Growth is when a good companygets the chance to break itself.
A business that has found its market is not safe. It is exposed. The thing that made it work — a founder who knew every customer, a product that fit one segment exactly, a sales motion that lived in one person's head — is the same thing that cannot survive being multiplied by ten.
We invest at that point, and only at that point. Not at the idea, where we would be guessing, and not at the roll-up, where the answer is arithmetic. In between, where the answer is operational and the failure modes are boring: the second product ships late, the first VP of Sales does not work out, the pricing model was never a model, the data room reveals that nobody has closed the books in nine weeks.
Our diligence is unromantic on purpose. We read the churn cohort by cohort. We call twelve customers, not the three the company chooses. We build the operating plan before we build the model, because the model is downstream of whether the plan is possible. Then we say a number and we do not re-trade it.
“We are not looking for a company that needs us. We are looking for one that would be fine without us and would be two years faster with us.”Dana Reyes-Whitfield · Managing Partner
Pre-scale go-to-market
One board seat
Four bands.The same filter applied to each.
Vertical software
Systems of record for industries that still run on a spreadsheet and a phone call. We care whether the software is where the work happens, not whether it is where the reporting happens.
since 2003
Payments & embedded finance
Flow businesses with a real take rate and a regulator who knows their name. We underwrite the licence stack before the growth rate.
since 2009
Technology-enabled services
Margin structures that improve with volume because software absorbed a step a human used to do. If the gross margin is flat at scale, it is a services business and we are the wrong buyer.
since 2006
Infrastructure software
Sold to engineers, renewed by finance. Long sales cycles, long lives. The only band where we will accept a negative first year.
since 2011
What actually changes,and what deliberately does not.
The finance function, inside ninety days
A close that lands in five business days, a cohort model that survives an auditor, and a forecast the board can argue with. It is unglamorous and it is the thing that most often was not there. We have never once found it already working at the standard we need.
Hiring, at a rate nobody expects
Eighty-one executives hired into portfolio companies in twenty-three years, against two chief executives removed — both times at the founder’s request. The ratio is the point. Our talent partner sits with the company two days a month for the first year.
Price
Every company we have owned has raised price at least once, and every one of them expected it to go worse than it did. We bring the analysis and the scar tissue; the decision stays with the company, and twice it has been no.
Week one
No hundred-day plan written by someone who has met four of your people. The first fortnight is reading and listening.
The name and the building
Unchanged in every one of the twelve current positions.
The leadership team
Unless it is broken. We bought a minority of something that already works.
The board
One seat, eight meetings a year, papers on the Thursday. The company is not run from it and we do not pretend otherwise.
“Twice we have been the reason a company slowed down. Both times we were on the board and both times we were wrong.”Dana Reyes-Whitfield & Iyad Nassour · Managing Partners
Twelve current positions,entry figures as at close.
| Company | Band | Entered | ARR at entry | Stake |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HalverdineClaims workflow for specialty insurers | Vertical software | 2019 | $31M | 24% |
| PortmaneCross-border payouts for marketplaces | Payments | 2020 | $44M | 18% |
| SetterlineField service scheduling, trades | Vertical software | 2020 | $22M | 31% |
| OvenmarkCommercial kitchen procurement | Tech-enabled services | 2021 | $58M | 16% |
| BrightseamApparel supply-chain tracing | Tech-enabled services | 2021 | $27M | 28% |
| LoftwaterUtility billing and arrears | Vertical software | 2022 | $36M | 22% |
| CarrowenEmbedded lending for equipment dealers | Payments | 2022 | $51M | 19% |
| Aldergate SystemsObservability for regulated estates | Infrastructure | 2023 | $40M | 17% |
| PellweatherCrop insurance underwriting data | Infrastructure | 2023 | $19M | 34% |
| VerrowakeFreight audit and payment | Payments | 2024 | $63M | 14% |
| Munstead LabsClinical trial site software | Vertical software | 2024 | $25M | 26% |
| KerrowfieldIndustrial maintenance planning | Tech-enabled services | 2025 | $33M | 21% |
The shape of the deal,stated before you ask.
Primary, with secondary considered where a founder has been at it a decade.
Minority, always. We have never taken control of a company and do not intend to start.
One board seat and one observer. Protective provisions limited to the four our LPs require; we send the list before the term sheet.
Annualised recurring at entry, growing 30% or better, with net revenue retention above 105%.
North America and Western Europe. We will not lead a first institutional round in a market where we have not sat on a board.
Indicative terms from a data room, then confirmatory diligence in five weeks. We have never re-traded on price after signing.
Send the deck or send the question.
Founders
Dana Reyes-Whitfield and Iyad Nassour read every inbound, and you will hear back either way within five business days. If it is not for us we will tell you which of the four bands you are actually in and who in it is better placed than we are.
Send us the businessBankers and advisers
We will give you a view inside a week and a number inside two. If the process is already running, tell us where it is and we will tell you honestly whether we can catch it.
