Top Private Equity
Innovator Awards 

Since our founding in 2000, Accel-KKR has focused solely on backing lower and middle-market software and tech-enabled services companies. In the 20-plus years, we have made more than 350 investments globally, and more than two-thirds of our investments are in founder-run businesses. Accel-KKR’s investing and operating professionals work closely with management teams to accelerate growth through strategic M&A, market, product, people and operational excellence. With our global network and resources, software investing and operating experience, we help businesses grow through organic growth and strategic M&A that oftentimes catapult companies to the forefront as market leaders of their respective industries. An example of transformative value creation by AKKR is the investment in Seequent, which was named by PE Hub as International Deal of the Year.

We deliver transformative value creation in part through our executive talent programs, where we recruit and develop a strong pool of world-class CEOs and other senior management personnel who are readily deployable into Alpine portfolio companies. Additionally, through years of building purpose-driven companies, we have identified strategic levers that lead to enduring businesses. With the Alpine Playbook, we bring founders market-tested, expert information to help them and their teams build companies that make them proud. Our Playbook team then offers coaching and guidance to our portfolio executives on how to put Playbook practices into action.

Altamont Capital Partners’ philosophical approach to business is focused on shared success, collaboration and openness. All our interactions – no matter where in the deal process – are guided by these principles. We also believe that strong relationships with management are fundamental to our success. We emphasize flexibility in our partnerships and understand that no two businesses are alike. Our capable team works directly with our partners to design solutions to fit the unique needs of each situation. In some cases, this requires non-traditional approaches to meet the objectives of all the constituents involved – including sellers, ongoing owners, co-investors and management teams. Our work with portfolio companies is very rewarding, and we’re proud to be partners in their accomplishments.

After making an investment, Aterian, in partnership with portfolio company management, pursues transformational involvement by improving talent and operational performance, facilitating capability-enhancing capital investment, refining strategic profiles, capitalizing on white space and, where appropriate, completing high-impact add-on acquisitions. In addition, Aterian relentlessly focuses on the critical growth, cost and liquidity initiatives of the business with all efforts meant to drive value creation.

Avance’s transformational approach is grounded in working in partnership with management teams, industry executives and functional experts to provide our portfolio companies with the resources necessary to achieve above-average growth. We do this via our S.T.A.G.E.™ value creation process.
S represents our robust Strategy creation and identification of resources needed to achieve it.
T represents Talent and our efforts to augment management and create relevant and additive boards of directors.
A is for Acquisitions and the strategic and financial assistance to pursue actionable add-ons.
G stands for Growth, bringing all of the above together as we seek to increase EBITDA and enterprise value.
E represents ESG and our efforts to improve various ESG metrics of each of our investments.

Bain Capital is the partner of choice for great companies as they grow. Our team works with companies to help them achieve their full potential and continue to grow, and our track record has included many successful start-ups, founder-led companies, turnarounds and carve-outs from larger corporate partners.

Bertram Capital utilizes Bertram Labs, its in-house digital development team, to add transformative value to our portfolio companies. Bertram Labs is a group of 15-plus highly skilled engineers, software developers, social media and digital marketing specialists, website designers, graphic artists and data scientists supporting value creation strategies across the Bertram portfolio. Bertram Labs has led or contributed to over 200 projects (since inception in 2006).

Each company Brighton Park invests in is different and requires strategic resources to address the specific needs of the individual portfolio company. Brighton Park provides expertise and support in all of the following areas: product innovation, growth and success, management and development, reach and expansion, operational efficacy and corporate development.

Broad Sky brings deep post-acquisition value creation resources to support its portfolio businesses. The firm studies the key forces shaping demand such as digital- and data-driven tech transformations, aging infrastructure, regulatory complexity, business automation and socio-demographic transitions across our categories of focus. We have a fully built-out team of 17 professionals of which seven are operators. A fully dedicated Portfolio Resource Group partners with companies to take advantage of the opportunities created by shifts in the market and build value.

Charlesbank is an innovator in driving transformative value creation by leveraging deep sector knowledge, strategic insights and tested processes, while applying scalable playbooks and operating practices to systematically unlock value. During diligence, the team prioritizes key value creation levers for organic and inorganic growth. As owners, they work closely with management to achieve a defined value creation plan, employing a playbook that leverages the firm’s robust Portfolio Resources Group and industry network to accelerate EBITDA. Importantly, the firm’s culture encourages team members at all levels to contribute to innovation and value creation. Whether in expanding markets, introducing product extensions, attracting M&A, driving salesforce effectiveness or building management teams, Charlesbank is adept at creating transformative value for better, faster company growth.

Compass Group adopts a distinctive strategy in supporting portfolio companies through its in-house team of SMEs known as Compass Guides. These experts offer readily available senior-level advisory services and assistance across key areas such as human resources, general counsel, digital transformation and marketing. This approach prioritizes not only investing in the companies but also in their people, equipping them with essential tools and resources crucial for their success. In 2023, the Guides received more than 250 project requests to support portfolio company leadership.

The foundation of Cortec Group's unique, value-added business model is the strong relationships that exist between Cortec's long-tenured senior team and the leadership at each of the firm's portfolio companies. Cortec's proven investment model capitalizes on the comprehensive business acumen of its team, with deep sector knowledge in consumer, healthcare and B2B products and services. Cortec focuses on being the first control institutional investor in its platform acquisitions and, post-closing, works unusually closely with its portfolio company leadership teams.

Council Capital has highly differentiated portfolio value creation capabilities that they bring to bear in a partner-oriented manner. These capabilities include:
1) The CEO Council, which is a group of three dozen public and private sector leaders who are active investors in and advisors of the fund;
2) Generalist chief of staff support, comprised of former strategy consultants and operators;
3) Subject matter experts employed by the fund in a growing number of functional areas, such as talent and finance;
4) A broad set of preferred partnerships; and
5) A collaborative ecosystem of innovation and best practices sharing across portfolio companies.

Cressey & Company takes a partnership approach to its investments. Through thoughtful thematic work, the firm identifies leaders in sub-sectors of healthcare and partners during an inflection point in each company's growth story to build leading healthcare businesses. Cressey & Company has built out various resources across operations, human resources, finance and business development to support its partner companies in excelling.

Crest Rock’s approach to operational excellence is based on its S.E.A. Framework – Strategy, Execution, Accountability – a constantly evolving feedback loop that ensures alignment and value maximization for all stakeholders. The framework is customized to each individual investment according to their strategic goals, the team that is in place and the performance metrics that best represent how to track progress. The S.E.A. Framework is only possible through successful partnership with management.

The dynamic combination of strategic insight and operational excellence with a suite of Operating Partners enables Diversis Capital to consistently reshape industries. The firm's unique ability to identify untapped potential in companies, coupled with a genuine dedication to fostering collaboration, creates an environment where companies can achieve transformative growth and establish themselves as market leaders in their space.

FFL is exclusively committed to a hyper-specialized sourcing and value creation process called Sector Exploration and Expertise Development (“SEED”), through which the firm identifies potential niches for investment within healthcare and tech-enabled services. In each SEED area, FFL spends many quarters, and often multiple years, validating its investment thesis, developing proprietary angles, insights, and SEED-specific adviser relationships, and curating a pipeline of target companies. FFL believes that this extensive SEED experience is crucial to performing thorough and efficient due diligence on individual opportunities and driving differentiated investment results.

Serving as a shared resource to the fund's portfolio companies, the Frazier Center of Excellence team provides functional domain expertise in finance, human capital, information technology, legal, mergers & acquisitions, and operations management.
•73 ongoing COE guided programs
•$34 million projected EBITDA impact
•$510 million estimated NEV impact

Frontenac is a pioneer when it comes to executive-led investing. We have institutionalized our CEO1ST investing strategy over 30 years. Our success is driven by our honest, straightforward and thoughtful investment approach, highlighted by our history of over 300 transactions. With the help of our CEO1ST partners we come into situations well informed and have a reputation for coming to the table only if we are serious about engaging in a situation.

One of Gauge's core principals is maintaining a culture that creates alignment between Gauge and our partners. Gauge has a uniquely high GP commitment, and average management ownership across the portfolio is over 25%, as these factors lead to a highly collaborative approach between Gauge and the companies Gauge partners with. Gauge is an active, hands-on partner. Gauge believes that the financial, operational and investment expertise of the firm, coupled with the operating capabilities of Gauge’s network of operators and strategic investors, form the basis of a powerful value creation approach.

Prior to making an investment, Gemspring works alongside management to identify actionable opportunities for growth and operational improvement. In addition, Gemspring focuses on removing structural complexities and other barriers that limit a company’s potential. Strategy and execution are unique to each company, but initiatives most often involve investing in talent and infrastructure, expanding into new markets, optimizing operations, and pursuing both strategic add-on acquisitions and larger transformational acquisitions.

Genstar partners with outstanding management teams, seeking to grow their companies and drive transformational change. We bring financial resources, deep sector experience, and a commitment to making the journey as rewarding as the destination.

Great Hill is a true partner to its portfolio companies’ management teams, providing robust executive networks, deep domain expertise and strategic counsel across its five core sectors – software, digital commerce, financial technology, healthcare, and digital infrastructure – to accelerate company growth and enhance value. As part of its value creation approach, Great Hill employs a dedicated group of growth partners who work together with investment teams and portfolio companies in an effort to accelerate businesses by optimizing efforts across go-to-market, customer acquisition, product expansion and strategic talent initiatives, as well as geographic expansion and sourcing strategic acquisitions.

We possess deep networks, broad industry and transaction experience and the ability to customize solutions for business owners. More than an investor, we value our longstanding relationships that make us a unique and valued partner. Our portfolio is made up of a diverse set of companies with varied strategies, leadership teams and investment horizons. Collectively, they are all led by hard-working and successful individuals who care deeply about their employees and share the same vision and values as GRC. We understand and appreciate each company's culture and heritage. Our goal is to honor the secret to their success and grow with them.

GreyLion utilizes their "LIFT" playbook to drive value creation in each of their companies. During the diligence process, GreyLion seeks to understand how the business could scale in 5-10 years and how can we help them achieve that goal via:

Leadership - talent and HR resources to support growth
Investment - re-investing in businesses and their infrastructure to catalyze geographic and product expansion
Flexibility - conservative balance sheet management as well as flexible structures (control or minority)
Technology - best in class systems and processes to drive efficiency and production

Gridiron Capital works in partnership with management teams and founders to build market-leading businesses, creating more value for customers, employees, managers, and investors. The game plan looks different for each business, but it’s always based on a proven combination of investment philosophy and repeatable processes.

The investment strategy is centered on control buyouts in mid-market companies operating in technology, information services, healthcare, and financial services sub-sectors, emphasizing data-rich and growth-focused entities. The approach involves leveraging data analytics, machine learning/artificial intelligence (AI/ML), and a comprehensive digital transformation and human capital strategy to accelerate growth and foster value creation. A key focus is placed on identifying companies where data serves as a strategic asset, playing a vital role in driving significant operational decisions at scale to enhance revenue. This strategy uniquely integrates deep investment experience with functional expertise in AI, digital transformation, and human capital within a single organization, with the Investment Committee comprising both senior investment and senior functional leaders.

GTCR is a leading private equity firm that pioneered The Leaders Strategy™ – finding and partnering with management leaders in core domains to identify, acquire and build market-leading companies through organic growth and strategic acquisitions.

HCI looks for strong businesses that can serve as attractive entry points into large, fragmented, stable industries. An initial platform investment is typically small relative to the size of the overall market opportunity. HCI underwrites its ability to add value and drive transformational growth as much as the initial platform company itself. During due diligence, the HCI team collaborates with company management and outside executive partners to develop a shared vision for growth and a detailed roadmap to achieve it. After closing, HCI deal professionals serve as the "M&A engine"– identifying, negotiating, consummating, and financing strategic acquisitions, while the HCI operations team assists with M&A integration helping to drive organic EBITDA growth – ensuring excellence in sales and marketing, supply chain, operations, finance, and IT/data analytics functions, among others. Outside executive partners bring highly relevant industry expertise, relationships, potential M&A targets, and in some cases functional expertise to augment our operations team. We install people, process, and technology infrastructure early to support the strategy and drive long-term growth in excess of the market. As each platform matures, we ensure that HCI’s initial areas of engagement are supplanted by the same capabilities installed within the company so it thrives well beyond our ownership.

Heartwood Partners’ support for transformational value creation includes three unique strengths:
1) Internal Heartwood senior value-creation resources in human resources, information technology, productivity enhancement, digital marketing and Ecommerce
2) Emphasis on creating strong and engaged boards and deep management teams focused on long-term strategic development
3) High-equity and low-debt capital structures that provide broad operating flexibility.
Investment company management teams are empowered to make significant investments in people, productive assets, and strategic acquisitions to achieve aggressive value-creation goals.

We start with people – building great teams is core to everything that we do. We have a proven, replicable process of creating operational value through our set of standard operating procedures.

At Housatonic Partners, we know that building long-term relationships with excellent people is the key to building successful companies. We enjoy working with the business builders that we support with our capital and experience. Over the years, we’ve worked to create a culture and framework where CEOs and entrepreneurs feel valued as individuals and treated fairly as business partners.

Our focus within facility & infrastructure services and professional services drives a thematic, thesis-first investment approach we’ve branded “ExecFactor”. Our ExecFactor program is designed to underwrite and commit capital to a CEO and/or management team and thesis within a sector of focus prior to pursing and closing an initial platform acquisition. Huron has a dedicated, internal 2-person team that manages and employs this institutionalized and systematic repeatable process to thesis development through comprehensive research and “white papers”. Pairing this proactive thesis-driven approach with a 25-year history of executing accretive buy-and-build strategies in fragmented sectors drives transformative value creation across the portfolio.

Within IOP, we bring together experienced investing professionals with our exclusive and full-time operating principals. We utilize the operating principals to partner with management at each platform company to create value throughout our investment period from investment diligence and strategic planning to operational execution and realization. To date, IOP has raised $1.5 billion in committed capital from a base of institutional investors including endowments, pension funds and foundations. We have invested in 25-plus platform companies over our history.

We have a dedicated team of senior operating partners working in conjunction with Inverness management teams to onboard, integrate and drive value through our hold period.

Since 2017, Kinzie has led and executed five acquisitions, two of which were add-on acquisitions to portfolio companies. By leveraging Kinzie’s strategic partnership with technology experts Clarity Partners, the firm has been able to address major “tech debt” issues and position our companies for scalable growth. Just this month, Kinzie’s portfolio company GT Golf Supplies acquired The ProActive Sports Group in a move that will help position the company as the largest golf accessories distributor in the U.S. Beyond that, Kinzie leadership remains deeply committed to the innovation and modernization of each portfolio company long after the papers are signed to ensure the partnership is being utilized to its full potential.

LFM excels in transformative value creation because of our extensive operating experience in manufacturing. We bring real experience to the companies we partner with and, from walking in their shoes, understand how to be excellent partners to our management teams. We believe in building strong relationships based on transparency and trust and work together, with our management teams, to achieve outstanding results. We are also able to create meaningful value through our recruiting networks, including being a partner of MIT's Leadership for Global Operations program, that help our teams excel.

Livingbridge takes full advantage of its global footprint to help its investees pursue unique growth opportunities. For Veramed, a U.K.-based biostatistics and programming CRO, we've aided management in executing global M&A, acquiring a U.S. competitor to add both geographic and product scale to the platform. Livingbridge can also enable organic growth, as we have done with Quorum Cyber, a leading managed security provider. From the day we invested in Quorum, we pursued aggressive organic growth in the U.S., outside its existing U.K. market presence. By helping Quorum management build a U.S. go-to-market function, we've significantly accelerated growth in the business.

LLR believes that companies choose growth partners not only for the value of their capital, but for the value that they can create together. Our dedicated Value Creation Team (VCT) brings together deep functional and operating expertise, a multi-touch and collaborative process, and data-driven advisory services to help companies gain a unique competitive advantage in their markets and the opportunity to reach their highest potential. It’s a cross-functional and non-prescriptive approach that can help enable LLR portfolio companies to achieve or exceed their growth aspirations over the life of the investment. Together, we grow companies every day.

Long Ridge has maintained a special focus on bootstrapped businesses, and takes an active, board-level approach to collaborate with founders and operators to create value in the following ways:
1) Understanding the unique culture of founder-led businesses and strategically augmenting the boards/executive teams with talented, like-minded individuals from our industry network
2) Supporting and/or leading the sourcing and evaluation of add-on acquisitions and transformational M&A targets to enhance scale and industry position
3) Identifying strategic initiatives (e.g., pricing, product enhancements) and providing resources to support management in realizing them
4) Enhancing internal controls and reporting to improve governance and position companies for a successful exit
5) Leading debt/equity financings and exit processes

LMP's deep industry experience and founder-friendly approach enable it to partner with management teams to deploy growth strategies and drive technological advancement that positions businesses for long-term sustainable growth. Through its network of industry relationships and decades of collective experience, LMP strives to deliver value to its investors and strategic partners alike. By establishing a corporate culture of integrity, sound ethics, and fairness, measured by the collaborative partnership of its investors and company management teams, LMP has raised approximately $4.75 billion of committed capital from leading institutional investors and completed over 50 portfolio company investments and 175 add-on acquisitions since its inception.

With deep consumer expertise and proven resources, we work alongside management teams, pairing our business acumen and vision with theirs to execute winning, brand-building strategies and build enduring businesses that thrive well beyond our involvement.

We look for businesses where we believe we can apply our hands-on experience, institutional capabilities, and proprietary value creation framework to benefit management teams in their next phase of growth and build value for our investors. McNally Capital’s investment team has a proven track record in driving the evolution of founder and management-led businesses along their growth journeys. We utilize nine distinct levers to drive value within each aspect and functional area of a company from sourcing to exit.

MiddleGround is unique in two respects: Focus and functional expertise. We focus on industrial B2B, manufacturing and specialty distribution companies and only consider firms that we have a strong conviction that our operations team can have an impact on. We also prioritize those that fall within our defined thesis areas: mobility, industry 4.0, industrial revolution, and infrastructure. MiddleGround has also prioritized functional expertise. In a competitive market, it’s up to every firm to make sure you have the right people. We have built ESG, data science and automation teams to build modern, efficient and sustainable practices across our portfolio.

MidOcean takes good middle-market companies and makes them into exceptional businesses. We identify multiple growth levers for each of our portfolio companies and develop detailed execution plans around them. We do this in close consultation with our 26 world-class operating resources, who are truly the lifeblood of MidOcean’s business and bring countless years of C-suite experience at large/mega-cap companies within our areas of expertise to the middle-market. Our operating partner group – one of the largest in the middle-market – works hand-in-hand with our investment team, providing differentiated insights and driving transformative growth across our portfolios.

Monomoy is committed to providing both partnership and operational expertise to our portfolio companies. From the beginning of diligence and throughout ownership, Monomoy’s integrated investment and operating teams collaborate with the portfolio company, leveraging our operating toolkit to identify areas for optimization. Using a multi-dimensional, data-based approach, the deal team develops and implements a value creation plan customized to each portfolio company’s needs. Monomoy’s robust operating team includes professionals from a variety of backgrounds who are able to provide critical support and resources to each company, bringing best practices from across the portfolio and industry to accelerate value creation.

New Harbor was founded on the idea that focus, planning, collaboration and experience can produce long-term, sustainable, and superior results. We believe our research-driven model, creativity, and determination set the standard for private equity partnerships. Our partners have over 90 years of combined experience, partnering with strong management teams to systematically enable accelerated growth in value creation. We help create and accelerate growth opportunities by supporting founders and management with resources, expertise, intensity and drive. We believe our thesis-based approach and extensive experience building and accelerating growth have led to a number of successful business partnerships.

New Heritage works to double and triple the size of its portfolio companies, helping put in place the right combination of people, process and infrastructure to enable continued growth. Working with successful founders requires strong collaboration and partnership, qualities that define the New Heritage culture and our approach to transformative value creation.

New State’s value creation playbook has been refined over a decade plus of experience partnering with founders to scale their businesses. Our fully integrated, in-house operations team is aligned across six key value creation levers: strategy, financial, talent, tech enablement, lean operations, and revenue / go-to-market. Each lever is spearheaded by a senior operating with deep expertise in that function, who can engage in a flexible manner with our portfolio companies – as a player or as a coach – across the deal life cycle. We seek to at least double EBITDA, which we have now accomplished across six investments to date.

As part of the investment thesis formed prior to closing, each NexPhase Capital deal team seeks to identify specific and actionable value creation opportunities through foundational and growth investments. Post-close, NPC seeks to implement these value creation initiatives by leveraging the industry relationships and expertise of the investment team and operating executives, while also setting corporate direction and driving operational improvements over the life of the investment. The investment team has experience working with management teams to actively drive growth through foundational investments, including recruiting senior management, designing organizational structures and compensation plans, establishing or upgrading business processes and infrastructure, strengthening reporting systems, and developing key metrics for measuring company performance.

Nordic Capital is driving transformative growth with deep sector knowledge. We do this by partnering closely with founders and management teams to build strong companies and trusted partnerships. By focusing on driving accelerated growth and value creation from genuine business transformation, we can power-boost a joint plan to make great companies even better. We bring structure, capital, international sector and operational expertise, and a strong external network to help management teams realize their business plan, accelerate growth and develop in a sustainable way. With a common goal and a shared value creation plan, we can achieve great results together. Our proven Ownership Excellence model makes a difference at the core.

We believe in championing our companies. We find and fuel what’s working in successful companies. Making our companies’ goals our own, we further build core capabilities to accelerate growth and create long-term value for our stakeholders. We connect our companies to value-add resources and functional expertise to support key initiatives and best practices. These include acquisitions, organizational development and talent acquisition, debt financing, ecommerce and digital strategies, sales and operations planning (S&OP), legal/compliance, strategic planning, supply chain, and pricing strategies.

OpenGate Capital seeks to drive performance improvement and growth in complex businesses that OpenGate believes are performing below their potential.

At ParkerGale, we are in the "buy and transform" business. Investors and operators work shoulder-to-shoulder with portfolio company management teams to build predictability, scalability, and profitability while driving innovation and pursuing acquisitions.

The Periscope team is comprised of investors and former operators with a demonstrated track record of enabling organizational transformation through targeted investment that unlocks above-market growth, an unmatched customer value.

One of our foundations at Permanent Equity is to focus on being helpful, not impressive. One thing we did to that end 2023 was open-source our diligence process to empower sellers to confidently navigate that stage of deal-making. This content was not developed to manipulate valuation or facilitate faster exits. These tools were developed to help real deals, those based in reality, successfully close. We want small business owners to know that if they go to market to sell their business they are more likely than not to receive a fair valuation via a reliable process.

Platform Partners excels in proactive due diligence. Almost every investment Platform has made since 2006 has been outside a traditional auction process. This requires completing a comprehensive due diligence process using our network of industry experts, operating partners and third-party diligence providers introduced to us through BluWave. As a result, Platform’s team is required to interface directly with prospective portfolio companies, often synthesizing data that has not been filtered through an intermediary. While this often leads to the due diligence period taking longer than typical middle-market transactions, the result is underwriting the risks and opportunities more thoroughly than most private equity firms.

Since our founding in 2006, approximately two-thirds of Platte River Equity’s investments have been partnerships with founders and entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurial and operational backgrounds of our partners provide the firm a strong appreciation for what it takes to build a business and how an outside investor can help accelerate growth. Founders and entrepreneurs face a wide variety of challenges and opportunities unique to them, ranging from estate and succession planning to solidifying a legacy and stability for the next generation of leaders within the business. Our focused industry experience, the resources we have to offer to support our portfolio companies and the financial alignment as the largest investor across our funds combine to position Platte River as a unique partner to founder-owned businesses. Across our history, sellers have averaged a rollover investment of ~20%, demonstrating the partnership approach Platte River has established.

We aim to be a strategic thought partner who will be involved and additive to our portfolio companies in select, high impact areas. To that end, we are highly focused on bringing both internal and external resources to bear in helping our portfolio companies capitalize on and grow their opportunity set. We've identified three consistent areas of value creation across the portfolio (corporate development/ strategy, finance, and product/ marketing) and matched this with in house experienced, operating executives who provide advice, guidance, and thoughtful partnership to our operators. Outside of these three areas, we leverage external resources such as BluWave and our own curated network to ensure each company has access to well matched player-coaches.

We deeply understand the challenges and opportunities that come with lower middle-market companies. We have spent decades collaborating with business owners and management teams to scale companies. We work as a thought and capital partner, providing the resources and guidance necessary to enable companies to accelerate growth and thrive. How we get there is as important as the end result. Our approach to partnership comes out of a cohesive culture, unwavering ethics and an abiding sense of stewardship.

We believe owners and managers choose us because we have a long term track record of helping grow and develop businesses and creating value. Culture, Concept, Collaboration and Commitment are what we look for and what we bring to the table. Middle-market companies typically do not have in-house resources to focus on the full breadth of organic and M&A growth initiatives. Our corporate development experience helps us identify opportunities to accelerate organic growth, improve profitability and return on capital in the core business and originate, structure and execute strategic acquisitions.

Our operations value proposition is primarily designed to enable our companies to grow faster and more profitably. We deploy experienced, multi-disciplinary software executives as well as functional experts in sales and marketing, product, and R&D to develop and help drive value creation plans for our companies. Our objective is to work “shoulder to shoulder” with our executive teams on these objectives, and to unlock new operational initiatives which might not have been possible for the business to consider and achieve prior to our involvement.

RFE Investment Partners has been a pioneer in the lower middle-market private equity landscape for over four decades and has crafted a proven playbook for transformative value creation. The firm strategically targets founder and management-led companies seeking a collaborative partner to help fund and, more importantly, navigate their next phase of growth. At the core of RFE’s value creation playbook is an unwavering commitment to an employee-centric approach, combined with targeted strategies to develop world-class management teams, inorganic growth engines and intelligent data and systems infrastructure. Together, these initiatives drive growth and transform RFE’s investments into leading middle-market platforms.

We have a unique approach to operational value creation that involves Ronin embedding its own deal team into every company we acquire. These team members serve as interim senior executives at the business for a period of at least 6-12 months on a full-time basis and we move to the company in the process. During this time, we actively engage with the business by working alongside the existing management team, if there is one, on a daily basis. Specifically, we embed at least three Ronin deal team members in the business to run all day-to-day operations and decision making of the back-office. This includes overseeing the finance, HR, IT, legal, communications, procurement, and sales operations functions.

Through its 25-plus person in-house Growth Team, Serent offers hands-on support to help companies accelerate growth. This includes strategic and operational assistance to drive revenue generation, support in building top-tier executive teams, and guidance for transformative M&A. Combining teams with broad-based consulting and operator toolkits with topical experts within centers of excellence, Serent consistently creates value for portfolio companies, generating then executing against value creation plans with focus across, sales and marketing, pricing, payments, and product and tech domains. The team has successfully engaged in over 150 strategic initiatives for their portfolio companies.

We’re fortunate to have over 900 partnerships with small and mid-sized businesses. We’ve learned and built resources to help grow faster with less risk. Our “Fortune 500” caliber resources for entrepreneurs are: the Portfolio Performance Group (PPG), Shore University, and an elite board. The PPG is 50-plus team members dedicated to helping navigate growth and share learnings. Shore University offers leadership development as a competitive advantage in skill building, knowledge sharing, and networking. An elite board, or as we say, executives from the Mount Rushmore of an industry, bring experience, connections, and ideas to start fast and scale effectively.

Shoreline Equity Partners partners with leading management teams of lower middle-market companies to accelerate their businesses. We bring resources to bare that allow management teams to focus on the business while we help with strategic initiatives spanning human capital, M&A to new market expansion.

Sixth Street creates solutions that meet the strategic objectives of management teams by utilizing the long-term flexible capital, deep domain expertise, and cross-platform collaboration that power our firm. We operate as one unified team of investment and control-side professionals bringing the full insight, resources, and knowledge of Sixth Street to every investment. Our comprehensive capabilities and operational experience enhance the businesses we invest in, which include many of the world's leading companies. In addition, we aim to offer operational expertise from strategy to tactics across every functional area with the intent to catapult our portfolio companies forward in scale, growth, and efficiency.

We're driven by a simple commitment to founders and CEOs: No surprises. We’ve built our business working with smart and passionate entrepreneurs who, like us, know that enduring partnerships require respect, honesty, and transparency. We focus on understanding their company’s challenges and opportunities up front—so they know we’re equipped to help them achieve your goals. Then, we will agree on a future vision and a concrete set of actions we will take together before signing a deal. This is what we call the Five-Point Plan. We've already reached a consensus on strategic initiatives, agreed on what will define success, and founders and CEOs know they have the capital and resources to executive on those initiatives from the day the transaction closes. Because we’ve collaboratively planned and aligned on every upcoming step, we can hit the ground running on day one.

Sumeru has a long history of collaboration with founders and management teams. Our team is built with a combination of technology investors and executives that leverage deep scaling expertise across product & technology, go-to-market, pricing and packaging, customer success, finance, building teams, M&A, and more to bring transformative value to our portfolio companies. Outside of the day-to-day interactions portfolio companies have with the Sumeru team, we hold regular scaling summits to disseminate learnings across the portfolio and to enable executives to share insights with one another in a synergistic manner.

Halifax employs a strategy-led value creation approach, the Halifax ValuFactors, which are aimed at unlocking value during our hold period. Our process begins, in partnership with management, by developing a strategic blueprint for success that will inform our efforts to (i) strengthen the platform and drive operational improvement and (ii) execute a growth strategy via organic growth and a re-positioning the business.

Everything we do is dedicated to supercharging growth at the smaller end of the middle-market. After more than 1,000 investments, our passion for seeking to deliver transformative growth has never been stronger. We write our story carefully and precisely – one investment at a time. Riverside strives to foster long-term success through fundamental operating improvements and add-on acquisitions. We prefer to partner with sellers seeking to remain involved in the company, then working together to drive growth.

Our value creation process accelerates growth by providing our companies with the right resources and strategic guidance to materially scale organically and via acquisitions. Our Value Creation Plans (VCPs) are developed and refined collaboratively with our management teams and are customized to each business, with a focus on driving growth.

Trive invests in businesses at an inflection point, with teams who are ready to take their business to the next level. The cornerstone of Trive’s philosophy is to develop collaborative partnerships with management teams to drive value and tackle challenges. With an extensive background and experience base in operations, the Trive team approaches investing with an operational mindset, and we aim to serve as a value-added resource to our management teams over the long term. The investment team dedicates meaningful bandwidth towards operational improvements with each portfolio company.

Trivest has made a conscious effort to bolster its efforts across both ESG and DEI. As a signatory of the UN Principles for Responsible Investing, and with industry-leading partnerships for third-party oversight and accountability of its initiatives, Trivest has put a focus on uncovering challenges and opportunities related to ESG at the firm level and throughout its portfolio. Similarly, Trivest is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce, highlighted by the recent hire of its first-ever Director of ESG to oversee these initiatives. Roughly 50% of new hires over the past 24 months identify as diverse.