Client Testimonial - LDC
Context: LDC is one of the UK’s leading mid-market private equity firms, backing ambitious management teams to accelerate growth. With high entry multiples and limited scope for financial engineering, organic growth has been clearly identified as the primary driver of value creation, and to this end LDC takes a structured approach to GTM due diligence pre-deal and then to supporting post-deal mobilisation, working seamlessly with deal teams and management to bridge strategy and execution.
Solution: Over multiple engagements, Coppett Hill has supported LDC through both GTM due diligence and post-deal mobilisation. Key elements have included:
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Structured GTM assessments – evaluating sales and marketing maturity against the scale of the growth plan, highlighting gaps, and factoring build-out requirements into the investment case.
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Integration with commercial due diligence – aligning GTM DD with CDD to provide a joined-up view of market opportunity and execution readiness.
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Decisive, practical insights – such as sharpening ideal customer profiles, clarifying pipeline focus, and identifying leadership needs in the commercial function.
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Early post-deal activation – in several instances we have supported with post-deal implementation of GTM recommendations identified as part of our pre-deal GTM due diligence support, and we continue to work alongside several of these management teams.
Results: Coppett Hill works with LDC on numerous GTM due diligence projects each year, and also supports portfolio companies post-investment. Recommendations from our work have led to increased pipeline velocity, a refocus of sales efforts on higher value ICPs, and the addition of new capabilities within commercial functions.
Richard Haynes
Partner and Head of Value Creation
LDC
Hear about the experience from our client’s side:
Q. To start, could you describe your role at LDC?
Richard: I’m a partner and Head of Value Creation at LDC— leading ten functional specialists to work alongside our investors, and in partnership with management teams, providing skilled resource to unlock sustainable growth and help to deliver measurable commercial outcomes. That includes direct commercial levers in sales and marketing, and enabling levers across technology and operations. Given my background, I also play more of a hands-on role in the commercial sub-team.
Q. Why is go-to-market so important to LDC and to your value creation approach?
Richard: We typically back medium-sized businesses where the main route to value is growth. Organic growth is a critical component for many of our portfolio companies, especially if they have grown successfully but rely on inbound demand or a founder-led sales model. Our value creation approach can help our portfolio companies to scale, perhaps from £10m to £100m revenue. Professionalising Go-To-Market (GTM)—so it’s repeatable, data-driven, and scalable—is a key enabler for the next stage of growth.
Q. How do you assess GTM pre-deal?
Richard: We run a structured GTM assessment to compare maturity against the management team’s growth plan. We ask: Is the current setup fit for where the business is going, not just where it’s been? Often there are gaps to close. Where build-out is required, we factor the activity and cost into our investment paper. We’ll do some assessments in-house (e.g., compressed timelines or sectors that LDC has experience of investing in), but we also use external parties for capacity and objectivity.
Q. How does GTM due diligence differ from commercial due diligence (CDD)?
Richard: CDD answers: Is the market large and attractive enough, and does the company have product-market fit? GTM Due Diligence (DD) asks: How well equipped is this business to find, win, retain, and grow customers—today and at scale? You need both. A great market won’t help if execution is weak; and strong execution won’t save a declining market. Increasingly we’re aligning CDD and GTM DD so they work in tandem and avoid gaps between the two.
Q. What does good post-deal mobilisation look like?
Richard: The best outcomes happen when we play back the GTM findings pre-exchange—to our investment team and to management teams. Early alignment prevents friction later. Post-investment we run a mobilisation phase (roughly the first six months) with a mix of in-house work (e.g., pricing) and partner-led execution.
Q. What feedback have you received from deal and management teams?
Richard: Sentiment has shifted meaningfully—from “we have to do sales DD” to “we want GTM DD because it shapes the growth plan.” Investment teams typically work with our value creation team at an earlier stage in the process, requesting sales and marketing DD.
Q. What impact have you seen on deals and value creation?
Richard: On most engagements, there are one or two decisive insights that influence the investment structure, focus, or early initiatives. Examples include sharpening Ideal Customer Profiles or pipeline focus to lead to in-process wins, and clarifying leadership needs in the commercial function. The work is practical and impact-oriented, not academic.
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