Build, Buy, or Bespoke. A scored decision tool for private credit, real estate credit, and real asset funds evaluating AI and data tooling.
Written for fund principals at private credit, real estate credit, and real asset funds, not technology teams. The question is rarely which tool to adopt. It is which operating posture fits each workflow, the team, and the next three years of the fund. Run the diagnostic once per workflow. The answer is rarely the same twice.
What counts as a workflow
A workflow is a repeatable, end-to-end task that today consumes a meaningful share of senior time. It has a trigger, a defined output, and an identifiable owner inside the fund.
- W1 Deal screening Sets the top of the funnel. Senior origination time lost here compounds across the fund.
- W2 Credit memo and IC pack The document on which capital is committed. Structure is standard, inputs are bespoke.
- W3 Portfolio monitoring Where losses are prevented or missed. Multi-asset, multi-jurisdiction, no vendor depth.
- W4 LP reporting A commodity output to a non-commodity audience. Errors cost institutional trust.
- W5 Regulatory and compliance reporting Filing deadlines are fixed. The data pipeline that feeds them is not.
What you are actually choosing between
Most funds collapse the decision to build or buy. There is a third path that sits between them, and for mid-market private credit and real estate credit it is often the one that fits. The three paths below are described on their own terms, not ranked.
Six originators at EUR 800 fully-loaded per day. Two hours per teaser on manual screening. Roughly 300 teasers per year at mid-market origination volume. That is ~EUR 180K of senior origination time absorbed by first-look screening alone, before counting deals missed or mispriced due to screening fatigue.
Portfolio monitoring adds a comparable amount when covenant checks, rent coverage reads, and early-warning reviews are still stitched from spreadsheets. Any of the three paths above must clear that bar, not a zero bar.
Matching the path to the problem
- The workflow is a commodity. LP portals, fund accounting, KYC, e-signature.
- A dominant vendor has product-market fit for your asset class at your scale.
- Your process is standard enough that adapting to the tool is cheap.
- Switching cost is acceptable if the vendor stalls or gets acquired.
- The capability is a structural edge, not a utility. It belongs on the fund's balance sheet.
- You already run a technology function at scale and can absorb another team.
- Data sensitivity or regulatory posture rules out third-party code paths.
- You have a 10-year horizon on the capability and can amortize the build.
- Your deals are idiosyncratic. Collateral types, structures, or jurisdictions differ across the book.
- No off-the-shelf vendor covers your asset class with real depth.
- You want proprietary fit without standing up a permanent engineering team.
- You have one or two workflows where getting it right is worth the attention.
Why the generic framework underfits these asset classes
The five factors below apply to both private credit and real estate credit, with different emphasis. A commercial real estate fund will weigh collateral diversity and jurisdictional spread differently than an asset-based lender, but both feel each one.
Six questions, one score, one default posture
Answer each question for the workflow in front of you. Each answer maps to a path (Buy, Build, or Bespoke) and carries a weight. The running totals update live. The highest total is the default posture for that workflow. Run this diagnostic once per workflow. The posture that wins for LP reporting will lose for deal screening.
Take the assessment
Six questions, answered one at a time. Each click auto-advances. You can go back. No email required to see your posture.
Want this in your inbox? Enter your email and we'll send a copy of your score and posture, saved so Sam can pick up the thread if you want to talk.
One fund, five decisions
Most funds make five decisions here, not one. The posture that wins for LP reporting will lose for deal screening. Default postures below are tuned for a mid-market private credit or real estate credit fund of roughly EUR 1 to 5 billion AUM. Treat them as priors, not conclusions.
| Workflow | Default posture | Why |
|---|---|---|
| LP reporting | Buy | Commodity workflow, multiple credible vendors, regulated output. The differentiation is your returns, not your NAV template. |
| Regulatory and compliance reporting | Buy + Bespoke integration | Vendor handles filing and format. Bespoke handles the data pipeline that feeds it from your deal stack. AIFMD II deadlines do not wait. |
| Credit memo and IC pack | Hybrid: Buy templates, Bespoke extraction | Memo structure is standard. Extracting terms from bespoke deal docs across five jurisdictions and four languages is not. |
| Deal screening | Bespoke | Idiosyncratic deals, no vendor fit, highest partner-time drag. First-look triage is where senior hours leak. |
| Portfolio monitoring | Bespoke | Multi-asset collateral, multi-jurisdiction, covenant and rent coverage complexity. No vendor covers asset-based lending or CRE credit end-to-end. |
What to put in the contract
The bespoke path becomes buyable for a risk-conscious partner only when the exit is written down. Five line items. None are unusual in institutional contracting. All are negotiable upfront and expensive to retrofit.
- IP assignment. All code, models, and configuration assigned to the fund at delivery, not licensed. No residual rights sitting with the builder.
- Source-code escrow or direct handover. Fund holds the repository. Builder retains no kill-switch, no hosted dependency, no runtime lock.
- Knowledge-transfer milestones. Defined training deliverables and documentation, tied to payment tranches. If the handover is unfinished, the final tranche is unpaid.
- Defined exit. The engagement has a stated end date and a stated end state. Handover, not dependency. Extension is optional, not structural.
- No-reliance clause. Fund can operate the system without the builder from day one of handover. Written into the contract, demonstrated in the UAT.
Run the diagnostic on a live workflow.
If the scored answer lands on bespoke for one or two of your workflows, the next conversation is a scope. Fixed fee, fixed timeline, handover written into the contract.