Why we Created matters Graph
We formed Matters Graph™ in February of 2017 (originally as “GRAPH Strategy”), after three founders determined that their dedicated Private Equity and Corporate M&A practice (at another strategy consulting firm) was destined and better served operating as a dedicated M&A specialist Commercial Diligence firm, in and of itself, rather than operate as a practice in a generalist strategy consulting firm.
We founded the firm because we determined that the best commercial diligence was getting worse, and we could see why. The leading providers were trading away the very thing that made their work valuable. They diversified into adjacent offerings on the premise that clients wanted one-stop shops; they offshored research; they took on sell-side and vendor diligence to double their addressable market, conditioning whole teams toward the answer the seller wanted; they leaned on expert networks for inputs clients could buy themselves; and they merged, again and again, until the capability that built their reputations had been watered down. The deliverables showed it: regurgitated material, analysis off the actual investment case, and decks where everything pointed up and to the right.
We had also learned something about ourselves. Run as a dedicated specialist with a tightly defined remit, our capability sharpened fast, faster than it ever had inside a multi-disciplinary consultancy, and it began to outshine the generalists at the one thing we did. Clients told us the same: they wanted best-of-breed, not breadth.
The market was moving our way at the same time. Private equity had more than doubled, from roughly 1,300 U.S. firms in 2000 to about 4,050 in 2017 and 5,900 today, with U.S. AUM growing from roughly $300 billion to $3 trillion between 2000 and 2017. Proprietary deals grew scarce, process windows compressed to the seller’s advantage, multiples rose, and win ratios fell, all of which raised the premium on diligence sharp enough to protect a return. We loved the work, we had the skills, and the firm the market needed was the one we wanted to build. We were born with the high ambition to become a valued and cherished partner in commercial decision-making—driving greater investment returns for our clients.
Built to Serve Private Equity, Private Credit, Corp. Dev., and Value Creation Teams
Matters Graph was designed to serve Principal Investors and the M&A lenders who finance their acquisitions: private equity, private credit, corporate development, and value creation teams. We deliberately chose this audience because the work itself drew us in. Principal Investors carry the value-creation mandate and the conviction-under-uncertainty problem we wanted to solve for. We love that these investors see potential where the market hasn’t priced it yet, and we love being part of the formative exercise of pressure-testing a thesis with the management teams who will execute it, before capital is committed.
We chose this path in 2017 because we fell in love with the principal investor mindset and the value creation mandate that comes with it.
Finding something that is undervalued is rare and often elusive. But what is not elusive, what is compelling and honest, are the ideas centered on taking an asset with greater potential and determining the right ideas to craft the asset into something of meaningfully greater commercial and enterprise value.
This exercise requires courage, excellent care, and respect for what is at stake, given that it involves spending other people’s money. People [LPs and shareholders] who trust you to invest and generate a return to provide security and enhanced futures.
This is where Matters Graph plugs in to help.
Supporting instinct and base conviction with insights that create refined ideas and conviction based on sound foundations and proper evidence, not conjecture with limited genuine support disguised as conclusions. We hold to that standard by staying selective: when a project falls outside where we are genuinely the best choice, we say so rather than take it, because good enough is not sufficient for the decisions our clients are making, and if we are going to keep your trust, we need to stick to our best knitting.
Along the way, we enhanced our capabilities, e.g., by applying our differentiated Commercial Diligence approach to also serve organic growth Commercial Diligence (Commercial Value Creation) with the same rigor and Diligence that we provided for M&A. Our view is that significant commercial decisions deserve the same diligent care as inorganic efforts. And it fit our remit: helping clients maximize the return on capital.
As we approached our 10th year, we spent time with clients and asked them to share how they define our firm and to offer advice. What we heard:
You became known as the truth tellers here. And that is what folks started to acknowledge is much more helpful than what we had before, and we have a renewed confidence in the process and the value of diligence.
You get the mandate. The real one. The one that matters.
Grow, but never change – stick to thoughtful scopes and never lose sight for developing and pressure testing the thesis.
We are so happy that Matters Graph is buy-side only. Compared to the other consultancies that took on sell-side VDD work 10+ years ago to double their TAM, you avoided degrading the value of the work. And you maintained the skill set and culture of scrutiny, and you never lost the intent. We need you, we want you, to serve as a party that helps us avoid having regret and helps us craft the best possible business plans with these portfolio companies.
Your work has become integral to our decision making, and unlike the others, we no longer use Diligence to help stuff sail through committee. You made it [CDD] matter far more.
We were clearly onto something, and we learned that our success and the brand we had built were far more a result of what we were than the name we had given ourselves in 2017.
Hearing our clients describe us back to ourselves was clarifying. The work had become something specific: buy-side, scrutiny-led, thesis-driven, willing to say the uncomfortable thing. The name we picked in 2017 had been chosen by founders building a firm; the name our clients were now describing fit the firm we had built. As we planned our second decade, we decided to close the gap.
From GRAPH Strategy to Matters Graph (a rebrand)
Closing that gap meant changing our name. We made the change in earnest, from GRAPH Strategy to Matters Graph in October 2025, our “forever name” and experienced brand. The work, philosophy, and approach did not change, and will not, which is what “forever” means here: we serve the same community, hold to the same standard, and chase the same mission we have since 2017. What has changed is how far we have taken it. A decade of buy-side-only focus deepened the capability, sharpened the value we create, and refined the process, never the purpose. And our name now says who we are out loud. We put what matters, your matters, at the front of Graph, a standing reminder of why we exist: to make it matter.
We look forward to serving, and close with our very first message as founders in 2017:
