Our Support
We provide working capital and counsel to increase the speed
and likelihood of success
Across dozens of firm launches, we have seen that investment acumen itself is not enough. Building something enduringly great requires supporting acumen with a strong firm and outstanding investors. These don’t often come quickly and easily, so the financial and mental pressures of time can begin to mount on Founders.
Our support is designed to address all of these non-investment challenges.
Working Capital
Launching a new firm requires Founders to make a compelling personal investment alongside LPs, build an initial team, pull together institutional-grade infrastructure, run a professional fundraise, and begin the investment program.
Founders should expect to be cash-negative for the first several years
of even a successful launch
Founders we back bring their own balance sheets, earned by their investment career to-date, but bearing the launch burden alone all-too-often means underspending, reducing the speed and even the likelihood of success.
In all but the most fortunate circumstances, launches also take more time than expected. The meter is running and capital scarcity can cause even the most clear-eyed Founders to start to compromise on the very vision which makes them compelling.
We have seen these perils time and again, and crafted ThreeStone to help Founders lean into their launch and realize their full vision sooner.
Alignment is at the heart of what we do. ThreeStone’s capital comes from an exceedingly patient group of family offices, institutions, deeply experienced LPs, and successful Founders who are aligned to the time frame required to build something enduringly great.
Advice for the Journey
Founders face countless decisions in building their firms, many in areas outside of prior direct experience. They navigate the demands of institutional fundraising with limited feedback, while managing a portfolio, investors, and a team. All of this is poured into a Founder or co-Founders. It is a lot.
These competing demands require not just extraordinary effort, but prioritization and clarity. ThreeStone offers counsel across all of these elements. We are a quiet (and perhaps only) voice who is 100% aligned with our Founders.
Importantly, we are here to offer advice but not to govern. We back Founders ready to lead and stand on their own, so ours is a light touch. We know we don’t have all the answers. Rather, we draw on our experience to know most of the questions and where the answers might be found.
What ThreeStone Seeks
We look for Founders who have the right combination of ability, temperament, and emotional intelligence to create something enduringly great. We want those Founders to build firms that are credible fiduciaries to top institutional investors and deliver outstanding results.
In exchange for our capital and counsel, we seek small, long-duration economic participation in what we build together. We take every new relationship as a challenge to deliver more value than we receive.
ThreeStone’s work is not scalable. It is intimate and dynamic, attuned to the particular speed and pressures of building a new investment firm. This requires us to be highly selective in the firms we back.
We think of ourselves as being in the business of 20th anniversary dinners, and hope to be invited to more than a few for our Founders’ firms.