Advisory
Structural advisory for venture allocators and fund managers.
We work on how a venture allocation is built, and on how a fund is built to withstand one. Every engagement starts with a diagnostic, draws on a defined library of modules, and is sequenced against the date you are working toward. Everything is delivered in writing.
Three to five modules
Eight to twelve working sessions
One deliverable per module The diagnostic comes first, and it is free
How it works
Four steps, in this order, every time.
Diagnose
A structured read of the firm, the fund, or the allocation program against the framework the research produced. It ends in a written statement of where the binding constraint actually sits, which is often not where the firm thought it was.
Select
We propose the modules that address the constraint, and name the ones we are deliberately leaving out. A proposal that includes everything is a proposal that has not diagnosed anything.
Sequence
Modules are ordered against the date that matters: a first close, an investment committee meeting, an annual review, a statutory deadline. Some modules only work once others have finished, and the sequence reflects that.
Deliver
Each module produces a deliverable your team owns and keeps: a memorandum, a framework, a model, a materials suite. Working sessions run alongside it. Nothing is left as a verbal recommendation.
The module library
Twenty-six modules. Most engagements use three to five.
Nine modules sit on the allocator side and seventeen on the manager side. Each has a defined output and a duration. Durations are the working range across engagements we have run. Ten of them are marked with the platform whose framework they draw on.
For allocators (LPs)
Institutions, funds of funds, family offices, and mandated programs deciding how a venture allocation is built and which managers enter it. Two questions sit underneath most of this work: what is the process actually selecting for, and what is that selection costing.
Portfolio and allocation architecture
How the allocation is constructed, paced, and stress-tested.
| Module | What it resolves | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Configuration diagnostic and portfolio audit | What the existing portfolio is actually exposed to, set against what the mandate says it is exposed to. The two are rarely the same. | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Portfolio construction architecture | Commitment sizing, manager count, pacing, and re-up policy designed against the mandate's real constraints rather than a target allocation percentage. | 3 weeks |
| Risk framework and manager mix architecture | Where correlation actually sits inside a manager set that looks diversified on paper, and what the mix does under a stressed vintage. | 3 weeks |
| Portfolio-wide manager configuration scan Architecture | The configuration and concentration engines run across every manager in the book rather than one at a time, to show which firms in the portfolio are structurally fragile before performance says so. | 3 weeks |
Manager selection and process
How managers enter the portfolio, and whether that decision holds up in front of a committee.
| Module | What it resolves | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Manager pre-qualification framework | A written screen that reduces evaluation loss without narrowing the funnel, replacing the informal filter most programs are running by default. | 3 weeks |
| Manager configuration diligence Architecture | A structural review of one manager under consideration: capital math, ownership targets, team capacity, governance design, and cross-fund concentration. Delivered as a memorandum an investment committee can read without translation. | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Access and outcomes audit | Whether the process is selecting for quality or for familiarity, where in the funnel the loss occurs, and what a change to the screen would move. | 2 weeks |
| Mandated program translation Blueprint | SSBCI, DFI, and other statutory or concessionary mandates turned into screening criteria, portfolio constraints, and reporting an administrator will accept, without letting the compliance layer quietly become the investment strategy. | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Committee and board defensibility | Decisions a committee, a board, or a program administrator can defend in writing, with the reasoning documented as it is made rather than reconstructed afterward. | 2 weeks |
For managers (GPs)
General partners raising from institutional capital, or re-positioning a firm between funds. The work prepares the firm to survive diligence rather than to present well. We are not a placement agent and we do not introduce for a fee.
Positioning and narrative
Usually where a raise is failing when the pipeline is full and nothing converts.
| Module | What it resolves | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| LP narrative architecture | The fund story is accurate but does not survive an allocator's first three questions. Rebuilds the argument from the evidence the firm actually has. | 2 weeks |
| Pre-fund track record restatement Blueprint | SPV, angel, and operating deals restated as fund-equivalent gross and net performance, with the attribution question answered before an allocator asks it. | 2 weeks |
| Cross-border track record translation | A record earned in one market does not read as a record in the market you are raising in. Restates it in the terms the target LP base underwrites. | 2 weeks |
| LP segmentation and target map | The raise is going to every LP rather than the LPs whose mandate can actually hold this fund. Produces a segmented, prioritized target list with the argument for each segment. | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Investor-facing materials suite | Deck, one-pager, and data room front matter carrying different versions of the same argument. Rebuilds them as one. | 3 to 4 weeks |
Readiness and diligence
What an institutional screen tests, run before the screen runs it.
| Module | What it resolves | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Institutional readiness package | Which parts of the operational, governance, reporting, and policy stack fail an institutional screen, with the gaps closed rather than listed. | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Readiness assessment and diligence simulation | A mock diligence run by people who have sat on the allocator side of it, with the written findings the firm would have received. Not placement, not an endorsement, not a certification. | 3 to 4 weeks |
| Document consistency audit Blueprint | Deck, LPA, term sheet, and construction model read against each other. Fund size, check size, ownership target, and reserve ratio have to agree across every document before a room opens. | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Data room and DDQ architecture Blueprint | The fourteen-folder institutional room built out and the DDQ answered section by section, so the room responds in the order an allocator asks rather than the order it was assembled. | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Specialized capital pathways Blueprint | SSBCI, DFI, and impact or foundation capital each carry their own compliance, additionality, and reporting stack. Maps what the source requires, closes the gaps, and restates the fund in terms that source underwrites. | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Reporting and LP communication design | Quarterly reporting an institutional LP can consume without a call, and a communication cadence that survives a bad quarter. | 2 weeks |
Fund and firm architecture
Whether the fund as built can produce the outcome the fund as pitched is promising, and whether the firm around it holds together.
| Module | What it resolves | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio construction diagnostic | Fund size, ownership target, entry pacing, and position count tested against the return strategy being presented to the market. | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Firm design congruence review Architecture | Eleven structural checks run by hand: committee voting against sector breadth, decision authority against economic rights, board obligations against team capacity, geographic mandate against headcount, ownership targets against entry stage, succession against firm stage. Ends in a governance memorandum naming each tension and the fix. | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Reserve and follow-on policy design Architecture | A written follow-on policy that holds under pressure, rather than a reserve ratio that is renegotiated at every board meeting. | 2 weeks |
| Deployment pacing and vintage design | Pace across the investment period with vintage concentration made explicit, including what happens if the market closes for eighteen months. | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Concentration and tail dependence modeling | What the fund needs from its single best outcome, and how narrow that requirement is once the power law is modeled rather than assumed. | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Cross-fund concentration review Architecture | For firms on Fund II and later: sector, stage, geography, and single-company exposure accumulated across every vehicle, including the positions no single fund would have flagged on its own. | 2 weeks |
Where this sits
Software first. Advisory where the software stops.
Blueprint and Architecture answer the questions that recur across firms, and they are the fastest and cheapest way to find out where a firm stands. Advisory takes over at the point where the answer needs judgment: a constraint the software can identify but cannot resolve from inside a product, a decision that has to be defended in front of a committee, or a firm whose situation does not resemble anyone else's.
Many clients start on a platform and never need more than that.
Colibrí Blueprint
Fund readiness: evaluator lens, consistency audit, firm narrative, the fourteen-folder data room and DDQ, LP intelligence, and the specialized pathways for SSBCI, DFI, and impact capital. Opens with a free readiness diagnostic.
Colibrí Architecture
Firm design: portfolio efficiency, eleven firm design congruence checks, cross-fund concentration, and a scenario engine for follow-on decisions, scored against cohort baselines at the same lifecycle stage.
Colibrí Institute
The published research both platforms are built on. Independent, public, and never a party to an engagement.
Depth
How deep the engagement goes is a separate decision.
Modules decide what the work covers. Depth decides how far it goes. Each step below carries the condition that moves a client to the next one, so the decision is visible rather than sold.
Diagnostic
One question, evidence, and a written answer. A decision artifact lands by day thirty: the constraint, the options, and the trigger conditions for each. Many engagements end here on purpose.
Move up when the diagnostic finds a structural problem rather than a presentational one.
Focused engagement
Three to four modules against a single objective: a first close, a screen redesign, a construction rebuild. Governance artifacts and decision triggers included.
Move up when the objective turns out to touch more than one part of the firm.
Program
A full stack across positioning, construction, and process, with manager-level or position-level scoring, a multi-year roadmap, and monitoring built into the deliverable rather than sold separately.
Move up when the design has to hold across more than one decision cycle.
Retained
A set cadence, standing monitoring against the framework already built, and committee support inside defined boundaries. Retainers follow an engagement. We do not open with one.
We cap concurrent heavy engagements, so retained capacity is limited and stated before signing.
What we need from you
What the work asks of you.
We name these before an engagement starts rather than halfway through it, because the quality of the output depends on all four.
Data
Fund or program data at the level the modules require, including the parts that are unflattering. Under NDA in every case.
Working sessions
Eight to twelve sessions of thirty to sixty minutes across the engagement, with the people who hold the decisions in the room.
Senior time
Roughly twenty-five to thirty hours on your side across a focused engagement. This is senior work on both sides of the table.
Decision authority
Someone in the room who can decide. Work that has to be re-argued later with a principal who was not there rarely gets implemented.
Scope and limits
Where the work stops.
The same language that appears in every engagement letter. It is on the page because a fiduciary should be able to read it before the first call rather than after it.
Non-discretionary
We do not hold, control, or direct capital, and we take no custody. Every decision remains with the client.
No placement, no success fees
We are not a placement agent and are not compensated on a raise, a commitment, or a transaction. Fees are fixed and stated in the proposal.
Not an OCIO, and not counsel
We do not manage assets, execute transactions, or provide legal, tax, or accounting advice.
Findings carry their limits
Quantitative work is delivered with its methods, assumptions, and limits attached. We do not publish return or performance claims as marketing.
Institute firewall
Colibrí Institute is never a party to a Strategies engagement. The research is public and independent, and client data never enters it.
Standing behind the work
Operating figures only. Engagement outcomes and quantitative findings are shared under NDA, with methods and limits attached.
Start here
Tell us what you are working on.
A short description of the fund, the program, or the decision in front of you is enough. The first conversation is a diagnostic, and it is free.