Your capital locks up for ten years. Verify the GP before you commit.
A buyout fund is on its fifth raise. A venture firm is on its second fund. A first-time GP has spun out of a name-brand firm. Before the LPAC seat, before the side-letter negotiation, before the capital call, you want to know: is the firm cleanly registered, are the principals' bios accurate, is there a regulatory or litigation surface anyone has missed, and what does the Form D filing pattern actually say about prior-fund deployment? Public records hold all of that. We synthesize them into a brief your investment committee can read in five minutes.
Why this is harder than it should be
If you have ever run public-record diligence on a private fund GP, you already know the experience. You start with the firm's own materials, which present a polished narrative but offer no way to confirm the regulatory record. You move to SEC EDGAR, which has the firm's Form ADV, but Part 1A is a long form with disclosure schedules nested several layers deep, and the relevant Item 11 disclosure pattern requires reading every yes-or-no with the schedule attached. You search Form D filings to confirm the firm's deployment cadence across its prior funds, but Form D is filed at the offering level and aggregating it across a firm's history requires manual stitching.
You then pivot to the principals. The named GPs have biographies on the firm's website. You want to confirm those bios against LinkedIn, against prior-employer press releases, and against the regulatory history of those prior employers. You want to surface the bad-actor disqualification screen under Rule 506(d) for every principal because a single principal's prior regulatory action can disqualify the firm from claiming the standard private-placement exemption. You want to confirm the firm's state-securities-administrator registration footprint matches the fund's stated offering geography. None of this is hidden. All of it takes hours per principal to assemble.
The harder problem is the prior-fund track record. Private fund returns are not public. What is public is the Form D filings that tell you when each prior fund closed, the press archive on portfolio-company exits, the press archive on portfolio-company write-downs and zombie holds, the litigation surface on the firm and its principals, and the LinkedIn footprint of named investment professionals across funds. Stitching that into a coherent prior-fund summary is the work nobody has time for. The full Vetting Report does it for you, with explicit citations and a defamation-aware framework that says what the public record establishes and what it does not.
And then there is the principal-level pass-through diligence. When a single portfolio company drives outsized expected return for the fund, the LP often wants a separate Founder Vetting Report on that company's founder. The same is true when the LPAC is reviewing a key-person clause and needs a structured public-record pass on the named key person. The Founder Vetter handles that pass-through layer with the same source taxonomy and defamation guardrails as the firm-level Vetting Report.
What MentionFox brings to this job
The PE Firm Vetter and VC Firm Vetter are the workhorses for fund-level diligence. The Founder Vetter handles principal- and portfolio-company-level pass-through. The methodology pages explain how every record is sourced and what each one means.
PE Firm Methodology
The full methodology behind every PE Firm Vetting Report. Source taxonomy weighted to SEC EDGAR Form ADV Part 1A, EDGAR Form D filings across the firm's offering history, state securities administrator registration footprint, the firm's principal-level regulatory record, and the press archive on prior-fund deployment, exits, and write-downs. Twelve-section structure: firm identity, registration and ownership, principals and key-person disclosures, prior-fund deployment cadence, regulatory record, litigation surface, prior-fund exit pattern, prior-fund write-down pattern, related-party arrangements, fee and expense disclosures, severity-ranked red flags, and full source citations.
VC Firm Methodology
The full methodology behind every VC Firm Vetting Report. Same firm-level source taxonomy as the PE Firm Vetter with adjustments for the venture model: more weight on Form D deployment cadence as a deal-flow signal, prior-portfolio exit and write-down pattern across earlier funds, named-partner attribution to specific portfolio investments via press archive and Crunchbase public data, and the firm's principal-level board-seat history. Twelve-section structure with the same audit-trail discipline as the PE methodology.
Founder Vetter
The flagship report for any portfolio-company founder under LP-side diligence. Twelve sections: identity verification, prior ventures and prior cap-table footprint, current-venture deployment, public-press signal across the founder's career, litigation surface, public-records footprint, key-person network mapping, technical credibility signals, board-seat and advisor footprint, severity-ranked red flags, and full source citations. Snapshot tier at 30 credits returns the headline brief in two minutes; full report at 200 credits returns the twelve-section deep dive in five to eight minutes.
Founder Methodology
The full methodology behind every Founder Vetting Report. Source taxonomy: SEC EDGAR for prior public-company filings, Crunchbase public data and PitchBook public-data references for funding history, the press archive across the founder's career, court dockets via CourtListener for litigation surface, and the public-records footprint across patents, professional registrations, and academic affiliations. The disambiguation hard-gate prevents wrong-person reports. Defamation guardrails preserve the report's defensibility in any later sharing scenario.
Use Case: VC Due Diligence
A walkthrough for the most common fund-level scenario: you are a venture LP or a fund-of-funds analyst with a placement memorandum on the desk and a six-week diligence window. Covers when to run the firm-level Vetting Report versus the principal-level Founder Vetter, how to read SEC Form ADV Item 11 disclosures alongside the firm's own narrative, and the five public-record questions to bring to the GP reference call once the public-record pass has surfaced its findings.
Specific Fund Methodology
For LPs who want a fund-level pass that goes beyond the firm-level Vetting Report. Covers Form D filings for the specific fund, the fund's offering exemption and accredited-investor regime, related-party arrangements between the fund and the GP's other vehicles, the fund's stated fee-and-carry structure as filed, and the principals' prior-fund key-person history. Useful as a complement to the firm-level Vetting Report when the diligence is on a specific vehicle rather than the firm as a whole.
Verification Vetter Methodology
The trust spine that runs through every vetter on the platform. Explains the source-class taxonomy, the confidence framework, the citation discipline, the defamation guardrails, and the disambiguation hard-gate. If you want to understand the methodology behind every report on every subject type before trusting any specific report, this is the document. It is what an investment committee or an OCIO would read first before relying on any specific Vetting Report.
A typical workflow — what an LP analyst actually does
An endowment investment team has been pitched a buyout fund by a placement agent. The placement memorandum is on the desk and the investment committee meets in three weeks. The lead analyst opens the PE Firm Vetter, types the firm name and the named managing partner into the search field, and selects the right firm from the chooser when two firms with similar names appear. The disambiguation gate confirms the right SEC adviser registration before any credits are charged.
She runs a Snapshot for 200 credits. In about three minutes, she has the verified registration status from SEC IAPD and EDGAR, the firm's ownership and control-person disclosures from Form ADV Part 1A, the regulatory record across SEC and state administrators, the bad-actor disqualification screen across the named principals, and a structured one-page brief with the top three reasons to engage and the top three open questions. Everything checks out at the firm level, but the placement memorandum names a specific portfolio company as the headline expected return-driver. She runs a Founder Vetting Report on that company's founder for 200 credits.
Eight minutes later she has the firm-level twelve-section dive and the founder-level twelve-section dive. The firm-level Vetting Report shows the prior-fund deployment cadence by offering year, the prior-fund exit pattern, the prior-fund write-down pattern via the press archive, the litigation surface across the firm and its principals, and a clean severity-ranked red-flag section. The founder-level Vetting Report on the headline portfolio-company founder confirms the founder's prior-venture history, surfaces a small civil litigation matter from twelve years ago that was not in the placement memorandum, and confirms the founder's current cap-table footprint via Crunchbase public data and the press archive.
What she did not do: spend twelve hours toggling between EDGAR, IAPD, state-securities portals, CourtListener, the firm's website, the founder's LinkedIn, the press archive, and Crunchbase. The reports did the assembly. She did the reading.
What data sources the report draws from
Every claim in a PE Firm or VC Firm Vetting Report is anchored to a named, public, federal-or-state source. The methodology pages list every source class and how it is weighted. For LP-investors-evaluating-funds specifically, these are the sources that drive the report.
- SEC EDGAR — the canonical SEC filings system. Form ADV Part 1A and 1B for registered investment-adviser firms above the registration threshold, Form D notice filings for every Regulation D private placement, and any other filings the firm or its affiliates have made.
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) — provides the firm-level adviser registration status, control-person disclosures, ownership structure, AUM at adviser level, and disciplinary history surfaced in Form ADV Item 11 schedules.
- State securities administrators — fifty state regulators plus the District of Columbia. State-level enforcement actions and notice-filing footprints for funds offered into specific states. Aggregated through NASAA where applicable.
- Form D filings on EDGAR — the notice filing for Regulation D private placements. Aggregated across the firm's offering history to surface deployment cadence, fund size by year, accredited-investor exemption claimed per offering, and related-party arrangements between the fund and the GP's other vehicles.
- Crunchbase public data — for venture-firm portfolio mapping. Funding round disclosures, lead-investor attribution, named-partner attribution to specific deals, and round-by-round step-up where publicly disclosed. Treated as Authoritative-Secondary; never treated as a return claim.
- PitchBook public-data references — where citations to PitchBook public summaries exist in the press record, those summaries are treated as Authoritative-Secondary signal. The Vetting Report does not paywall-circumvent; it surfaces the publicly cited PitchBook summary record only.
- CourtListener — federal and state court docket aggregator. Civil litigation surface on the firm and its named principals. Framed as litigation activity, never adjudicated wrongdoing. Strong defamation guardrails apply.
- Press archive — reputable financial-press archives covering prior-fund deployment, portfolio-company exits, portfolio-company write-downs and zombie holds, principal departures, and regulatory news. Treated as Authoritative-Secondary or Aggregator depending on outlet class.
- Bad-actor disqualification screen — Rule 506(d) lists specific categories of regulatory and criminal events that disqualify a firm from claiming the standard Regulation D exemption. The Vetting Report runs every named principal against those categories using SEC, FINRA, state-administrator, and court-docket records.
- Public-press archive on portfolio-company founders — for portfolio-company-level pass-through diligence. The Founder Vetter pulls press, Crunchbase public data, court dockets, public-records footprints, patents, and professional-registration data.
The four-class source taxonomy is explicit. Federal-Primary sources carry the highest weight. State administrators and the bad-actor disqualification screen are Authoritative-Secondary. Press archives are signal, never verdict. Unverified claims are tagged, not laundered.
Sample report walkthrough
The canonical sample for VC firm diligence is Sequoia Capital. The full VC Firm Vetting Report runs the public record on Sequoia through the same twelve-section structure any other firm would face: firm identity and ownership, registration and adviser-firm structure, named principals and key-person disclosures, prior-fund deployment cadence as filed, prior-fund exit pattern from the press archive, litigation surface, related-party arrangements, fee disclosures, and severity-ranked red flags.
For a PE-side comparison sample, see the Vista Equity Partners Vetting Report. For a portfolio-company-founder pass-through sample, see the Dario Amodei Founder Vetting Report. All three reports were generated from public records only, with full source citations and the same defamation guardrails that apply to every report on the platform.
Pricing for this use case
PE Firm or VC Firm Snapshot
200 credits. Returns in roughly three to five minutes. Structured one-page brief: registration status, ownership, named principals, regulatory record at firm level, bad-actor disqualification screen across principals, prior-fund deployment cadence summary, top three reasons to engage, top three open questions, and a headline recommendation. The right tier when you have a placement memorandum on the desk and want a fast neutral check before week one of the diligence cycle.
PE Firm or VC Firm Vetting Report
1,000 credits. Returns in eight to twelve minutes. All twelve sections with paginated PDF output. Firm identity, registration and ownership, named principals and key-person disclosures, prior-fund deployment cadence, regulatory record across federal and state administrators, litigation surface, prior-fund exit and write-down pattern from press archive, related-party arrangements, fee and expense disclosures, bad-actor disqualification detail per principal, severity-ranked red flags, and full source citations. The right tier for an investment-committee-grade public-record pass.
Founder Vetter pricing for portfolio-company pass-through: Snapshot 30 credits, full report 200 credits. Credits are sold in packs and via monthly subscription. See the full pricing page for credit-pack options.
Mini case studies
The endowment evaluating a third-fund GP
A university endowment has been pitched a third fund by a mid-market buyout GP it has not previously committed to. The investment committee meets in three weeks. The lead analyst runs a PE Firm Vetting Report for 1,000 credits. The firm-level record is clean: SEC adviser registration current since the first fund, no Item 11 disclosures, bad-actor screen clean across all four named partners. The prior-fund deployment cadence shows steady offering pace across the first two funds. The press archive surfaces a contested portfolio-company exit from the first fund where a co-investor publicly criticized the firm's governance handling. The Vetting Report flags it as a MEDIUM signal, cites the original press, and notes that the matter resolved without litigation. The investment committee uses the Vetting Report as the public-record floor and proceeds with operational diligence and reference calls.
The family office doing portfolio-company pass-through
A family office is committing to a venture fund where the GP has flagged a single portfolio company as the expected return driver of the fund. The family office runs a Founder Vetting Report on that company's founder for 200 credits. The Founder Vetting Report confirms the founder's prior-venture history with full citations, surfaces a 2014 civil litigation matter that was not in the GP's placement memo, and confirms the current company's cap-table progression via Crunchbase public data and the press archive. The 2014 matter resolved on summary judgment in the founder's favor — visible in the CourtListener record but not in the placement memo. The family office uses the Vetting Report to inform the LPAC question slate before signing.
Frequently asked questions
Why would an LP run a verification report on a GP before committing?
Because LP capital is locked up for ten years or more, the GP's reputation is the single most important determinant of returns, and the public records that would tell you about the GP and the firm are scattered across SEC Form ADV filings, Form D filings on EDGAR, the firm's regulatory history with the SEC and state regulators, the principals' prior employment and any litigation surface, and the press archive on prior-fund track record. A single report stitches all of those together.
What is Form ADV Part 1A and 1B and why does it matter for fund diligence?
Form ADV is the SEC registration form for investment advisers. Part 1A discloses the firm's regulatory history, ownership structure, control persons, and assets under management. Part 1B is for state-registered advisers and adds state-specific disclosures. PE and VC fund advisers above the SEC registration threshold file Part 1A annually. Disciplinary history and changes in control persons are flagged in Item 11. The full Vetting Report parses Item 11 and the related disclosure schedules.
What does Form D tell me about a fund?
Form D is the notice filing for Regulation D private placements. Filed on EDGAR. Discloses the fund's offering size, accredited-investor exemption claimed, sales-commission structure, and the principals' identity. The bad-actor disqualification provisions of Rule 506(d) require principals to be free of certain regulatory and criminal histories. The Vetting Report screens principals against those bad-actor categories.
Will the GP know I ran a report?
No. Reports are private to the buyer unless explicitly marked shareable. The GP and the firm are not notified that a report was generated about them.
What does a GP-and-fund vetting report cost?
A PE Firm or VC Firm Snapshot is 200 credits. A full Vetting Report is 1,000 credits. A Founder Vetting Report on a specific portfolio-company founder is 200 credits in full-report tier. See the pricing page for credit-pack options.
Can I run a report on the founder of a portfolio company?
Yes. The Founder Vetter is the right tool when an LP is doing pass-through diligence on a specific portfolio company, when an LPAC is reviewing a key-person clause, or when the GP has flagged a particular investment as material. Founder Vetting Reports run across twelve sections with the same source taxonomy and defamation guardrails as the firm-level Vetting Report.
Does the report tell me if a fund will deliver good returns?
No. No public-record report can predict private-fund returns. What it tells you is whether the firm is currently registered, free of regulatory bars, accurate in its principals' biographies, free of bad-actor disqualifications, and absent from a pattern of regulatory actions. Track-record verification requires private-data-room work that public records cannot replace.
How does this fit alongside ILPA-aligned diligence?
The Vetting Report is the public-record pass that should be the first hour of any diligence cycle. It is not a substitute for the ILPA Due Diligence Questionnaire, the GP reference calls, the prior-fund LPAC member calls, or the operational diligence visit. It is the cheap, fast, public-record floor that surfaces anything you would not want to discover in week six of a six-week diligence cycle.