What the ILPA DDQ covers
The ILPA DDQ is built around what an institutional investor needs to know before committing capital to a private equity fund, a commitment that usually lasts many years. It examines the general partner as a business as well as the fund being raised: how the firm is run, how it makes investment decisions, how it treats investors and how it manages risk.
Most questions call for narrative answers, while some ask for tables, data or attached documents. In general terms, the topics include:
- Firm and team: ownership, history, organization, key professionals, succession planning, turnover and how the team is paid
- Strategy and track record: investment strategy, deal sourcing, the investment process, value creation in portfolio companies and the performance of past funds and deals
- Fund terms and alignment of interest: management fees, expenses, carried interest, the commitment the GP makes to its own fund and how carry is shared within the team
- Operations, governance and risk: firm governance, conflicts of interest, risk management, service providers, technology, cybersecurity and business continuity
- Accounting, valuation and reporting: how portfolio investments are valued, how fund accounts are kept and audited and what investors receive in regular reports
- Legal and compliance: registrations, compliance policies and staffing, regulatory examinations, litigation and related disclosures
- ESG and diversity: how environmental, social and governance factors shape investing and ownership, and how the firm approaches diversity, equity and inclusion, often with requests for workforce data
- Supporting documents: policies, organization charts, financial statements, sample reports and other materials investors want to review
Why a standard template matters
Without a shared template, a GP raising a fund can receive a separate questionnaire from almost every prospective investor, each asking the same core questions in its own words and order. Answering them all pulls senior people away from investing, and investors get answers that are hard to compare. The ILPA DDQ gives both sides a common starting point.
For LPs, a standard template means more consistent information, easier comparison across managers and fewer gaps to chase later. Due diligence teams can focus their own questions on what is specific to a fund or strategy.
For GPs, it means one thorough response that can be drafted before a fundraise, reviewed carefully and shared with many investors, which saves time and lowers the risk of telling two investors slightly different things. It does not end investor-specific questions: many LPs and consultants still send supplemental questions or use their own DDQ built on the ILPA structure.
Who sends and who answers the ILPA DDQ
The ILPA DDQ is used by limited partners and their advisers, including pension plans, endowments, foundations, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, funds of funds and investment consultants. Their investment and operational due diligence teams review the answers, compare managers and decide what to probe further in meetings, reference calls and on-site visits.
On the GP side, investor relations or the fundraising team usually coordinates the response, sometimes alongside a placement agent. Compliance, legal, finance, operations and the deal team draft or check the answers in their own area, and senior partners sign off before anything reaches an investor.
Many GPs complete the ILPA DDQ before a fundraise starts and place it in the virtual data room with the other fund documents, so prospective investors can read it early.
How GPs answer an ILPA DDQ well
Investors read DDQ answers closely and test them against fund documents, reference calls and on-site meetings, so accuracy and consistency matter more than polish. These habits keep the work manageable from one fund to the next:
- Keep a maintained answer set: hold a current, reviewed answer for every section of the template, each with a named owner and a last-reviewed date, so each fundraise starts from a full draft.
- Reuse approved answers: start from language that compliance and legal have already cleared, then fit it to the exact wording of each investor question instead of pasting it in unchanged.
- Keep evidence current: update track record data, team biographies, policies and organization charts as they change, and check that each attachment matches the answers.
- Flag gaps: when a question asks about a policy, practice or data point the firm does not have, say so plainly and describe the current approach, rather than leaving the answer blank or vague.
- Stay consistent: make sure the DDQ agrees with the private placement memorandum, the limited partnership agreement and what the team has told investors in meetings.
- Follow the template structure: answer in the order and format the ILPA DDQ uses, so investors find each answer where they expect it.
- Keep a record: save the exact version and attachments sent to each investor, so follow-ups and later updates start from what that investor already has.
How the ILPA DDQ relates to other DDQs
The ILPA DDQ is a specialized form of the broader DDQ, or due diligence questionnaire, shaped around how private equity funds work: closed-end vehicles with long lives, capital called from investors over time, portfolio companies the manager works to improve and returns that depend on selling or listing those companies.
Hedge funds raise different issues, such as liquidity terms, leverage, trading, counterparties and the valuation of traded positions, so their investors often use the due diligence questionnaires published by the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA). Other templates and investor-built questionnaires cover areas such as real estate, private credit and operational due diligence, and many investment consultants keep their own.
These questionnaires also overlap with RFPs and RFIs. An investor may run a manager search through an RFP, then send the ILPA DDQ or its own DDQ to its shortlist. Because the same facts about the firm, team and controls appear in every format, a GP that keeps one consistent library of answers can respond to each faster and with fewer contradictions.
How XiCLOPS helps you answer an ILPA DDQ
XiCLOPS uses your own documents to fill out RFPs, RFIs and due diligence questionnaires, so your ILPA DDQ answers start from material your firm already has, such as past DDQs, policies and fund presentations. It works with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files.
You can see the source documents behind each answer, so your team can check where every response came from before the DDQ goes to an investor. Yellow highlights flag details your files do not cover, so you know where to add information or state a gap.
Your questionnaire comes back in its original format, and you can try one run free with no card required.