Fundraising 2025A survey of GPs, LPs and placement agents
Fundraising is lost early, and relevance decides it.
We surveyed 124 GPs, 22 LPs and 4 placement agents between July and September 2025. This page gives the method and every key finding.
Who answeredThe people behind the numbers
150 respondents, July to September 2025.
A capital-side survey: it describes how GPs raise money from LPs. It is not a result from client work.
124
GPs (fund managers)
22
LPs (investors in funds)
4
placement agents
67%
of respondents in North America; 25% in Europe, 8% elsewhere
MethodHow the survey was run and adjusted
How the numbers were made.
- Sizes: GP assets under management from $150M to $2B; LP assets from $1B to $50B.
- Fund types: 46% private equity buyout, 31% venture capital, 23% private credit.
- Validation: self-reported answers, checked against anonymized pipeline analytics from AIx2’s own CRM.
- Adjustment: outlier-weighted averages, leaving out the top and bottom 10% of answers.
- Read with care: values are per GP outreach cohort, and a full fund usually combines several cohorts to reach its final close.
- The figures reflect 2025: tight liquidity, longer diligence cycles and weaker cold outreach.
Survey outputs with a stated sample, not client results.
The funnelMedian outreach per GP cohort, step by step
From 850 LPs to 3 commitments.
The sharpest fall is between contacted and opened. Personalization and fit with the LP’s mandate are what make the difference there.
About 850 identified
LPs a median GP cohort lists as targets
About 654 contacted
77% of those identified
About 99 opened
About 15% of those contacted
About 12 first meetings
About 1.8% of those contacted
About 3 commitments
0.35% of those identified
What decides itThe four findings that matter most
Relevance beats volume.
0.35%
of LPs identified end up committing
40 to 65%
of outreach could have been avoided with better pre-diligence on LPs (median about 45%)
4 to 8x
relative lift, email to meeting, from relevancy of strategic and human fit
Up to 3x
relative lift, email to meeting, from A/B testing (median about 2x)
Where commitments come fromShare of committed LPs by channel
Most commitments come from relationships that already exist.
| Share of committed LPs | |
|---|---|
| Existing LP relationships | 52% |
| Referrals and placement agents | 18% |
| Conferences and events | 14% |
| Cold outreach | 11% |
| Other | 5% |
Conferences that were pre-screened for fit converted 2.3 times better than generic ones. Cold outreach is weak but still brings about a tenth of commitments.
Cold emailMedian results for purely cold email, and what testing adds
Cold email is weak, and testing helps.
30%
median open rate
2.5%
median reply rate
0.6%
median share of emails that set a meeting, purely cold
+15%
opens from disciplined A/B testing of subject line, first line and call to action
+25%
replies from the same testing
Up to +200%
meetings set from the same testing
Warm introductionsWho introduces you matters more than that someone does
A warm intro works only with real credibility.
| Meeting rate, relative | |
|---|---|
| An introducer who has worked with both sides | 2.2x |
| A loose acquaintance | 1.0x |
| A two-hop introduction with no context | 0.5x |
A two-hop introduction without context did worse than a tailored cold email.
Relevancy scoreMeeting rate by how well an LP fits
The better the fit, the more meetings.
| Meeting rate | |
|---|---|
| Relevancy score of 80 or above | 8% |
| Relevancy score of 60 to 79 | 3.5% |
| Relevancy score below 60 | 1% |
Relevancy has two parts: strategic fit (how well the LP’s mandate matches the GP’s strategy) and human fit (how credible or connected the sender is to the receiver).
What GPs prioritizeWhat GPs look for in an LP, ranked
What GPs mark as a priority.
| Share of GPs marking it a priority | |
|---|---|
| Sector or strategy alignment | 72% |
| Ticket size match | 67% |
| Capital patience and lock-up tolerance | 53% |
| Appetite for emerging managers | 47% |
| Speed of decision | 39% |
| Co-investment appetite | 34% |
| Brand or reputational value | 29% |
| LP diversification needs | 25% |
| Geographic mandate | 21% |
| Other | 7% |
Appetite for emerging managers keeps outperforming brand value in predicting whether an LP will take a meeting.
By strategyMicro-benchmarks for three fund types
Each strategy behaves differently.
- Venture capital
0.3 to 0.5%
The lowest close rate of the three.
- Private equity buyout
7 to 9%
Meeting rate.
- Private credit
3 to 4%
Cold reply rate, best when collateralization is explicit.
TimingWhen to send, and when to follow up
When to send.
- Best first send: Tuesday to Thursday, 08:00 to 10:00 in the LP’s local time.
- Best follow-up delay: 7 to 9 business days.
- A reference specific to the LP improves replies by 1.2x.
ObservationsWhat the survey says about why outreach fails
Why outreach fails.
- Contacting more than 600 LPs goes with lower conversion, through poor targeting and list fatigue.
- Warm introductions fail when they are generic, with no reference to the LP’s mandate; when the timing is outside the LP’s pacing window; or when the call to action is weak.
- A strong warm introduction has three parts: why now, why this fit, and a specific ask, each tied to something particular about the LP.
- Better pre-diligence on LPs would have avoided 40 to 65% of the outreach.
What good looks likeThe survey’s operating targets for a GP
Five operating targets.
- Keep 300 to 400 high-fit LPs on the list.
- Require a relevancy score of 80 or above before contacting an LP.
- A/B test your outreach every two weeks.
- Use warm introductions only where the introducer has direct credibility.
- Build a dossier on each LP: ticket size, pacing, mandate and re-ups.
OriginalWhere the survey was first published
The original post
Published on aix2.ai in October 2025 as revised benchmarks, with the infographic pack.