PRIVATE CAPITAL ADVISORY · EST. LONDON UK
Expansion Partners
Expansion Partners is an independent private capital advisory platform providing strategic solutions for leading alternative investment managers and institutional investors internationally.
About — 01 / Firm
The investor relation extension of your team
Expansion Partners works with a select number of alternative investment managers and institutional investors, delivering tailored capital formation and strategic advisory solutions. The firm focuses on building enduring relationships and connecting high-quality opportunities with sophisticated global capital.
Solutions — 02 / Capabilities
We support alternative investment managers in raising capital from institutional investors across geographies and strategies. As a trusted intermediary, we facilitate fundraising through targeted networking, marketing and long-term relationship management.
We deliver bespoke advisory on growth strategy, market positioning and investor engagement. From narrative development to LP communication, we help managers articulate their value proposition with clarity and conviction.
We connect managers with pensions, family offices, insurers, endowments and sovereign wealth funds. Our network spans Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia, with deep roots in single and multi-family offices.
We build enduring partnerships with leading and emerging managers through rigorous due diligence and consistent engagement. Our selective approach ensures every introduction is backed by genuine alignment and trust.
We provide insight into fundraising dynamics, allocator behaviour and evolving investor trends. Our research helps managers time their outreach, refine their messaging and anticipate shifts in capital flows.
We bring over 30 years of capital-raising experience across private markets, with a reputation built on discretion and results. Our track record reflects deep relationships and repeated success through market cycles.
Selected Relationships — 03
Representative managers across venture capital, private equity, secondaries and healthcare innovation.
Metrics correspond to publicly available information published by representative managers and are shown for illustrative purposes.
TEAM — 05
Founder and Managing Partner
Valentina is a senior finance and private capital professional with over 20 years of experience across structured finance, investor relations, and capital formation within leading global alternative investment firms.
She spent a significant part of her career at Bain Capital as Director of Investor Relations in London, supporting fundraising across flagship buyout, credit, real estate, impact, and life sciences strategies with global institutional investor bases.
She later served as Head of European Investor Relations at Charterhouse Capital Partners, where she led fundraising for primary funds and continuation vehicles, strengthening long-term LP relationships across Europe and the Middle East.
Earlier in her career, she worked in investment banking at Lehman Brothers in Structured Finance, and at PricewaterhouseCoopers during its restructuring phase, working on complex creditor–debtor negotiations with institutional counterparties.
Valentina serves as Chair of the 100 Women in Finance London Gala, a major fundraising event for the charitable organization, demonstrating commitment to industry leadership and philanthropy.
She holds an MSc in Accounting and Corporate Finance and a BA in Economics from Bocconi University, and serves on the Strategic Committee of the Italian Private Capital Association, contributing to the European private capital ecosystem. She is fluent in English, French, and Italian.
VENTURE PARTNER
Thomas is a senior investment professional with over 25 years of experience across venture capital, asset management, and institutional investment platforms in European private markets.
He is a Partner at Isomer Capital, a leading European venture capital platform focused on fund investments and co-investments across high-growth technology companies. The platform is widely recognised as one of the established institutional gateways into European venture capital for global LPs.
Previously, he was Managing Director and Head of Southern Europe at Russell Investments, a major global institutional asset manager specialising in multi-asset solutions, manager selection, and advisory services for sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and other institutional investors.
He serves on the Strategic Committee of the Italian Private Capital Association, contributing to the development and connectivity of the European private capital ecosystem.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from Université Paris Dauphine – PSL and a Master’s degree in Banking and Finance from Université Paris Cité. He speaks fluent English, French, and Italian.
Capital Formation Analyst
Santiago Larracilla is a finance and private capital professional with experience across investor relations, credit investing, and alternative investment environments. He is currently focused on capital formation and placement advisory within European private markets.
His experience includes private equity at Agathos Management LLP, where he supported fundraising initiatives alongside investment analysis across deal execution and portfolio monitoring. Previously, he worked in revenue-based financing at Fairplay, where he underwrote SME businesses and participated in the origination and deployment of credit facilities, analysing cash-flow-based financing structures.
Beyond his institutional experience, Santiago has founded and supported entrepreneurial ventures in Mexico City, gaining first-hand experience in fundraising and investor engagement.
He holds a Master’s in Finance (Corporate Finance) from King’s College London and a Bachelor’s degree in Entrepreneurship and Business Development from Tecnológico de Monterrey. He is fluent in English and Spanish.
STRATEGIC CONSULTANT
Natasha is a senior finance professional with strong experience spanning investment banking, corporate finance and operational roles and Venture Capital.
Natasha currently serves as CFO and Chief of Staff to a search-fund-backed company, partnering closely with the CEO on strategy, finance, and operations.
Her earlier career spans institutional banking and capital markets at JPMorgan, and fund design at the European Stability Mechanism during the eurozone crisis.
She has also worked in early-stage technology investing at InReach Ventures and in restructuring at Alvarez & Marsal, alongside direct advisory work with UHNWIs and family office principals.
Natasha holds an MBA from The Wharton School and an MSc from Bocconi University.
She brings a strong international network across the UK, the Netherlands, and continental Europe.
Contact — 06
Enquiries from managers and institutional investors are received in confidence. A partner will respond personally.
Insights — 07 / Editorial
A short newsletter on fundraising dynamics, allocator behaviour, and structural trends across European and global private markets.
Fundraising
Fundraising across European private markets remains challenging, but this is less about a lack of capital and more about its redistribution. LPs are consolidating commitments into fewer, larger, and more established managers…
…leaving many mid-market and emerging GPs competing harder for attention. In this environment, differentiation, access, and positioning matter more than ever. This is exactly where targeted investor engagement and strategic fundraising support become critical.
Secondaries
Secondaries have moved from a niche solution to a core mechanism for liquidity. With traditional exits still constrained, GPs and LPs alike are increasingly relying on continuation vehicles and secondary transactions…
…to manage portfolios. What was once opportunistic is now structural. For investors, this creates both a necessity and an opportunity: access to liquidity is no longer guaranteed, it must be actively engineered.
Exits
A growing share of exits now happens within the private markets ecosystem itself, particularly through GP-led secondaries. Assets are being rolled from one vehicle to another, often under the same sponsor…
A useful way to think about this is a Japanese bamboo fountain (shishi-odoshi). Water fills one segment, tips, flows forward, and then resets to begin again, not leaving the system, just moving through it in a controlled rhythm. Private equity is starting to behave in a similar way: capital and assets circulate within the same structure, periodically shifting from one “container” to another, but rarely exiting entirely.
This reflects a broader shift: private equity is becoming a longer-duration asset class, where ownership is continuously recycled and value is compounded over multiple cycles, rather than realised in a single, definitive exit.
Europe
As global investors reassess allocations, Europe is gaining attention as a relative value opportunity. Compared to the US, valuations remain more attractive, and macro stability has improved the region’s positioning…
This is driving increased international capital flows into European strategies, particularly in the mid-market and sector-specialist space. For GPs, this creates a window to attract new global LP relationships, provided they can effectively access and communicate with them.
News — 2026
2026 is already being defined by a wave of consolidation across private markets and wealth platforms. Most notably, EQT’s acquisition of Coller Capital highlights the scaling of secondaries into institutional mega-platforms…
At the same time, on the distribution side, US wealth manager Corient has agreed to acquire Stonehage Fleming and Stanhope Capital, creating a ~$430bn global wealth manager, with completion expected in 2026.
This is one of the largest transactions ever in the multi-family office space and signals a clear shift: US platforms are scaling aggressively into Europe to capture private markets distribution and ultra-high-net-worth capital.
Taken together, these moves point to a clear direction of travel: private markets are becoming more integrated, more global, and increasingly concentrated among scaled platforms.
Upcoming
Expansion Partners is planning a private roundtable later this year, bringing together a select group of GPs and LPs including participants from firms such as Coller Capital, Isomer Capital, Nord Holding, Azzurra Capital, and A-Life…
The discussion will focus on secondaries, fundraising dynamics, and how managers are adapting to a more complex liquidity environment.
