GP Commitment

The GP commitment, sometimes called "skin in the game," addresses a fundamental agency problem: a manager who earns fees on committed capital regardless of performance has weaker incentives than one whose personal wealth rises and falls with the fund. By requiring or expecting the general partner to invest a meaningful share of their own money, limited partners gain some assurance that the manager's interests are genuinely aligned. The amount is typically expressed as a percentage of total fund size and is disclosed in the LPA.

What constitutes a meaningful commitment varies by fund size and strategy. An illustrative benchmark sometimes discussed in institutional circles is a GP commitment equal to a low-single-digit percentage of the fund, though families should verify what is customary in a specific strategy with their advisors, as norms differ between buyout, venture, and private credit funds. A very small GP commitment on a very large fund can still represent substantial personal capital in absolute terms.

Families sometimes confuse the GP commitment with carried interest: the share of profits the GP receives above a hurdle rate. These are separate. Carried interest is contingent compensation earned from performance; the GP commitment is actual invested capital at risk from the first dollar. Both matter for alignment, and sophisticated limited partners typically evaluate them together when assessing a manager's incentive structure. A qualified advisor can help frame what combination of terms suggests genuine alignment in a particular fund context.