For PE Partners & Portfolio Operators
The GTM Gap
AI accelerates everything - including bad GTM
The hidden risk inside your B2B software portfolio, and why AI makes it urgent. Everyone is racing to become AI-enabled. Few ask whether they have the foundation in place to accelerate meaningfully.
The Challenge
AI won't fix a broken GTM. It will expose it. Then accelerate it.
AI tools promise faster content, faster outbound, faster campaigns. But speed only compounds what's already there. A company with unclear ICP, inconsistent positioning, and no GTM architecture doesn't get a faster path to revenue when you hand it AI. It gets a faster path to noise. The foundation has to exist before the accelerant is worth anything.
For PE portfolios this shows up as a specific, measurable risk: commercial infrastructure that was good enough at the last funding round, but won't hold up under buyer scrutiny at exit, and won't scale as AI reshapes how buyers discover, evaluate, and choose vendors.
01 · Invisible in AI search
Buyers now ask AI tools for recommendations before they ask a salesperson. Companies without an AEO strategy are simply absent from that conversation.
02 · Rising CAC, falling efficiency
Without organic visibility, portfolio companies lean harder on paid acquisition, pushing CAC up right when multiples reward efficient growth.
03 · A valuation problem at exit
Weak commercial infrastructure is a diligence red flag. Buyers price in the GTM gap directly against the multiple you're trying to protect.
The Approach
Nine commercial foundations to get right
Built through nine sequenced commercial foundations. The same playbook built and proven inside Danelec's own commercial transformation. AI is layered in at each stage as an accelerant, never as a substitute for the underlying commercial architecture.
Companies and investors I've worked with
"The firms that win the next five years won't be the ones with the best AI tools. It will be the ones with a strong commercial foundation, ready to accelerate."
Asbjørn Severin · Commercial Operating Partner