolio companies deploying operational AI independently pay for discovery, playbook creation, and integration engineering at each company. A portfolio-wide program runs the same playbook — Sales AI, Support AI, Finance AI, or the full five-play stack — across 5 to 15 companies at once. Cost drops 40%. Timeline compresses by half. The fund gets a live cross-portfolio dashboard as a bonus.
Ten portfolio companies each running their own AI project means ten discovery phases, ten playbook builds, ten integration efforts, and ten separate cost baselines. Meanwhile the fund has no cross-portfolio benchmarking, no shared learnings, and no visibility into which companies are actually executing. It's the operational equivalent of ten CFOs picking ten different accounting systems.
The fund picks the play (or plays) and the cohort. Alterra AI runs discovery once, builds the standardized playbook once, and deploys in waves of 2–4 portfolio companies at a time. Each wave feeds learnings to the next. A fund-level dashboard populates as companies complete their builds.
Same 200–400 bps of EBITDA impact per portfolio company as the standalone plays — but at 40% lower cost per company and half the time to full deployment. The fund gets a shared benchmark set that competitors don't have, and a value creation team that suddenly has capacity for the next thesis.
The playbook lives at the fund level. Portfolio companies execute individually. Alterra AI runs the coordination layer. The fund gets a dashboard.
Cost comparison for a fund deploying the same play (e.g., Sales/RevOps AI) across 10 portfolio companies — one-off vs. coordinated program.
Delta: ~40% lower cost, ~50% faster to steady state, fund-level dashboard included. Ranges are illustrative for a 10-portco cohort deploying one of the five plays. Full five-play stack across the same cohort scales similarly.
Cohort selection, play prioritization, KPI definitions, sponsor alignment. Two weeks.
One discovery. One playbook. Reusable across cohort. Dashboard scaffolded. Three weeks.
2–4 portcos per wave, staggered so learnings flow forward. 12–16 weeks.
KPIs measured against baseline at each portco. Cross-portfolio benchmark report.
Dashboard fully live. Optional next play or next portco cohort scoped.
Ranges reflect typical outcomes for VC/PE funds running one play (Sales/RevOps, Support, Finance, Recruiting, or Data/Reporting) across 8–12 portfolio companies. Full five-play stack across the same cohort compounds each metric further.
Book a fund-level assessment →Single-implementation economics are dominated by discovery cost, playbook creation, and integration engineering — not execution. Deploying the same play across 10 portcos means discovery + playbook happens once, integration patterns are reused, and per-company deployment cost drops sharply. Documented benchmarks: 40% cost savings and 50% timeline compression vs. independents. Closest thing to bulk pricing in operational transformation.
Economics start improving at 3 portcos, become substantial at 5. Most programs run 5–15. Beyond 15, coordination overhead offsets some cost advantages — funds with 20+ portcos/partner typically split into cohorts (SaaS, services, DTC) and run staggered programs. Portfolio companies don't need to be in the same vertical — the underlying workflow standardizes, not the industry.
A named fund sponsor (Operating Partner or Value Creation lead) owns the program. Alterra AI runs a weekly steering call across the cohort, publishes a shared dashboard, and delivers a monthly fund-level rollup. Each portco still has a CEO or CFO sponsor + internal owner. Fund gets visibility without coordination overhead. Portco operators retain autonomy.
Every AI workflow, integration, prompt, and dashboard deployed inside a portfolio company is owned by that portco and transfers with it at exit. No platform fees. No subscription that follows the company. No vendor lock-in that affects diligence. The fund-level dashboard stays with the fund. Buyer inherits a company with mature AI infrastructure — increasingly translates to exit multiple expansion.
Typical program covering 8–12 portcos runs 4–6 months from fund kickoff to steady state across the cohort. Portcos deployed in waves of 2–4 per month so early learnings feed later ones. Fund-level dashboard live in month one, populates as portcos complete builds. First measurable KPI impact per portco: within 60 days of that company's individual go-live.
Both. Most funds start with one play across the cohort (typically Support AI or Sales AI — fastest and cleanest to prove). Once the cohort is live on play one, funds typically layer play two 90 days later. Full five-play stack usually rolls out over 12–18 months at the cohort level. Each play compounds the last because the standardized KPI layer already exists.
Fund-level assessment. Cohort selection. Playbook sizing. Delivered before your next partner meeting.
Book a fund-level assessment →Response within 1 business day. Fixed-scope, fixed-fee at the fund level.