Skip to content

Serent Capital

Background

Serent Capital is the lower middle market PE firm where Deal Sourcery co-host Dan Herr previously led business development. Serent is mentioned substantively across several episodes, primarily as the setting for Dan's operating examples on how Portfolio Operations can be wired into deal sourcing.

Based on transcript references, Serent's strategy emphasizes:

  • B2B software and tech-enabled services, with concentrated exposure in verticals like hospitality technology — central reservation system portfolio companies and restaurant POS portfolio companies are both referenced by Dan in Ep. 2 as sources of proprietary market data
  • Heavy portfolio operations investment. In Ep. 2 Dan notes that 30% of the firm's FTEs were dedicated portfolio resources, which he used as a concrete differentiator in prospect conversations
  • A dedicated "sourcing operations" function. Dan describes creating this role at Serent in Ep. 2: "I hired, I created a new position for us at Serent that I called sourcing operations, right? Which was effectively like that, right? It's like rev ops."

Portfolio Companies Mentioned

  • Campminder — Acquired by Serent. In Ep. 8, Campminder's founder Dan Konigsberg recalls Serent's first outreach: "I do remember Dan was persistent and Dan had somebody else there named Navid who I came to know. I think that Serent's intro to us was through one of these gifts. I think it was like some kind of toolkit. Like it was like you sent me a screwdriver and a wrench or something. And it was something like, we have the tools that you need."
  • SHR — A hospitality technology company. In Ep. 4, Rod Jimenez (founder/CEO of SHR) discusses his transaction with Serent and how Serent's growth team supported the business post-close, including expanding the hospitality tech portfolio.
  • Revenate — Another hospitality tech portfolio company, referenced in Ep. 9 in connection with PE-enabled introductions across the portfolio.

The Sourcing Ops Role

In Ep. 2, Dan Herr describes creating a "sourcing operations" position at Serent that operated like rev ops for the deal team — managing the tooling, data, and processes that supported the sourcing function. This is referenced in Leveraging Portfolio Ops for Sourcing as a concrete example of the ops/sourcing hand-off Kate Hopkins describes in the same episode.

Data Snacks from Serent

Dan uses Serent as his running example when discussing Data Snacks. In Ep. 2 he describes packaging portfolio company data — hotel opening and closure rates from a CRS (central reservation system) portfolio company, restaurant revenue data from POS system portfolio companies — into market insights that gave prospects a reason to take a meeting.

Key Personnel

Appearances

  • Ep. 2: Data Snacks — The Unlock to Engaging PE Prospects — Dan's primary episode for Serent examples: sourcing operations role, portfolio ops as selling point, data snacks from hospitality tech portfolio
  • Ep. 4 (The Truth About Private Equity from a Founder's Perspective) — Rod Jimenez describes his transaction with Serent from the founder's side, including the role of Serent's growth team and the hospitality tech portfolio thesis
  • Ep. 8 (Building a Culture-First Organization: Lessons from Campminder) — Campminder founder Dan Konigsberg recalls Serent's early outreach and the "toolkit" gift that broke through
  • Ep. 9 (AI in Private Equity Deal Sourcing) — Referenced in connection with Revenate and Serent-enabled introductions
  • Data Snacks — Dan's Serent-era hospitality tech examples are the canonical illustration