Cross-Portfolio Partnership Strategies: The Platform Team’s Secret Weapon

The Opportunity Hiding in Your Own Portfolio

PE platform teams spend enormous energy finding strategic add-on acquisitions and building industry relationships. But many overlook the most obvious partnership opportunity: their own portfolio companies partnering with each other.

If you’re a PE firm with 15 portfolio companies in B2B software, the odds are high that several of them sell to the same buyer personas, operate in adjacent technology categories, or serve complementary use cases. This isn’t a coincidence — it’s your investment thesis at work. And it’s a partnership goldmine.

Why Cross-Portfolio Partnerships Work

Trust is pre-built. Both companies are backed by the same firm. There’s an inherent alignment of incentives and a built-in governance structure (the platform team) to resolve conflicts.

The introduction is free. No cold outreach, no partnership development cycle, no months of relationship building. The platform team can put two portco CEOs on a call tomorrow.

The data is available. If both companies use the same CRM or data infrastructure (which many PE portfolios standardize), you can immediately identify overlapping accounts and target them jointly.

Three Plays That Work

Joint Customer Introductions: Identify shared customers across two portcos. If Company A and Company B both serve mid-market CFOs, every Company A customer is a warm lead for Company B, and vice versa. Run a structured introduction program with tracked outcomes.

Bundled Value Props: Create a joint pitch for accounts where both products add value. "You’re already using our data analytics platform. Our portfolio company builds the reporting layer that sits on top of it." This is co-sell without the complexity of an external partnership.

Shared Channel Partners: If Company A has a strong consulting partner ecosystem and Company B is just starting its partner program, introduce Company B to Company A’s partners. The trust transfers.

Making It Happen

The platform team owns this. It doesn’t happen organically because individual portco leadership teams are focused on their own growth. The platform team needs to: map the portfolio for adjacencies, facilitate introductions, track the pipeline that results, and report on it as a value creation initiative.

The ROI is almost always positive because the cost is essentially zero — the relationships and data already exist. You’re just connecting dots that nobody was assigned to connect.