Episode 156: John Dickie of HighVista Strategies on Manager Selection in the Lower Middle Market

Episode Transcript   

Shiv Narayanan (00:00.0)

Hey, everybody, before we get started with today's episode, I want to take an opportunity to tell you about my new book, AI Marketing Blueprint. It just hit number one bestseller status across multiple categories on Amazon, and it walks you through a proven framework that we are taking our clients through here at How To SaaS and how to stay relevant and visible in a world with AI platforms, one of the biggest problems that we have seen across clients and companies is that the traditional channels that they relied on, like paid search or SEO, have declined significantly or are getting more expensive and competitive.

The reason for this is that a lot of buyers are starting to self educate themselves and research on AI platforms, so a lot of that volume that was previously going to those channels is now moving to these new AI platforms. So to stay relevant, the book walks you through seven new rules that companies in all kinds of verticals and industries need to consider so that they can continue growing their pipeline and revenue and ultimately their enterprise value.

So if this applies to your business or one of the companies that you've invested in, I definitely recommend that you pick up a copy. It's available on Amazon, on Apple Books, on Barnes and Noble, and even share it with your teams. Grab a bunch of copies so that you can kind of consume the content together and start to apply it to your business.

And with that said, let's move on to the episode. Welcome to the Private Equity Value Creation Podcast, where we interview leading investors, operators, bankers, and advisors to help you answer one question how do we increase the enterprise value of our companies? My name is Shiv Narayanan and each episode I will dive deep with a guest to help you become a better value creator and capital allocator.

So with that said, let's jump right in and let's get started with today's episode. My guest today is John Dickie of HighVista Strategies, and what I really enjoyed about this episode is that John and HighVista focus on the lower middle market, and there are several different ways in which they partner with GPs in ways of funding them and participating as LPs and co investing with their partners as well.

And John brought a ton of insight into the current market dynamics and things that are affecting how capital is flowing through GPs and investments across the board. And I think there's a ton of great takeaways, and there's a lot of great tactics and nuances that John walks us through, that a lot of PE firms should be considering, especially if you're in a fundraising cycle and you're actually trying to figure out how to get more LPs on board for your fund and what types of metrics and data points investors are looking for.

So there's a ton of great takeaways and a lot of great lessons in there. And I think you'll learn from John just as much as I did. So with that said I'll leave you to it. Enjoy the episode. All right, John, welcome to the show. How's it going?

John Dickie (02:53.1)

Hi, Shiv. Everything's going really well. Thanks so much for having me on today. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Shiv Narayanan (02:59.0)

Yeah. Excited to have you on. So why don't we start with your background and HighVista and let's go from there.

John Dickie (03:05.5)

Great. Sounds good. So, um, HighVista Strategies is a alternatives focused asset management firm. Um, I am one of the co heads of our private equity business here at HighVista. At HighVista. We manage about $15 billion of capital for a wide variety of clients, investing across a number of different strategies.

Um, first, we have our lower middle market focused private equity business that obviously we're going to spend most of the conversation today talking about. Within that business, we do a few different things. We allocate to funds. We invest directly into companies alongside our sponsor network. Um, and then we also are very active in the secondary market as well, particularly the GP led secondary market.

Um, in addition to the lower middle market PE business, we have an early stage venture capital business. We have a private credit business. We have a team of folks that invest in biotechnology. And then we have a multi-asset fund that invests alongside our different strategies and beyond, and really operates like an endowment style fund for certain clients that want a one stop solution.

In total, we have about 90 employees. Our headquarters is in Boston and the John Hancock Tower, which is where I am today. We also have an office in New York City. We're a partner owned firm. Been around for over 20 years. For me personally, I've been helping to oversee our private equity business for the last 16 years.

Before that, I spent a number of years at two different middle market private equity funds, and that's dating back to the early 2000s. So I've been in and around the private equity asset class for the last 25 years or so.

Shiv Narayanan (04:42.4)

That's awesome. And you listed a bunch of things that HighVista is focused on. I guess the question would be, where is your focus? Where does most of your day go?

John Dickie (04:52.2)

Yeah, my my whole day. My whole world is helping to lead our lower middle market focused private equity program, which has been around for about 25 years as a business. Um, what we do is we try to get our clients invested in small family and founder owned businesses in the United States. And when we say small, what we mean by that is companies that are usually about 2 million to $15 million of cash flow or EBITDA when we first invest, that translates into companies that are usually below 100 million in enterprise value, certainly below 200 million in enterprise value.

That's the part of the market we're trying to get our clients invested in. We do that a few different ways. We as I was alluding to upfront, we will invest a lot of our capital into funds. So we'll be allocating capital to small and emerging managers oftentimes first time funds, second time funds, third time funds, groups that are usually between 100 and 500 million in size.

That are then in turn pursuing those family and founder owned businesses that I described. And then a large portion of our capital. We're looking to invest directly into the operating businesses alongside our partners, as well as our other partners outside of our network, inclusive of independent sponsors.

And then we do also participate in the secondary market. And so for me, but also our entire team. All day, every day we're trying to meet managers. We're trying to evaluate companies. We're trying to look at secondaries all within that small buyout ecosystem within the United States.

Shiv Narayanan (06:25.7)

Has that changed in the last little bit in terms of the types of companies you're looking at, or the nature of investing in the lower middle market?

John Dickie (06:33.8)

Well, certainly the markets are constantly evolving. I would say the first half of your question, honestly, it hasn't been a dramatic change and that we are looking to invest in great, resilient companies alongside great operating teams and great sponsor partners in our network. And that's been tried and true for for many, many years.

We like to build diversified portfolios, and so we'll invest across different sectors. We'll invest across different regions of, of, of the US and even different styles of, of companies and types of growth profiles. And so that's been pretty consistent for a very long period of time. What has evolved quite dramatically over the last many years is, you know, how we go about doing that and the form that that can take, you know, if I rolled the clock back 15 plus years, you know, it would be a lot of just investing in funds if I, you know, fast forward to today, it's a real hybrid combination model of investing in funds, investing directly in companies.

Um, and then also the secondary piece that I, that I mentioned, and even within that, you've seen a huge transformation in terms of the number of spin offs, the numbers of split offs, the rise of independent sponsors. The increase in GP led secondaries. I'm sure lots of things that will unpack today. And so that's really where I would say the evolution has been of our program over the last many years.

Shiv Narayanan (07:58.8)

Yeah, well, one of the things that I've noticed is that people are being way more selective in the lower middle market, like finding resilient companies or companies that they believe will be able to get through some of the market uncertainty. Right now, there are fewer assets that look like that. I'm curious, are you seeing that in your experience as well?

John Dickie (08:18.3)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the last, you know, call it six years or so has certainly not been for the faint of heart. Right. You had Covid, then you had, you know, the low interest rate environment where valuations were very, very high, followed by a rapid rise in rates. More recently you've had tariffs.

Um, you have just a number of different things that people have to evaluate where where's AI going, where's the health of the consumer. And so what I think to your question, I think a lot of people have learned over the last six years. Is that for certain companies, certain industries, certain business models, we've seen incredible resilience through all those different things that I just rattled off.

And so for those great companies that have those resilient business models and resilient end markets, they've been sort of a dream for private equity investors. They've been they've grown. They've grown linearly. And you've seen just phenomenal outcomes. And that's what everybody's trying to find.

And for those kinds of companies you're seeing unbelievably good valuations still today even in a relatively difficult M&A environment. Whereas what we also learned during that period of time is that if you don't have a resilient business model and you're susceptible certainly to things like Covid, but even not necessarily a global pandemic, things like tariffs, things like, um, AI disruption and otherwise, then, boy, the diligence that you have to go through has really been heightened.

And that's a big part of what's creating this valuation gap, where. And the reason that M&A is slowed is it takes a lot longer to diligence companies that have not been on a linear journey to try to unpack what's what are those companies going to be worth going forward?

Shiv Narayanan (10:00.0)

Yeah. How has that changed, like in terms of the how you're fundraising for your own firm or how you're working with LPs based on the changing market dynamics?

John Dickie (10:12.1)

Well, for our program has been around for 25 years, and we've really just tried to be a very consistent partner to our clients. They are turning to us to help be a river guide for the lower middle market. A lot of our clients have extremely robust investment programs. They're extremely active investors, most commonly more in the middle markets, in the upper ends of the markets.

Um, the lower middle market, just given the breadth of it, can be a little bit more difficult environment to navigate because there's hundreds and hundreds of funds out there. Lots of different styles of managers. And then when you start to think about the co-investment element of what we do, we're looking at hundreds of deals per year.

So really what we're just trying to do is to be that river guard guide for our clients to be that, you know, constant in, in their programs where, you know, they know that they can get lower middle market exposure from us, get dollars invested in great family and founder owned companies, and hopefully be a great partner to them more broadly in terms of helping them navigate the hundreds of different managers and the hundreds of different company opportunities that are out there.

Shiv Narayanan (11:18.4)

Yeah, but and as you're coming into these companies and you are deploying capital like is has your approach changed in terms of what your investment thesis looks like, or what are the expectations that you have for these companies?

John Dickie (11:32.4)

Yeah. So I mean, ultimately what we're trying to do alongside our sponsor network is to invest in those great companies that have have These are not brand new companies, even though they're small. You know, these are not startups. These are not money losing enterprises. These are companies in most cases that have been around a long time have proven businesses and proven business models.

They're producing great revenues. They've got diversified customer bases, they have good margins, etc. but they are at a point in their journey where they're looking for help. They're looking for strategic guidance. There's a moment in time where they're seeing an opportunity and they think with a partner or partners to, to to go alongside the ride with them, they can take their business to the next level.

And it's all about taking that business from about $5 million, let's say, plus or minus of EBITDA, up to 15 or $20 million of EBITDA. And what we're looking for is, you know, how can we create value, how can our sponsor partners help these companies create value? And it's all the things that you would imagine it's putting in place KPIs, maybe for the first time it's putting in new systems or automating things with software tools, or more recently with AI innovations.

It's thinking about pricing strategies. It's thinking about M&A, maybe for the first time. And, you know, a lot of times it's just bringing that, um, strategic lens to a boardroom and alongside somebody that's already a proven management team and really helping them take that business to the next level.

And what we've just observed over a long period of time is that if you can go from that $5 million cash flow business to that $20 million cash flow business, the opportunities you have really become extremely interesting in terms of future buyer ecosystem, opportunities to do even more M&A and accelerate growth.

And so that's a really exciting journey that these companies go on. And, you know, we love the fact that we get to participate on that ride as investors.

Shiv Narayanan (13:30.7)

As you're coming in. Are there specific levers that you are looking to pull as an investor. Or that's part like, how does your playbook work or when you're looking at these businesses?

John Dickie (13:40.7)

Yeah. So just, you know, as, as you know, so for our model, our model is to build an incredibly wide sponsored network alongside existing GPs, uh, non-existing GPs, where maybe we haven't invested yet, as well as independent sponsors. And, you know, we are allocating across a lot of different ways, and we're giving capital to GPs who all have deep, deep areas of specialization.

And we as an allocator, really are leaning on our GP partners to immediately dive in and help contribute and add value to their companies post closing. We admittedly are more of a sounding board and an equity investor that builds diversified portfolios and sees a lot from more of a 30,000 foot view than, you know, necessarily being the ones that are in the boardroom every day alongside the management teams, um, driving, driving the day to day change.

We're looking to get our clients access and exposure to great companies in a really diversified way, alongside great partners. Taking that 30,000 foot view, where we can then in turn help our sponsor partners and our management teams see trends that we're seeing across our portfolios. Think about the right exit opportunities based on the hundreds of companies that we have in our portfolios and how they're getting exited.

And so that's where we're going to where we contribute the most at the company level.

Shiv Narayanan (15:06.3)

So you're working more with the managers and you're not really getting as involved at the operational level. Is that accurate?

John Dickie (15:13.0)

Yeah that's right.

Shiv Narayanan (15:14.1)

So so how do you hold the managers accountable or like figure out like if they're deploying the right strategies or creating value the right way? Like beyond just the financial metrics? I'm curious. Like is there any level of accountability or involvement to understand the operational side?

John Dickie (15:29.7)

Well, sure. So I mean, we've been fortunate that we've been at this for about 25 years. And so we sit on the advisory boards or the or the limited partner advisory councils of every one of our GP partners that we give capital to. So right there, you know, we get to be, you know, in the room with them on their boards, you know, helping them think about their own businesses and making sure for our clients that we're keeping close tabs on everything that they're doing.

Um, and, you know, so that's one way to hold them accountable. The second thing is that, you know, we're having very regular dialog with our managers. We look at co investments with them. Anytime a manager needs to show a limited partner like us a co-investment, they're sending a full set of information.

If that information isn't well thought out or well laid out or well documented, you know, that's going to raise a series of questions. So I think that is a way to keep GPs honest and what they're doing. And then ultimately GPs, you know, do need to come back to market every 3 to 5 years. And that's the ultimate test.

Um, if a GP is able to raise a subsequent fund. And so for us being oftentimes a relatively large LP in a relatively small fund. It's important for us to to, you know, be able to continue to be supportive. And if GPs kind of aren't hitting all those milestones around transparency, appropriate levels of diligence and ultimately generating great returns, then you know we'll have the opportunity to address that with them.

Shiv Narayanan (16:55.5)

We'll get back to the show in just a moment. But before we do, one of the most common and important value creation levers that we hear about on the show, from private equity investors and our own PE partners, is go to market. Yet when these same PE partners bring us into their portfolio companies or new target investments that they're exploring, we find that the marketing function is quite immature under utilized and under optimized.

And so that's a huge opportunity that we see inside these companies. And if you have a portfolio company that you feel like it'd scale a lot faster to drive more pipeline and revenue, or you're looking at a new investment where you feel like that could be core to your investment thesis, but we'd love to explore that with you and figure out how we can partner with you to drive more enterprise value creation on the marketing side, similar to the way that we've done with major PE firms like Updata, Hg, STG, and many more.

At this point, we've done hundreds of engagements across hundreds of industries and verticals, and we have a ton of benchmarks and frameworks that we bring to these engagements to help you drive as much enterprise value as quickly as possible. So if that sounds like something that you might be interested in, you can just email me directly at [email protected], or go to our website and schedule a demo, and we'd love to speak with you about it further.

And now, with that said, let's get back to the show. What really separates some of the best managers you're backing from? The less effective ones?

John Dickie (18:21.9)

Yeah, I mean, I would start with the first thing that comes to mind is just specialization. You have to be specialized in this world. In our opinion. If you looked at the last hundred manager commitments we made. I could sit here and tell you every single one of them has some deep area of specialization. It could be a sector focus.

It could be a geographic focus. It could be a specific investment style. But they have to have a fairway that they play in. And we just think that sort of being generalist and trying to do lots of different things in trying to be the smartest person in the room across lots of different areas is very difficult.

So we love that area of specialization. I think importantly, it's also consistency of fund size. I think one of the great mistakes that GPs have made over many years now is that they'll the the they'll rapidly grow the rates of their fund sizes and double and triple their fund sizes from fund to fund. And that creates a lot of operational challenges.

You have to expand the team beyond the core team that was there from the beginning. You have to start looking kind of outside your sandbox in order to put that much capital to work, your pacing of deployment will have to change. And so those are watch-outs for us. So so being really disciplined with fund size growth is another thing we look at.

And then there's all the qualitative stuff that you know you're familiar with around how or how's the incentive alignment, how are economics shared. How is the team built? Does the team have operational capabilities in addition to sourcing capabilities in addition to execution capabilities? And so teams that have a real focus have a modest pool of capital, have a deep and experienced team that matches that pool of capital and has experience in those verticals that they're going after.

That's really what we're looking for.

Shiv Narayanan (20:01.0)

Yeah, yeah. I guess that especially in today's market dynamics, like we've seen a lot of GPs, like they're struggling to kind of generate returns or figure out how to deploy capital or find deal flow. So how do you vet for that upfront as you're meeting these managers or, or looking at which ones you want to co invest with or partner with?

John Dickie (20:21.3)

Yeah, I mean the first thing I would say is it takes a lot of time and a lot of resources. I mean we have a very large team here at HighVista that's dedicated to this. We're building relationships with GPs over years, not months before we invest with them. And so you can really build that long term perspective on how how they are executing across the different dimensions that you just said.

I mean, at the end of the day, we spend a lot of time with them really unpacking. How do you actually go about sourcing, you know, do you have the ability to generate proprietary deal flow? Do you have that long tail of broker networks that can show you opportunities beyond just maybe the more mainstream investment bankers?

Once you bring, you know, those deals in-house. Do you have the ability to win over management teams? Once you do invest in companies, what are you doing with your 90 day plans, your six month first year plans, etc.? And how exactly are you contributing to that success and partnering with your management teams?

And so we're able to kind of unpack every layer of it. And it's not just talking through that in one example. It depends obviously what what stage the fund is at. But let's say there is a fund three and they have two portfolios that they've already put to work. You know, we will spend time going through every single one of those companies with them talking about how they found the business, how they won the day, how they ultimately added value.

And then for those that are realized, how you went about exiting that company and you know what the metrics have been along the way from an earnings growth and margin perspective, and you can really start to build a mosaic of how they're creating value. We don't want to just invest in managers that happen to get lucky on one deal and bought it for 5x and sold it for 20x because it was a good point in the cycle.

It's got to be a repeatable playbook of value creation. And the very best managers have that.

Shiv Narayanan (22:09.6)

Mhm. What are some components of that repeatable play. I mean I have my perspective. Some of the stuff that you shared on the specialization definitely resonates like some of the best investors we know are focused on a specific vertical or a specific type of business and have a dedicated playbook around that.

But I'm curious, like how you vet for that?

John Dickie (22:28.0)

Yeah. So I mean, the first thing is you get in and you start spending time with not just the GP, but you're talking to the management team that they've worked with and you're speaking with them and saying, all right, what exactly have these managers done for you? You know, is it just window dressing or are they actually coming in and helping you build KPIs right from the jump, holding you accountable to that?

Are they working with you to think about pricing strategies and how you manage that? Are they helping you think about how to diversify your customer base and your supplier base? Are they building M&A pipelines for you? You know, are they building out a board? And do they have a network that's actually really additive?

Did they help you find a CFO that maybe you didn't have right out of the gates because you were a family owned business at the time? And so just across kind of all the business building dimensions, is it it's it's so much more than just did they show up to the board meeting four times a year and sort of check in with the management team.

It's got to be more the former where, you know, you're really locking arms with the management team and helping them build the business across many dimensions. Obviously, the specialization point is a much broader point where it's easier to do all those things and have the network to do all those things if you're playing in a very consistent, fairway.

Shiv Narayanan (23:44.3)

Yeah, I think I think a lot of those like traditional old school playbooks that don't work as much anymore versus like having something that's proprietary, focused in a specific area or vertical goes such a long way. Talk about the the difficulty of raising capital, or is it is it actually difficult to raise capital in today's market?

And also this idea of spin outs and independent sponsors? Are you seeing a rise in that as well?

John Dickie (24:08.9)

Yeah, it's a great question. I would say this has been the most difficult fundraising environment that I've seen in my career. I mean, if you if you look at the data over the last 25 years. I mean, it's really, really remarkable. The last couple of years in particular have just been absolutely brutal fundraising environment for GPs.

If you think about where we were, you know, 2021, 2022 was really kind of the peak coming out of Covid and that very low interest rate environment. There was lots of funds that are being raised. And since that kind of midpoint of 2022, it's just been a steady decline in terms of the number of funds that get raised.

And the numbers are actually quite staggering. The data that we look at shows that there was in 2022, which was kind of the high water mark, there was about 1100 private equity funds that that had final closings in the US. In 2025, that number fell to about 330 or so. So that's about a 70% drop in just three years.

In terms of the number of funds that are getting raised. That's wild. And it all ties back to the fact that as the M&A market slowed up, liquidity dried up, limited partners started to kind of hang on to their precious liquidity and steer that to their favorite managers. You know, oftentimes their re-ups.

And so just kind of shrunk the number of funds that got funded. And it also made it brutally, brutally difficult on emerging managers. Now, you have—second half of your question you asked about independent sponsors, and it's all obviously connected. But what has happened is that if you think about the average middle market fund and you talk and you think about this dynamic that I just described, where for the average fund, not everybody, but for most of them, the fundraising environment has been very, very difficult.

What that means is the overall, the overall pie isn't growing as fast as maybe the employees thought it would. So if you're a vice president or principal or maybe a junior partner in one of these firms, and you see a more difficult fundraising environment and you see the overall pie not growing as much as you had expected.

Well, then what what are you going to do And what we're seeing now is just a tremendous rise in the number of people that are taking stock in that and saying, okay, I'm going to actually go spin out. I'm going to leave. I'm going to hang my own shingle. And a number of years ago, that might have been incredibly daunting, because while you've been trained as a deal partner, you never really knew how to raise money.

That that probably wasn't your job. That was probably the job of the founding partners of that particular firm. Well, now, today, two trends have made that a lot easier. The first is the placement agent, or the advisory community has realized how hard it is to raise funds and how many GPs are out there that want to raise single asset deals as an independent sponsor.

So they're actually pivoting their businesses and starting to help spin outs like the ones I've described, go raise capital for single SPV deals. And so all of a sudden, you have this entire advisory network that's coming. You say, don't stress about it. You can walk away, we can help you. And that makes that's comforting.

And then the second important trend is that the LP community, ourselves included, but many, many others as well. Um ah, want more and more direct deal flow? They don't just want blind pool funds. That's an important part of an overall program, but they very much want to invest directly into companies.

And so you have a huge LP community that wants those deals. And so the combination of all those things has led to just an incredible rise in the number of independent sponsors that we're seeing.

Shiv Narayanan (27:40.3)

Yeah, I guess isn't there a lot of risk in going down that path? Like help us understand why is that happening more? Because now you have the single asset vehicle and now it has to work. And the GP almost has to become way more operationally involved to ensure that that's a success. Like what's the what's the driving force behind that?

John Dickie (27:58.2)

Well, the driving force of the rise and the number of them starts with some of those dynamics I just laid out in terms of the pie's not growing as fast. And, you know, there there's a case of advisors and LPs. That's the starting point. But to this to this additional question, you're asking. It really gets back to.

Okay. So you've made the leap like I just described. You're out on your own. You've hung your own shingle. I've got an advisor. Maybe that can help me. But the key thing here is that it's really, really, really hard to raise a first time fund, right? So maybe a number of years ago, people might make that leap, and then boom hired an advisor and go start down the path of raising a fund, which, you know, to your point, having that locked in pool of capital, having that revenue stream is great.

Um, but it's hard. I mean, the numbers I quoted some of the numbers at the at the total fundraising level, it's even more dramatic at the first time fund level, the number of first time funds getting funded is very, very small. And that's because the precious dollars that the LP community has over the last couple of years has been channeled to their favorite re-ups, and so it's just not that easy to go immediately raise a fund.

Some can do it, but the masses can't. And so and so this GP community of independent sponsors that are making this leap and leaving their prior firms honestly kind of have to do it this way. And, um, and what they're saying is, okay, I'm going to build a team, I'm going to go and I'm going to put together a few deals.

I'm going to build relationships with people like HighVista that will fund those investments. And then if I can build kind of a mini track record of, let's say, 2 to 5 deals is usually the norm. And if those go well, and I've got a community of LPs like HighVista that also do first time fund commitments that I'll sort of take a couple of years and I'll build my business that way.

And that's just the reality of what's happening today. And so it's becoming an ecosystem that the LP community really can't ignore.

Shiv Narayanan (29:52.2)

Does that make it harder for, uh, like regular GPs to say, like raise money for their funds and what they're trying to do?

John Dickie (30:01.5)

Well, I think I think as I was mentioning earlier, the environment for fundraising is going to be hard for almost anybody. So the top 10% of top performance managers that have been consistent and that have had consistent fund sizes can can raise money pretty effectively, the rest can't. And so, um, I wouldn't correlate them precisely.

I think maybe part of your question is, sure, if a middle market firm is maybe having a little bit of a hard time raising capital anyway, and then, you know, a junior partner and a senior principal on their team spun out to go start an independent sponsor. Well then now you have team turnover. And that's going to make it even harder.

So to your point yeah the overall trend I mean it's all connected for sure. Um, but obviously every situation is a little bit different.

Shiv Narayanan (30:54.0)

And I guess also from the LP side, like if you are, if you have the ability to back a, an independent sponsor or an independent investment that against a GP that has spun out and you believe in, Then there's like more of a direct correlation to a return versus like betting on an entire fund where maybe there's average returns and you kind of are betting for that whole fund.

And and unless you're in like that top quartile of investors, it feels like a bigger risk. So where would you rather allocate your capital? You might back your top quartile of investors and maybe some more of these spin outs.

John Dickie (31:28.9)

Yeah, I think that's a good way to think about it. And everybody's making those risk reward trade offs. Obviously backing a fund that will then in turn invest in, let's say, 8 to 10 companies is going to have less risk than investing in a single SPV deal alongside an independent sponsor, for sure. And so I think there's always going to be a home and room for lots of great funds.

That business is not going away. LPs are always going to have that as a core part of their program. We do for sure. But to, to, to parts of your question, I think LPs, us included are looking at and say, if I can choose well and the bar's got to be really high to invest alongside great partners and to find great companies.

But if I can choose well, I do have the opportunities to generate higher returns on a single deal that I've identified that I like that I believe in, than in a in a more diversified pool. And so our perspective is you want to have a balance of those things.

Shiv Narayanan (32:25.1)

Yeah. No, that makes that makes total sense. Um, what about on the AI side, as you guys are deploying capital and looking at these funds or deals, how much is that affecting where you're deploying your capital?

John Dickie (32:38.9)

Yeah. Um, obviously it's having a massive ripple effect throughout all the markets. Everybody is trying to figure out how AI is going to impact any company that they invest in, including their own. Um, so we're spending a lot of time internally with AI figuring out how to use it. Well, you know, you've obviously got a business, uh, built around supporting folks to do that as an element of what you do.

And so it's a huge part of the calculus. I think for us, you know. First thing I'd say is we're going back to we're building really diversified portfolios. We like to call them all weather portfolios. So our portfolios are going to have, you know, some health care investments, some technology investments, some consumer investments, some industrial investments, some business services investments, so that when we roll up all of our investments for our clients, they have a nicely diversified kind of hard to break all weather portfolio.

Now AI is going to have a dramatically different impact, both in terms of how they use it or what the risks are around it. For each of those different verticals that I talked about and each of the underlying companies within that. So it's our job and our GP partners' job to make sure every new investment we're evaluating, how can we use AI as an opportunity to improve the business we're investing in, whether it be margin improvements or any of the operational improvements we were alluding to earlier in the conversation, but also identifying what the potential risks are for a technology business.

The risks are probably going to be a little bit more direct for what the AI risks are. Then maybe a business services company, but a business service company is not going to be totally immune to it. And so we have to spend a lot of time alongside our partners evaluating each of those different things.

Shiv Narayanan (34:22.7)

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I know we're coming up on time here, John, but people want to get in touch with you or learn more about HighVista, what'll be the best way for them to do that.

John Dickie (34:32.8)

Yeah. So, uh, HighVista, you can go to our website. It spells out the entire team. Um, uh, our bios are up there. You can, uh, there's an email address that you can go to, uh, on the web. Alternatively, you can look me up on LinkedIn as well and shoot me a note through LinkedIn.

Shiv Narayanan (34:49.1)

Awesome. Yeah, we'll be sure to include all that in the links in the show notes. And with that said, John, thanks for coming on and sharing your wisdom. There's a ton to learn from it, especially with the current market dynamics and how things are involved evolving. And I think a lot of guys that are trying to navigate this with their own firms will learn a lot from it.

So I appreciate you doing this.

John Dickie (35:05.0)

Thanks. Thanks for having me on today.

Shiv Narayanan (35:08.0)

Thanks for listening to today's episode. Before we close off, if you haven't already, go grab a copy of my new book, AI Marketing Blueprint. It just hit number one bestseller status on Amazon across multiple categories, and it walks you through a proven framework on how to scale revenue and pipeline.

In a world with AI platforms where customers are self educating and learning a lot more off your website, and where companies are struggling with declining inbound traffic volumes from paid search, paid social and even organic and SEO channels. So if that sounds like you or a company that you're invested in, go grab a copy for yourself, your team, or your portfolio company, and I'm sure it's going to help you out on your journey with that business.

And with that said, thanks for listening today and we'll see you guys next time.