Bridger Pennington, who runs two 8-figure funds and has launched 300+ through his program, breaks down how long it actually takes to start an investment fund. Legal setup takes 3-5 weeks, but vetting and framing takes 6-9 months, and capital raising can stretch to 24 months. The real work isn't quick, but funds are highly lucrative when done right.
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So how long does it take to start an investment fund? I get this question on YouTube all the time. I currently run 2 8-figure funds. We've launched over 300 funds in Fund Launch, and we're going to answer this question in 2 minutes or less. Ready, set, go. So the first answer is, well, it depends. If you've seen our Fund Launch formula, 4-step formula here, we run through people a rigorous process in Fund Launch to help them launch their funds successfully. Now, anybody out there, all of you right now could just go buy legal docs. Okay? You could just go buy it off the shelf, some legal docs, and launch a fund. It's kind of like microwaving a frozen dinner. Not that good, but it can be done quickly. The other analogy is if you spend the time, you could make potentially a beautiful Gordon Ramsay meal here, but it takes time. So back to the it depends. If you've got all these steps figured out, step 1 with the deal, then the frame, then capital, and you're just moving to legal, well, yeah, legal part doesn't take that long. This can take a matter of weeks, maybe, you know, 3 to 5 weeks sometimes to get all your legal done and even faster in some cases. However, to do the hard work here of vetting your deal, finding risk control return, framing out the fund the right way, and building a fund that investors want, okay, that's the whole goal. Sometimes this can take 6 months. It can sometimes take 9 months to go and actually build and vet and validate a fund that investors are dying to have. So the process is really, It depends on how fast you can move through this and vet this process. Legal part isn't that hard, less than a month to get all that set up and going. The harder part is building a fund investors are dying to have. This can take a long time. Furthermore, the last thing I'll add, once you've launched the fund, it can take some time to raise capital. Lincoln, my partner, shared, and with big firms over the last few years, it's taken on average 24 months on average to actually hit your final close of, you know, these are funds that are raising billions of dollars, but that's the average 2 years of capital raising and deploying and capital raising. So it takes time. But the best thing about funds, it's not a get-rich-quick scheme. But if you do it the right way, if you can figure out how to do this the right way, it is the most lucrative vehicle on planet Earth. By Forbes, the number 1 category of billionaires on the Forbes 100 list is fund and investment management. This is the game you want to play. It's not a get-rich-quick scheme, but it's an amazing business model if you can go figure it out.
