For Fund Managers

Seeking the Highest Quality

In evaluating a primary investment opportunity, Adams Street Partners is seeking to identify and invest with the best investment teams, composed of the highest-quality individuals, operating in each subclass.

The factors examined when making investment selections include:

The experience, skill level and interpersonal skills and attitudes of the general partners

The prior demonstrated investment performance of the group as a team; In certain cases, groups with exceptional promise who have come together recently (although often with extensive prior track records at their prior organizations) will receive serious consideration

The quality of the group's deal flow, with respect to intrinsic quality and competition for opportunities

The consistency of the size of the fund being raised given the group's history, the stage and focus of the fund and the group's personnel resources

The due diligence and decision-making process employed by the group when it makes investments in companies

The compensation arrangements among the general partners and their staff, including determining whether proper incentives are in place for superior long-term performance

The evaluation criteria above do not differ across the various subclasses or geographies. For each, Adams Street Partners formulates a due diligence plan that tests the criteria while taking into account the specific characteristic of the particular subclass and group. It is Adams Street Partners' intent to understand each offering in terms of its key parameters: talent, integrity, experience, market position, motivation and organizational dynamics.

Adams Street Partners looks for a history of success that it believes will be repeated. To the extent that circumstances differ from when the previous investments were made, Adams Street Partners works to ascertain that any new circumstances will not impair the team's ability to succeed. Thus, the relative importance of Adams Street Partners' criteria depends upon context at both the subclass level and at the specific fund level. Later-stage venture capitalists, for example, may require less in the way of operating skills; a turnaround manager, in contrast, is at the opposite extreme with respect to the need for operating skills. Team dynamics and professional development issues are also independent of subclass, but very important in our evaluation process.