Layer 2 · SF-7 · Multi-Client Portfolio Engagement

Cross-portfolio marketing pattern recognition across five-plus portcos, one annual fund-level review.

Tuesday morning, 7:14 AM. The annual partner offsite is in six weeks. The portfolio operations memo needs a marketing pattern read across all twelve portcos. No single CMO has that view. Your fund does not have a portfolio CMO seat.

Built for VC fund (5+ portcos), PE-backed mid-market platform with 3+ operating units, or family office with portfolio operations. Applies to Fund principals, platform operating partners, family office portfolio officers, and similar fund-level buyers needing portfolio marketing diagnostic muscle.

Multi-Client Portfolio Engagement is a Bay Area Layer 2 engagement product priced at $500,000–$1,000,000/year. Format: 12-month commitment, milestone-billed. Deliverable: Cross-portfolio strategic plus per-company support across 5+ named portcos, plus annual fund-level review document. Built for VC fund (5+ portcos), PE-backed mid-market platform with 3+ operating units, or family office with portfolio operations. Routes through ICP funnels, problem pages, and referrals; reached when the buyer has matched their state to the tier. Each engagement is fixed-scope at the start and cannot drift mid-engagement.

Price
$500,000–$1,000,000/year
Duration
12-month commitment, milestone-billed
Output
Cross-portfolio strategic plus per-company support across 5+ named portcos, plus annual fund-level review document
What The Work Covers

Inside the SF-7 engagement. Specific deliverables, specific cadence.

What the work covers

  • 5+ named portcos under the engagement (refreshed quarterly)
  • Per-portco support: 1–2 strategic interventions per quarter as needed
  • Cross-portfolio pattern recognition (quarterly cross-portco read)
  • Annual fund-level review document (the principal sees portfolio-marketing health in one document per year)
  • Single accountable senior strategist as the partner-facing contact
  • Pairs with ST-6 Annual Flagship at the principal level when same person owns the relationship
  • Quarterly partner briefing: top 3 risks, top 3 opportunities, recommended action per portco

Format and cadence

  • Quarter 1: intake across all portcos, baseline cross-portfolio audit, first quarterly partner briefing
  • Quarter 2: focused interventions on highest-leverage portcos, mid-year cross-portfolio pattern read
  • Quarter 3: priority refresh, succession planning where portcos are scaling toward in-house CMO hires
  • Quarter 4: annual fund-level review document, partner offsite presentation if applicable
Anonymized Outcome

What the work actually produced.

A Bay Area Series A-focused VC fund engaged SF-7 with 8 named portcos. The Q3 cross-portfolio pattern read identified the same Series-A-to-Series-B positioning collapse across 4 portcos. Three of the four shifted positioning within the quarter. The annual fund-level review showed measurable acceleration in two follow-on conversations the GP attributed directly to the SF-7 work.

// Fit

This engagement fits when

  • VC fund with 5+ portcos OR PE-backed platform with 3+ operating units OR family office with portfolio operations
  • Annual operating budget allocates for portfolio operations support
  • Fund partner with explicit portfolio operations responsibility (not pure sourcing)
  • 12-month commitment willingness (cross-portfolio pattern recognition takes a year to compound)
// Not fit

This engagement does not fit when

  • Single-portco engagements (SF-5 Fractional CMO is the right format)
  • Sub-5 portco fund (SF-6 VC Portfolio Retainer is the right scope)
  • Funds wanting marketing execution labor (SF-7 is diagnostic and strategic, not execution)
  • Funds without portfolio operations budget (consider SF-3 Ad-hoc Strategic Intervention for one-off questions)
Buyer Questions

Before you scope the engagement.

How is SF-7 different from SF-6 VC Portfolio Retainer?

SF-6 is quarterly billing for 3-5 portcos at $25,000-$50,000/quarter. SF-7 is annual billing for 5+ portcos at $500K-$1M/year with deeper per-portco intervention plus an annual fund-level review document. SF-6 fits seed and Series A funds; SF-7 fits growth-stage VC funds, PE platforms, and family offices.

What does the annual fund-level review document contain?

Cross-portfolio marketing pattern read (the patterns you cannot see from inside any one portco), top 3 risks and top 3 opportunities by portco, recommended sequencing across the portfolio, succession planning where portcos are scaling toward in-house CMO hires. Written for the LP-facing partner conversation.

Why a 12-month commitment?

Cross-portfolio pattern compounding takes a year to read clearly. Quarterly engagements produce per-portco signal but not portfolio-level signal. The 12-month cadence aligns to fund operating cycles and produces the year-long cross-portco read the principal needs.

Can a portco upgrade to SF-5 Fractional CMO inside SF-7?

Yes, separately. Per-portco fractional CMO seats are scoped and contracted by the portco's CEO directly with the partner's approval. SF-7 covers portfolio diagnostic capacity; embedded leadership is a separate engagement.

How does conflict-of-interest work across funds?

We do not engage with two competing funds in the same vertical category simultaneously. When SF-7 is active with a fund, we decline overlapping fund-level engagements. Per-portco SF-3 or SF-4 work for non-portfolio operators in the same category remains permitted under standard advisory practice.

Does SF-7 include LP-facing materials?

The annual fund-level review document supports the partner's LP communication. We do not write LP-facing copy directly; the partner adapts the review for their LP context.

What about quarterly partner briefings, are they synchronous or async?

Synchronous. Quarterly 90-minute partner briefing call covering the cross-portfolio read. Followed by the written briefing document for the partner's internal use.

Adjacent Tiers

If SF-7 is not the right scope. The matching tier on either side.

Where This Starts

Pattern recognition across the portfolio outpaces per-portco engagement.

Multi-Client Portfolio Engagement · $500,000–$1,000,000/year · 12-month commitment, milestone-billed. Bay Area engagement, fixed-scope at intake.

Begin SF-7 Multi-Client Portfolio → See all eight SF tiers