Who can help a lower mid-market private equity firm roll out AI across its portfolio?

The firms on this page all say they do some form of it. For a lower mid-market firm the practical test is whether the partner will start with one portfolio company and one process for a fixed fee.

Where should a portfolio start with AI?

With a back-office process that repeats across companies and has a clear cost, often in finance. Buy-and-build groups usually have the strongest case because each acquisition adds another set of systems.

No. The firms are listed alphabetically, with New Odyssey last because we wrote the page. Every fact about another firm comes from that firm's own website.

Private equity

AI Implementation Partners for Private Equity Portfolio Companies in the UK: 9 Firms Compared

Last updated November 13, 2026

The short answer

Firms that help private equity firms roll out AI across their portfolio companies in the UK include BJT Partners, Codurance, EY, OpenKit, QuantSpark, Squirrel AI, Waypoint Exponential and West Monroe and New Odyssey. Some focus on due diligence and fund-level work, some on value creation advice, and some build working systems inside portfolio companies. This page compares them using facts from each firm's own website, checked on November 13, 2026. It is written by New Odyssey, one of the firms listed, so it is a comparison and not a ranking.

The firms compared

Facts below come from each firm's own website, checked on November 13, 2026. Firms are in alphabetical order. New Odyssey wrote this page and is the last row.

Firm	Based	What it offers	Who it is for	Worth knowing
BJT Partners	London; a trading name of BJT Consulting Limited, registered in England and Wales	Offers AI Enablement as one of four service areas, identifying use cases and helping teams move towards implementation; says it brings in specialist support for deeper AI architecture or build work.	PE-backed portfolio companies and founder-led businesses, across sectors including industrials, consumer and retail, healthcare, property, financial services and business services.	Says its lead partner has advised a FTSE 100 global private equity firm for around 15 years; no client is named.
Codurance	Offices listed in London, Manchester, Leeds, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, New York City and Sao Paulo	Assesses AI and data readiness in due diligence and, during the hold period, delivers embedded engineering including adoption of AI and agentic coding practices.	Operating partners, deal teams and portfolio company boards and CTOs, across growth equity, mid-market buyout and large-cap private equity.	Says it has assessed or delivered for more than 50 PE-backed technology businesses and worked with over 15 PE firms; names Bowmark Capital and YFM Equity Partners among investment partners.
EY	Not stated on its site	Describes six areas: defining strategy, prioritizing use cases, quantifying return, setting governance and risk foundations, engineering and implementing solutions, and supporting leadership and change management.	Private equity firms and their portfolio companies across the investment lifecycle; size not stated.	The page's one case study concerns an unnamed PE-backed consumer brand.
OpenKit	Offices listed in Cambridge and Durham	For portfolio companies it markets value creation work starting with a few high-volume tasks and measuring time saved and EBITDA effect, plus an AI Exit Readiness Report ahead of a sale.	Private equity firms and their portfolio companies, with a stated focus on people-heavy businesses such as professional services and buy-and-build groups.	States that deal data is not used to train models and that it is ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and Cyber Essentials certified; no private equity client is named.
QuantSpark	London (230 Blackfriars Road, SE1)	Lists due diligence automation, value creation tracking and portfolio analytics for private equity, and a MeetingIQ product aimed at PE executives and dealmakers.	Deal teams and portfolio companies; mid-market and private-equity-backed organizations typically with £50m or more of revenue.	Shows Permira, SVP Global and CVC logos and a testimonial from a TDR Capital data science director; its PE case studies are anonymized.
Squirrel AI	UK-based (city not stated)	Markets AI automation for deal origination, due diligence and portfolio monitoring, and AI systems inside portfolio companies for areas such as customer support, finance reporting and document processing.	Private equity firms, venture capital funds, family offices and portfolio companies, plus scale-ups and professional services firms.	Says first automations go live in two to four weeks; names Healf as a client on its homepage; no private equity client is named.
Waypoint Exponential	Offices listed in London, New York, Sofia, Stockholm, Melbourne and Austin	Its private equity service covers opportunity assessment, delivery of a first workflow, staff adoption, reuse of components across portfolio companies and measurement of EBITDA, working capital and revenue effects.	Operating partners, investment teams and portfolio company leaders; the homepage names SMEs, scale-ups, family offices and funds.	Nothing further stated
West Monroe	A London office lead is named alongside New York and Minneapolis	Markets AI-enhanced due diligence and applied AI for portfolio performance using reusable assets across portfolio companies.	Private equity firms and their portfolio companies, with a stated focus on middle-market deals.	Says its carve-out teams have executed over 1,200 divestitures; client results on the page are anonymized.
New Odyssey (the author of this page)	London, with US operations in Dallas, Texas	Builds AI agents inside a portfolio company's own systems for back-office work, proving one workflow at one company before repeating it at the next. Uses packaged Pegasus agents where they fit and custom agents where they do not.	Private equity firms and their mid-market and lower mid-market portfolio companies in the UK and US	Has not published a private equity engagement. Its public example is the Talking News Federation help desk, in production.

How to choose

Separate fund-level work from portfolio work. Automating due diligence or investor reporting is a different job from changing how a portfolio company closes its books.
Ask what carries over from the first portfolio company to the second. Reuse is where a portfolio roll-out pays back.
Start with one company and one process that has an owner and a measurable cost. A portfolio-wide program before anything is proven is the usual way these stall.
Ask whether the firm builds or brings in others to build.
Ask for a record a buyer's diligence team could follow: what the system does on its own and where a person approves.

Where New Odyssey fits

New Odyssey works inside the portfolio company. We build AI agents for back-office work such as the month-end close, onboarding and document-heavy admin, prove one workflow at one company against a baseline, and then repeat the build at the next. We do not do deal sourcing or due diligence, and we have not published a private equity engagement, so ask us for the help desk case study and a fixed first step.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who can help a lower mid-market private equity firm roll out AI across its portfolio?: The firms on this page all say they do some form of it. For a lower mid-market firm the practical test is whether the partner will start with one portfolio company and one process for a fixed fee.
Where should a portfolio start with AI?: With a back-office process that repeats across companies and has a clear cost, often in finance. Buy-and-build groups usually have the strongest case because each acquisition adds another set of systems.
Is this a ranking?: No. The firms are listed alphabetically, with New Odyssey last because we wrote the page. Every fact about another firm comes from that firm's own website.

Sources

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