Private Equity
Your portcos are
leaving money
on the table.
AI infrastructure that deploys in weeks, proves ROI before real commitment, and creates assets your portfolio companies own outright. Start with one portco. Replicate across the portfolio at 40% less.
Who We Are
The people who
do the work.
Not a sales team. Not a deck. The operators who build it and run it.
Jonathan Hessing
Managing Partner
Built companies, exited one, co-authored multiple patents. Spent years watching operators drown in work that AI should be doing. Started ShooflyAI to fix that - production systems that run your business, not demos that impress your board.
Diego Herrera-Rios
Managing Partner & CTO
Engineers the AI infrastructure that runs in production. Takes messy data, legacy systems, and teams that need to use it on day one, and builds systems that actually work at scale inside real companies.
Supported by a team of AI-native engineers and AI growth experts
The Problem
Every PE firm has an
AI strategy problem.
Your LPs are asking about it. Your board decks mention it. Your portco CEOs are buying tools they don't understand. And your hold period isn't getting any longer.
72%
of PE firms say AI is a top-three value creation priority
22%
report measurable EBITDA impact within 18 months
80%
of consultant-led AI engagements fail to reach production
RAND12-24
months before an internal AI team produces anything useful
The gap between "AI strategy" and "AI in production" is where returns die. Most firms spend on pilots that never scale, tools that never integrate, and consultants who leave before anything works.
80%
of consultant-led AI projects never reach production
The strategy gets delivered. The team leaves. Nothing ships. Your hold period keeps ticking.
Source: RAND Corporation, 2024
The Pathway
Assessment to
portfolio-wide deployment.
Prove it at one portco. Replicate it across the portfolio. Each company gets custom AI, but the second one costs 40% less because the architecture already exists.
Step 1 - Starting Point
AI Operating Assessment
60-90 minute working session with your portco's leadership. We map every workflow, identify the highest-ROI automation opportunities, and deliver a written report with specific dollar projections in 48 hours. No pitch. No proposal pressure. If you move forward, the assessment fee is fully credited toward your first engagement.
Step 2 - First Deployment
First AI Employee or Workflow
One high-impact AI system in production at a single portco. Not a proof of concept - your team uses it daily, we operate it, you see measurable results within weeks. This is where ROI gets documented for the board deck.
Step 3 - Full Operating Layer
Agentic Operating System
Multiple AI agents working across sales, operations, marketing, and finance at your portco. We build it. We run it. You own the code, the data, and the intelligence. A fully managed AI operating layer that shows up in EBITDA.
40% reduced cost
Portfolio Rollout
Everything built at portco one informs portcos two, three, and four. Shared data architecture means faster deployment and lower cost. Each rollout adds less risk and more documented ROI for the fund.
Proof of Work
Deployed at operators
like yours.
Multi-entity organizations with complex data, legacy systems, and teams that needed results in weeks. Every number below is from a real deployment.
10X
Faster lead generation. 6 AI employees that score leads, forecast pipeline, draft personalized outreach, and sync data across every platform - without replacing existing systems. Production in ~5 weeks.
Plan Participant - ShooflyAI
Read the case study
8wk
From repo access to production. AI feature integration into a live healthcare platform - 171 automated tests, zero critical bugs, 60% cost savings vs traditional development. Shipped what agencies quoted 12-18 months and $1M+ to build.
OneDirect Health - ShooflyAI
Read the case study
65%
Reduction in manual data reconciliation. Multi-location CPA firm - automated the sync between QuickBooks and their practice management system. From 12 hours a week to under 4. Staff reallocated to client-facing work.
Strickland CPA - ShooflyAI
Read the case study
48hr
Assessment to roadmap. 8 stakeholders across a PE-backed portfolio company. Two locations, five software systems, zero unified view. Assessed in 2 hours. Delivered a prioritized automation roadmap with dollar projections in 48 hours.
PE Portfolio Company - ShooflyAI
See the assessment
40%
Lower cost per portco after the first deployment
Shared architecture, proven playbooks, and reusable agent frameworks. Portco two costs less than portco one. Portco three costs less than two.
The Portfolio Play
This isn't a one-company solution.
It's a portfolio strategy.
We sell to the firm, not individual companies. Prove it at one portco, replicate across the portfolio at 40% lower cost per company.
LAND AND EXPAND
What we learn at portco one transfers directly.
Assessment frameworks, data pipelines, agent architectures. When portco two comes online, we reuse what worked. Deployment is faster and cost is lower because we already solved the hard integration problems at portco one.
THE EXIT STORY
"We use Salesforce Einstein" isn't an exit story.
"We own proprietary AI infrastructure that reduced operating costs by 30% and increased revenue per employee by 2x" is an exit story. Every portco builds documented, auditable ROI that shows up in the data room.
THE MOAT
Each portco builds AI intelligence it owns.
You own the code, the data, and the trained models. When you exit, the buyer inherits production infrastructure that runs the business, not a vendor contract they can cancel. That shows up in valuation.
DATA ROOM READY
Every dollar of AI spend is documented and auditable.
Clear documentation of AI tools in use, ROI metrics per tool, sustained adoption data, IP ownership, and full portability. No vendor lock-in. No fuzzy IP questions in due diligence. The AI goes with the company at exit.
The Alternatives
The options you've considered
don't work for PE.
VS. CONSULTANTS
High day rates. They deliver a PDF. Then they leave.
80% of consultant-led AI engagements fail to reach production. The people who designed the solution aren't the people who maintain it. You pay for the thinking and still need someone to build it. That's half your hold period gone on a binder.
VS. INTERNAL AI TEAM
Six figures a year. 12-24 months before first output.
That's fine if your hold period is 10 years. For a 3-5 year fund, you've burned half the clock before anything is live. And you're competing for that talent against Google, OpenAI, and Meta.
VS. ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE
Significant Year 1 cost. Walled gardens. Zero portability.
Each tool sees its own data. Marketing AI sees marketing. CRM AI sees CRM. Nobody connects the picture. When you exit, the buyer inherits a subscription they can cancel on day one. That's not a value-creation story.
VS. OFFSHORE
50-70% cheaper on the sticker. 50-65% failure rate.
10-13 hour timezone gaps kill iteration speed. 40-60% annual attrition means institutional knowledge walks out the door every 8 months. No visibility into what backdoors or maintenance traps get built into your system.
What They Deliver
- A PDF with a "transformation roadmap"
- Tools you rent that see their own data only
- A team that leaves when the contract ends
- IP owned by someone else's cloud
- Vendor contracts that complicate your exit
What Shoofly Delivers
- Production AI in weeks, not months
- One connected system across all your portco's data
- The team that builds it operates it
- You own the code, the data, and the intelligence outright
- Documented ROI that shows up in the data room at exit
We Run on Our Own AI
The same infrastructure
we deploy for you.
ShooflyAI runs on the same AI architecture we build for portfolio companies. Four AI agents operate our business daily across 5,400+ pages of indexed institutional knowledge.
MO
Revenue Operations
Manages pipeline, qualifies leads, drafts outreach, monitors deal velocity. The same agent architecture we'd deploy for your portco's sales team.
ATLAS
Marketing & Content
Creates content, manages campaigns, tracks performance. Production marketing at the speed an internal team can't match.
MARLON
Project Delivery
Tracks every client engagement, flags blockers, manages timelines. No scope creep. No missed deadlines.
MOLTY
Operations & Infrastructure
Runs internal ops, manages deployments, orchestrates the other agents. Ships code, monitors health, keeps the system running 24/7.
The Offer
Start with
one portfolio company.
AI Operating Assessment
This is where every engagement starts. No exceptions, no shortcuts. If the numbers work, we expand. If they don't, you have clarity instead of a six-figure mistake.
60-90 minute working session with your portco's decision-makers
Written report in 48 hours with ranked opportunities and ROI projections
NDA signed upfront - your data never trains someone else's model
100% credited toward the next phase if you move forward
No pitch, no proposal pressure during the session
Pick one portco.
We'll prove it in weeks.
Assess it in 90 minutes. Get a roadmap with real numbers in 48 hours. If the ROI is there, we build it. If it's not, you have clarity instead of vendor promises.
