Garrett Marcillo: A partner at Delta V Capital
Garrett Marcillo: A partner at Delta V Capital  
Podcast: The Investor With Joel Palathinkal
Published On: Tue Jun 30 2026
Description: In this episode of the Investor Podcast, we sit down with Garrett Marcillo, a partner at Delta V Capital, a private equity firm managing over $1.6 billion in assets. Garrett shares his journey from a humble background in Cleveland, Ohio—where his entrepreneurial roots began with a paper route, a local lemonade stand, and a high school web development business—to graduating summa cum laude from the Wharton School of Business. The conversation delivers a comprehensive look at the modernization of growth-stage private equity and the operational frameworks that drive success in the technology landscape:The Evolution of Sourcing via Agentic AI: Garrett details how Delta V Capital sources roughly 50% of its investments through custom, agentic outreach algorithms. By scoring signals like LinkedIn employee growth and historical investor backing, their workflow optimizes outreach and message delivery tenfold. Augmenting the Investment Committee: A deep dive into how modern investors utilize platforms like Claude to construct rigorous bull and bear cases, shifting the analyst role away from monotonous labor like spreading comps to high-level thesis development and portfolio strategy. Preserving Mentorship Through Knowledge Capture: Insights into how institutional memory can be codified by training specialized LLMs on historical memos and the decision-making frameworks of retiring firm partners. The "Bar-Raising" DNA of Elite Talent: What it takes to break into the industry today. Garrett explains why firms look for individuals with a "chip on their shoulder" and exceptional upside potential, rather than traditional "work team" associates. Garrett concludes with two intertwined pieces of timeless advice for builders and next-generation allocators: "Never underestimate the power of serendipity, and simply, you can't give up." #PrivateEquity #GrowthEquity #AgenticAI #DeltaVCapital #SourcingStrategy #TechInvesting #WhartonAlumni #ArtificialIntelligence