Raising capital from institutional allocators is not a marketing exercise. It is a relationship business with a long sales cycle, and the team you build around it matters as much as the pitch itself. Most emerging managers get the sequence wrong: they hire a single “IR person” and expect them to open doors, close commitments, and service the relationship afterward. Allocators can tell the difference, and it costs funds real capital.
When to Make Your First Fundraising Hire
The trigger is not a date on the calendar. It is capacity. Once the founder is spending more time managing existing LP relationships than sourcing trades, or once the fund has outgrown its founder’s personal network, it is time to build a dedicated function. Waiting too long stalls growth. Hiring too early, before there is a track record or a clear allocator strategy, burns budget on a role with nothing to sell.
The All–Star Fundraising Team
Allocators are not just diligencing the person pitching them. They are diligencing who runs the business day to day, because that is what they are actually trusting with their capital. Business development opens the door. The rest of the roster is what gets the capital committed and keeps it there through due diligence and beyond.
- The GP or Lead Rainmaker. Vision, conviction, and the relationship capital that gets a first meeting.
- Business Development Lead. Owns the LP pipeline and pursues new allocator commitments before capital is allocated. This is the hunting role.
- CFO or Fractional CFO. The financial quarterback. Allocators diligence operational rigor before they commit, and this hire is the proof point.
- COO. The credibility anchor. Once conversations turn serious, allocators want to know who runs the fund when the founder is on the road.
- Legal Counsel. Embedded, not reactive. A fund that treats compliance and structure as core, not an afterthought, reads as institutional-grade.
- Placement Support. Access to allocator relationships a fund’s own network cannot reach on its own.
Scaling the Function as AUM Grows
Once the core team is in place, the fundraising function splits along a clear line: before allocation and after allocation
- Head of Business Development or Capital Raising. The BD Lead role matures into a strategist who owns new allocator relationships.
- Institutional Distribution. A channel-specific hire covering pensions, endowments, funds of funds, and family offices.
- Head of Investor Relations. Owns the LP relationship once capital is committed. This is a distinct discipline from business development, focused on retention rather than acquisition.
- Investor Relations or Client Service. Services existing LPs: reporting, transparency, and the day-to-day work of keeping capital in place.
- Marketing support. Materials and positioning that support the rainmaker. It is not a substitute for one.
Build vs. Fractional
Not every seat needs to be full-time from day one. A fractional CFO or fractional COO can carry the credibility weight allocators look for without the cost of a full build-out. Legal counsel is often embedded through outside counsel before it becomes an in-house seat. Business development and IR leadership, by contrast, are relationship roles that rarely work well as fractional hires. The person building the pipeline needs to be present and accountable full-time.
What Allocators Actually Evaluate
Allocators are not just scoring credentials. They are scoring the network behind the BD lead, a track record of closed raises, and whether the team’s culture actually fits the strategy being pitched. A team that looks impressive on paper but has never closed a similar-sized allocator, or does not match the sophistication of the fund’s target LP base, raises more questions than it answers.
Common Mistakes
Funds hire too early, before there is a story worth telling. They hire generalists who can manage a CRM but cannot open a door. And most often, they skip the handoff between business development and IR entirely, leaving new LPs to feel abandoned the moment the ink is dry on their commitment.
Evaluating Candidates Against Your Allocator Base
Before hiring for any of these seats, map the target allocator base first. A fund chasing family offices needs a different network and pitch style than one chasing pension consultants. Evaluate every candidate, from the BD lead to the placement agent, against that specific map rather than a generic resume of “raised capital before.” The right team is not the most credentialed one. It is the one whose relationships and track record match the LPs the fund actually needs to win.
Before Your Next Fundraising Meeting, Talk to Us
20-Minute Conversation
Join us for a brief, no-commitment conversation about how the right talent can expand what your firm is capable of. The number one variable in performance is your people. This call is simply to see if there’s a fit, with no obligation either way, even if now isn’t the right time.
What to expect
We’ll talk about what’s actually going on in your firm right now and where you want it to go. That might be a leadership gap, a team you’re trying to build out, a key hire that fell through, the isolation that comes with leading alone, or an operational gap you haven’t found the right sounding board for. You’ll leave with clarity, even if we’re not the right fit.
Why us
We collectively bring decades of experience leading funds as founding operators ourselves. We’ve been in your seat, whether that means building a fundraising team, positioning your firm in the best light for allocators, or running due diligence on managers. Beyond our core team, we draw on a bench of 3,000+ advisors and coaches. We work with funds ranging from sub-billion to multi-billion in AUM, so we understand the specific pressures at your stage.
Nothing about this call requires you to share anything you’re not ready to share. This is exploratory. You control what comes up and how far it goes.
You’ll be meeting directly with Chris or Kurt, not a junior team member screening for someone else. Chris Lillis leads Talent Solutions at Arootah, spent over a decade recruiting internally at Two Sigma, UBS, and PJT Partners, and personally leads every search he takes on. Kurt is President and COO of Arootah, overseeing delivery across the firm’s advisory and talent work.
