Lifecycle Stages
Continuity
A lasting firm needs more than a lasting track record. Continuity asks how its people, authority and investment practice can carry across partner generations.
The stage
Continuity
A firm whose advantage is its durability across partner generations. Scaled into a multi-generational structure with formalized succession and durable operating capacity. Typically operating Fund V or later, with aggregate capital above $1B, multiple funds in active deployment simultaneously, and a documented succession structure. The model uses broader operating capacity as its reference: broader industry scope, larger portfolio counts at moderate ownership, fund sizes in the upper institutional band ($400M to $1.5B and above), and demonstrated transition capacity across partner cohorts.
Building beyond the current partners
A Continuity firm asks LPs to commit on the understanding that the firm can outlast the people currently running it. That brings succession, decision rights and the development of future leaders into the investment conversation.
Returns alone cannot establish that capacity. LPs and GPs also need evidence of how responsibilities transfer, how new partners gain authority and how the firm would handle a change in leadership.
When a stage review is suggested
A suggested move to Cadence can arise from partial evidence. A suggested move to Continuity requires all its model triggers: fund sequence reaching Fund V, aggregate capital, team scale, concurrent deployment and a formal succession structure.
This stricter rule keeps the suggestion tied to several signs of institutional development. It does not certify that succession will succeed, and it never changes the stage automatically. The GP reviews and confirms the declaration.
Looking beyond a succession document
A Continuity firm with no succession structure receives a hard tension on the succession check. At this stage, the check also asks whether a promotion path is documented and whether next-generation stewards have been identified. Each can surface separately.
Those questions describe different pieces of the work. A policy does not name the people who can carry it out. Naming successors does not explain how others can develop into those roles. Reading each part separately makes the next discussion more useful.
How the configuration expectations change
The lifecycle framework associates Continuity with broader industry scope, larger portfolios and moderate ownership targets. Its concentration checks use a different reference point than they do at Conviction.
These are model assumptions about fund design, not proof that a focused institution cannot endure. Review a concentration flag alongside the mandate, the firm’s expertise, its governance and the reasons for accepting the exposure.
What to watch
Check whether the declared stage is supported by current practice. A succession policy, a promotion path and delegated decision rights should describe how the firm works, not only how it hopes to work.
Look across funds as well. A company held in several vehicles can become a larger firm-wide exposure than any one fund suggests. That makes concentration a useful topic for both portfolio review and governance.