ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It has been almost two decades since we joined the alternatives investment industry. We made mistakes; we learned from thoughtful employers, meticulous and experienced investors, fellow marketers, and other industry professionals. We closed fundraising deals and learned how to write investor communications. We wished we had a guide—a compendium of what we needed to do, frameworks for how to think about our jobs, and mistakes to avoid. But we could not find a good guide, let alone one that was comprehensive. Three years ago, we began putting pen to paper to share our story, our view of the salient points of fundraising and investor relations.

This book is a passion project, a pay-it-forward effort from the two of us to give back to the industry that has benefited us so much. But that would not have been possible without the support of countless individuals: investors, fund managers and marketers, fund formation attorneys, placement agents, service providers, and many other intermediaries. In a secretive industry such as ours, many chose to be anonymous. But you know who you are. We are grateful for the hundreds of formal and informal conversations, breakfasts, rushed calls, and most important, the strong support throughout our three-year journey in writing this book. Additionally, we are thankful to our past employers, colleagues, investors, service providers, and other industry participants from whom we learned invaluable lessons. We acknowledge the ideas we captured emanated from a thousand wonderful minds. Any mistakes, unfortunately, are our own responsibility. We have tried our best to avoid them.

Additionally, we are really grateful to the experts that have helped us, and want to encourage readers to seek out the counsel of experts in a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape.

We are incredibly thankful to those who supported us in the development of this book. Mukul Pandya, your valuable insights and past experiences with Knowledge@Wharton, your countless introductions to thought leaders, and your daily encouragement made our book all the more special. Deborah Yao, our daily editor for five months, you were our saving grace. Sejal Goud, our Princeton University research assistant, you diligently scrubbed every data source and worked tirelessly during your holidays. Saira Dadlani, our University of Michigan research assistant, your tenacious work ethic helped us ensure the accuracy of data elements and create a robust marketing plan. We are very grateful to the numerous researchers and data aggregators who allowed us to reference or use their data for this book.

We also wish to thank Jeanne Glasser Levine, literary agent extraordinaire and founder of PubZone Consulting. We are grateful for your 30 years in the publishing industry that allowed you to make that warm introduction to McGraw Hill, which accelerated our journey to becoming published authors for the first time with one of the leading educational publishers in the world. And Judith Newlin, senior editor at McGraw Hill, for whom we have had the utmost respect since the moment we began these conversations and whose guidance, prompt responses, and unwavering support made it a true partnership. We thank you for believing in our book, championing us within your organization, and encouraging us to create the most valuable content we could offer to our diverse readers.

For all those who have contributed to this endeavor, we hope you enjoy reading this book as much as we did writing it.

With gratitude,

Hemali and Nandu