WestView Capital Partners has made a minority growth investment in tech-focused staffing and recruitment firm Triple Crown Consulting.
Triple Crown specializes in placing pre-vetted and hard-to-find engineering professionals – developers, architects, coders, analysts, and designers – needed in the semiconductor hardware, embedded systems, and software sectors. Many of the company’s clients, ranging from emerging startups to Fortune 500 companies, are active in consumer electronics, aerospace and defense, automotive, and manufacturing.
Triple Crown was founded in 2004 by CEO David Smith, COO Sabatino Guerriero, and CPO Padma Sunkara, and is headquartered in Austin, Texas, with additional offices in Arizona, California, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
“We are excited to partner with WestView for Triple Crown’s next chapter and strongly believe that their experience backing other high-growth specialized staffing businesses will be valuable to us going forward,” said Mr. Smith. “WestView’s investment is an important milestone in Triple Crown’s trajectory, and their focus on long-term collaborative partnership is strongly aligned with our own approach with our customers and employees.”
“Dave, Sab, and the entire Triple Crown leadership team have built an exceptional business that has become a clear market leader by strategically focusing on the semiconductor and silicon engineering market, where there is extremely strong demand for the type of highly skilled talent that the company specializes. We look forward to leveraging our experience to support and further enable their continued growth,” said Jonathan Hunnicutt, a managing partner at WestView.
Abacus Finance backed the WestView transaction by providing senior secured credit facilities as administrative agent and joint lead arranger. Additionally, Abacus partnered with WestView by making an equity co-investment in Triple Crown.
“As they have in the past, Abacus provided us with the assurance we were looking for to close the transaction in a timely manner. Their speed and flexibility are reasons we continue to grow the partnership between our two firms,” said Kevin Twomey, a principal at WestView.
“We were once again pleased to support a Westview transaction,” said Tim Clifford, president and CEO of Abacus. “Time and time again, Westview’s team impresses us with its industry knowledge and high-quality investment opportunities like Triple Crown Consulting.”
Abacus provides cash flow-based senior financing to private equity and family office-sponsored, lower-middle market companies that have EBITDA between $3 million and $15 million. Debt facilities can be as large as $50 million. Since Abacus’s founding in June 2011, it has closed over $3 billion in financings. Abacus is headquartered in New York City and is an affiliate of New York Private Bank & Trust which was founded in 1850.
“As in past transactions, our success was a function of our speed and flexibility – key aspects of our Total Partnership Approach,” added Sean McKeever, a managing director and COO at Abacus. “We were able to provide WestView with confidence in securing their financing throughout the entire process.”
“We were very impressed with the business that the management team of Triple Crown Consulting has built over the past 19 years, and we are looking forward to supporting the tremendous growth that lies ahead,” said Austin Rendell, a senior associate at Abacus.
WestView makes majority and minority investments of $20 million to $100 million in lower middle-market growth companies that have revenue of at least $10 million and operating profits between $3 million and $25 million. WestView’s investments are typically in founder-owned and managed companies that have not previously raised institutional capital. Sectors of interest include business services, software and IT services, consumer, healthcare technology and outsourcing, growth industrial, and consumer.
In January 2023, WestView closed its fifth fund, WestView Capital Partners V LP. The new fund was oversubscribed and at its hard cap with $1 billion of limited partner commitments.
© 2023 Private Equity Professional | June 22, 2023
