The Modern Independent Sponsor's Tech Stack: From LOI to Exit
- Jim Burke
- Sep 22
- 5 min read
How experienced sponsors are automating workflows to close more deals faster
Every Independent Sponsor knows the feeling: You've just gotten your LOI accepted, and now you're racing against time. You're juggling investor outreach in Salesforce, tracking NDAs in Excel, sending materials through email, and praying nothing falls through the cracks.
We spoke with seasoned Independent Sponsor, David Acharya, Managing Partner of Acharya Capital Partners, at our luncheon session at the iGlobal Value Creation Summit on June 4, and he captures it perfectly: "All this is done within Salesforce and Excel. It's a little scary."
But here's the critical admission that should resonate with every sponsor: "I did my own fund administration, which is literally the biggest mistake I ever did in my career."
This is the reality for most Independent Sponsors: doing everything yourself because you have to, not because you want to. But what if the manual processes that eat up 60% of your time could be automated? What if you could focus on what you do best: finding and closing deals, while technology handles the rest?
Watch the video of our full conversation with David at iGlobal discussing how Verivend fits into his dealmaking process.
Keep reading for a walkthrough of the Independent Sponsor workflow, from LOI to exit, and discover how modern technology can transform your practice.
Part 1: Pre-Close - The Race Against Time
David describes the familiar process: "I identify an investment, submit an IOI, get invited to a management presentation, decide to go for an LOI." This is what sponsors excel at, finding and evaluating deals.
But post-LOI acceptance? "Now I have to go out and go to investors. So I have a database of God knows how many investors to reach out to. They come back, say, 'yeah, I'll sign an NDA, send me the materials.' All this is done within Salesforce and Excel. It's a little scary."
The manual tracking becomes overwhelming. You're tracking hundreds of investor conversations, NDA statuses, and document distributions across multiple platforms, all while the deal clock is ticking.
The Modern Solution Modern platforms step in at the LOI stage. As Rodney from Verivend explains: "From the point of LOI, that's where we step in. You can put together a custom branded landing page for the deal. Send that out. All the materials are hosted in there."
Instead of the manual back-and-forth, investors go directly to a portal, execute NDAs through DocuSign, and immediately access deal materials. Everything is tracked, organized, and reportable.
Key capabilities:
Automated NDA execution via DocuSign
Centralized document distribution
Real-time investor interest tracking
Digital ‘soft circle’ IOI collection
"You can do all this prior to knowing that you even have interest... in parallel of you marketing this out to your network." - Rodney Reisdorf, Co-Founder of Verivend
This parallel processing capability means you're not waiting for sequential approvals. You're building your investor syndicate while simultaneously moving the deal forward.
Part 2: Closing - Where Deals Live or Die
The Traditional Scramble
Once investors commit, the traditional process intensifies: "I go to my attorney and say, okay, set up the SPV, get the legal documentation. We race to the closing."
This "race to closing" is where deals often fall apart. You're coordinating between lawyers, investors, and sellers, while managing subscription documents, setting up a bank account, wire transfers, and regulatory filings. One delayed document or missed signature can blow up weeks of work.
Integrated Execution Modern platforms now offer integrated SPV formation. As Rodney notes, "We also have those built-in services, so if you want us to form the entity, that's just an added bonus." This integration eliminates the handoffs between multiple service providers. Your investor commitments, legal structure, and capital flows are all managed in one place, with full audit trails and compliance built in.
Part 3: Post-Close- The Hidden Time Sink
The Administrative Burden
This is where David's experience becomes a cautionary tale. Post-close administration isn't glamorous, but it's essential and incredibly time-consuming.
"Post-close, you know, we do annual investor updates. I did my own fund administration, which is literally the biggest mistake I ever did in my career. Never do that again."
The tasks pile up:
Annual investor updates
K-1 distribution
Ongoing investor communications
Fund administration
The Centralized Solution
Rodney explains: "Everything for your investors is in one place. So there's never a question of 'David, can you send me that document again?' or 'When did you send the K-1?' You just say go into your Verivend portal."
This centralization serves two purposes:
For Sponsors: Eliminates repetitive document requests and manual distribution
For Investors: Creates a single source of truth for all investment information
The platform maintains "a full data room so that you can just keep your investors updated on an ongoing basis for that investment."
Part 4: Exit: The Final Mile
The Wire Transfer Nightmare
After 3,5, 7 years you have an exit. Congrats! Exits bring new risks. Rodney paints the nightmare scenario:
“Please send me all of your sensitive banking information over email. Let me track all that in a spreadsheet on my laptop and then let me manually send out all the wires and hope that I don't mis-key a routing number or an account number, and hope and pray that the money gets to the right place.”
This scenario keeps Independent Sponsors up at night. One wrong digit in a wire transfer can result in lost funds, legal liability, and destroyed investor relationships.
Secure Distribution Technology
The modern approach eliminates this risk entirely: "Each of your investors has their own Verivend Vault. That's their account. You send it to them, it ensures 100% deliverability of the funds, and then they connect their own bank account and withdraw the funds out of it.” Think Venmo for private equity: secure, simple, trackable.
This isn't just about convenience, it's about security, compliance, and peace of mind during the most critical moment of the investment lifecycle.
The Complete Stack: What Gets Replaced and What Remains
David's summary captures the transformation perfectly: "So you replace the fund administrator, right? You replace basically an outsourced IR person. 'Cause most independent sponsors, we tend to do a lot of things ourselves. But like, we'll hire like a third-party IR person to kind of shepherd and do all that front-end work."
What Verivend Replaces:
Manual NDA processing
Email-based document distribution
Excel investor tracking
Traditional fund administration services
Outsourced Investor Relations (IR) functions
Manual wire transfers
SPV formation
What Verivend Compliments:
Legal counsel for deal structuring and fund documents
Accounting firms for tax preparation and audits
Quality of Rarnings reports (QoE) and due diligence providers
Your deal sourcing network
Your investment judgment
Verivend is a post-LOI solution that streamlines capital raising and investor management from deal marketing through exit.
The Bottom Line
David's summary says it all: "So it seems like you automate a lot of things I don't like to do. So that's good!"
This platform approach replaces the manual workflows and fragmented service providers that eat up your time. When administrative tasks drop by 60%, you can potentially double your deal flow. In a business where one good deal can define your career, that efficiency isn't just convenient, it's transformative.
Getting Started
The transition from manual to automated doesn't have to happen overnight. Start with your next deal:
Set up your branded deal page at LOI (or even before)
Set-up your data room for doc sharing
Import your investor database
Let technology handle the NDAs and document distribution
Form your LLC on Verivend
Build your soft circle digitally
Scale from there
As David learned, trying to do everything yourself isn't just inefficient, it's "literally the biggest mistake" you can make. The tools exist today to run your Independent Sponsor practice like an Institutional Firm, without the Institutional overhead.
The question isn't whether to modernize your tech stack, it's whether you can afford not to.
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