How to Raise Capital from Single Family Offices
As the family office industry matures it will be targeted by more fund managers, real estate firms, and private company owners trying to raise capital from single family offices. Right now many people still don't know what a single family is, how they operate, how to reach these parties, etc.I have relationships with over 300 single family offices globally, including over 50 of them which have $1B+ in capital under management. Here are some of my best concise insights on how to work with and raise capital from single family offices:
1) Always deliver insight, value, and connections to any single family office you meet with. Once you have a relationship with one organization, you can quickly get connected to several others if you add value or quickly get cut off if you don't.
2) Decide what you stand for, what unique value you bring to the table, and provide that value upfront at no cost as much as you can. Nobody will know you are an expert or a genuinely competent group unless you share that expertise upfront with them.
3) Listen very carefully to everything the single family office professionals say, if they don't want to look at any real estate opportunities except for apartment buildigns don't show them hotels. If they only want to invest in hedge funds with $500,000 minimums, don't show them one with $10M minimums.
4) Understand that these single family offices are looking for people they can call on who are reliable, experts in their niche, and well connected. They don't know everything they need to know, and they appreciate those who can help them operate their organization more effectively. Approach them as an advisor instead of a sales person for a product or you will be ignored.
5) Identify methods through which you could connect consistently with the individuals who have created the wealth. If you can find ways to get meetings face-to-face with those who are worth $100M, $300M, or $1B+ you will go far in your networking and capital raising. The next best is to consistently get the attention of the CEO and CIO of these single family offices, but the wealth creator holds the strings of the whole team, and finding out how you can comebine your expertise, experience, and the value you provide to connecting with these individuals is the billion dollar challenge.
A full 8 hour seminar could be held on raising capital from single family offices,but I hope these short tips above provide you with some actionable insight on how to gain and keep an audience in this secretive hard-to-access niche.
