Private Equity · Operating Partners
Two jobs. One hold period. The operating partners winning in the AI era do both.
Compress months of post-close discovery into days — and give your investors the AI transformation story they're increasingly demanding. Klarity does both, starting on day one.
36% vs 20%
IRR — same 2.5× return, 3 years vs 5 years
70%
of value creation is now operational
10×
AI can accelerate transformation speed
The Environment Has Changed
Operational value creation is no longer one lever among several. It's the lever.
Multiple expansion has compressed. Financial engineering scrutiny has increased. Operational improvement now drives 65–70% of value creation, up from roughly 55% just a few years ago.
Bain's 2026 analysis shows deals now require 10–12% annual EBITDA growth — up from 5% — to hit target returns. Operating executives sit squarely at the center of fund performance. The tools available to them haven't kept pace with that responsibility.
PE Value Creation Drivers
Operational improvement now dominates fund performance
A Few Years Ago
Today
Source: McKinsey Global Private Markets Review 2025
The IRR Math Is Unforgiving
The same 2.5× return is worth radically different things depending on how fast you move.
A 2.5× return in three years yields a 36% IRR. The same return over five years yields 20%. Speed to discovery compounds directly into speed to value creation — and into your LPs' returns.
on a 2.5× return
↑ Speed becomes alpha
on a 2.5× return
↓ Value left on the table
Source: Bain Global Private Equity Report 2026.
Operating executives today are being asked to solve two problems at once — with tools built for one.
The Speed Problem
The black box at close
Due diligence shows you the financials. Nothing shows you how the business actually operates day-to-day — the workarounds, handoffs, exception handling, and decisions that drive performance.
Discovery consumes the 100-day window
Sequential interviews, workshops, and shadowing can take 3–6 months. By the time you have a real picture, the most valuable weeks of the hold are already gone.
The AI Problem
Investors want an AI story
Investment teams are coming to operating executives and saying: give me an AI transformation story for this portco. The pressure is real — and it's landing on people who weren't hired to be AI architects.
AI without a map goes nowhere
Most AI deployments stall because nobody has mapped how the business actually operates. Without that foundation, impressive demos become disappointing production outcomes. You can't deploy AI into a black box.
What if you could walk into every portco on day one with a complete picture of how the business actually runs — and leave with a live AI transformation story your investors will want to put in the deck?
How It Works
Discover. Structure. Improve. AI-Enable.
Four streams run in parallel. What human-led discovery takes months, Klarity does in days.
STEP 01
AI-Led Observation
Captures how work actually flows — manual workarounds, skipped steps, decision patterns, exception handling across every application.
STEP 02
AI-Guided Interviews
Surfaces the "why": the tribal knowledge and judgment calls that live in people's heads and can't be observed directly.
STEP 03
Living Context Graph
Synthesizes both streams into a single, continuously-updating map of people, processes, and systems — the portco's operational truth.
STEP 04
AI-Enable
Uses the context graph as the foundation for deploying AI into portco workflows. The operational map becomes the AI story investors want to see.
Proof in the Field
The numbers across the portfolio
DoorDash
vs. a Big Four estimate of 2 years. Finance and accounting operations documented, structured, and ready for AI deployment.
Tyler Technologies
vs. 6+ months for post-acquisition integration — without adding headcount. Full operational map across every entity.
Top-10 PE Firm
AI completed in 48 hours what consultants had scoped at four months — surfacing bottlenecks the traditional approach missed entirely.
Fortune 500 Real Estate Firm
264 processes mapped. 58% adoption rate on AI-generated improvement insights. System updating continuously as the business evolves.
The Traditional Model
The Klarity Way
Time to operational clarity
3–6 months of interviews
Days
Data source
Management describes how it should work
AI observation of how it actually works
Knowledge transfer risk
Leaves with key employees
Captured and compounded permanently
Scaling across portfolio
5 operators, 15 portcos
Context deployed across every company
Add-on diligence
Manual process mapping (weeks)
Instant operational map
Value creation documentation
Anecdotal at exit
Quantified before/after, ready for the CIM
AI transformation story for investors
No operational baseline to build on
Live context graph = ready-to-deploy AI foundation
Operating partner AI expertise required
High — OPs must drive AI strategy themselves
Low — Klarity surfaces the map; OPs direct the priorities
Next deal
Start from scratch
Build on institutional playbooks
Time to operational clarity
Traditional
3–6 months of interviews
Klarity
Days
Data source
Traditional
Management describes how it should work
Klarity
AI observation of how it actually works
Knowledge transfer risk
Traditional
Leaves with key employees
Klarity
Captured and compounded permanently
Scaling across portfolio
Traditional
5 operators, 15 portcos
Klarity
Context deployed across every company
Add-on diligence
Traditional
Manual process mapping (weeks)
Klarity
Instant operational map
Value creation documentation
Traditional
Anecdotal at exit
Klarity
Quantified before/after, ready for the CIM
AI transformation story for investors
Traditional
No operational baseline to build on
Klarity
Live context graph = ready-to-deploy AI foundation
Operating partner AI expertise required
Traditional
High — OPs must drive AI strategy themselves
Klarity
Low — Klarity surfaces the map; OPs direct the priorities
Next deal
Traditional
Start from scratch
Klarity
Build on institutional playbooks
David Parfitt
Operating Partner, MPE Partners
“AI now captures every process step and removes tribal knowledge in minutes.”
4X
faster value creation
90%
time compression
100%
process coverage
Sharda Cherwoo
Board Member, The Carlyle Group · PE & AI Transformation Advisor
“The PE firms winning in the AI era aren't just deploying AI tools — they're building organizational intelligence. Discover process knowledge first. Then apply AI. Skip the first step, and the second collapses.”
3,800+
processes mapped
Days
to operational clarity
Compound
value across holds
Questions operating partners ask
Management says our processes are already documented.
Documented processes describe how things should work. Klarity shows how they actually work. The gap is where your value creation lives.
Investors are asking for an AI story. What does Klarity give me?
The context graph is the missing first step for any AI deployment. Without knowing how the business actually works, impressive demos become disappointing production outcomes. Klarity builds that foundation first — and the AI transformation story follows naturally.
My operating team isn't technical. Can they still run this?
Yes. Klarity is designed for operators, not engineers. Your team records how work happens; Klarity does the analysis. The output is a structured operational map and a prioritized list of AI opportunities — no prompt engineering required.
We're only in a 3–5 year hold. Is the investment worth it?
The 100-day plan sets the trajectory for the entire hold. Every week of clarity you gain in month one compounds through exit. Most teams see payback in the first quarter.
Our portfolio companies are too different to standardize.
Klarity doesn't standardize — it reveals. Every portco gets its own Context Graph. The cross-portfolio pattern recognition is what compounds for your operating team.
Our operating team is small. We can't add another tool.
Five minutes of screen recording per process. Klarity does the analysis. Your operators stay focused on value creation, not discovery.
How does this help our exit narrative?
Every improvement is captured — before and after. Your CIM value creation section becomes quantified data, not a story you have to tell.
Faster transformation. A real AI story. Both.
Klarity gives operating teams the foundation to move faster through the hold — and give investors the AI transformation story they're increasingly demanding.
Trusted by 3 of the Top 10 PE funds by AUM. No 6-month ramp. Operational clarity in days.