Value creation, measured.
For private equity and M&A, the case for AI is simple: EBITDA and margin that move over the hold, with the gains attributable and defensible at exit. That takes more than a pilot in a portfolio company. It takes an operator — independent of every platform, contracted to the number, and disciplined about the evidence. That is the engagement built here: diligence on a deal clock, operations through the hold, and documentation an exit process can stand on.
Diligence on a deal clock.
AI claims, examined before the wire.
Targets increasingly carry AI in the story and the multiple. A Charter Express runs on deal timelines — days, not weeks — and returns a data-room-ready read on what the AI actually is, what it costs to run, and what it would take to own.
- Architecture and dependencies: what was built, what it runs on, and what breaks if a vendor relationship changes.
- Unit economics: the real cost per outcome behind the demo — tokens, retries, human review, and where it curves at scale.
- Ownership and portability: whose IP it is, what transfers at close, and what stays behind.
- Key-person and model risk: what the system depends on that the org chart does not show.
Operate to the number.
Agentic operations inside the portfolio company.
Post-close, the thesis has to become operating reality. We build and run agentic systems in portfolio companies as a managed operation — scoped to the levers the deal model priced, reported monthly against the outcome the operation was stood up to move, and costed so the AI line is governed, not discovered.
- The Charter selects the processes where AI moves the number; the build follows only where the case holds.
- Operations run to a defined standard — monitored, governed, human decisions gated where they belong.
- Reporting is written for an operating partner: the number, the trend, the cost, the exceptions.
Evidence that holds at exit.
An asset a buyer can diligence.
Because the client owns the IP and the systems are portable by design, the operation itself becomes part of what is sold: documented, transferable, and attributable. The gains are only worth their multiple if the next diligence team can verify them — so the operation is run, from day one, to leave the trail that process expects.
- Documentation and runbooks maintained as deliverables, not archaeology.
- Decision and change history preserved — what the system does, and why, on the record.
- Portability demonstrated, not asserted: the estate moves with the company.
Fund-level or portfolio-level — cleanly separated.
Engagements are contracted where the work sits — with the fund for diligence and cross-portfolio programs, or with the portfolio company for its own operation — with data, reporting, and access separated by holding. No client engagement is disclosed or attributed publicly; references are provided under NDA in diligence, which is where they belong.
Begin with a Charter Express.
Fixed fee, scoped to your deal clock or your first portfolio mandate — and a candid “don’t proceed” when that is the honest answer.