OceanSound Partners has held an oversubscribed, hard cap, and final close of OceanSound Partners Fund II LP with $1.5 billion of capital commitments.
Fund II closed at its revised hard cap and substantially above its original hard cap of $1.3 billion, above its target of $1.0 billion, and above its $780 million first fund which closed in February 2022.
Including co-investment vehicles and an $1.1 billion SMX Group continuation fund that closed in April 2024, OceanSound has raised just more than $2.1 billion of committed capital in connection with the Fund II.
Limited partners in Fund II include both existing and new limited partners, including pension plans, endowments and foundations, family offices, institutional consultants, asset management firms and insurance companies. Nearly all of the firm’s Fund I investors returned as investors in Fund II.
“We are extremely grateful for the support of our investors, who include some of the most respected institutional private equity investors,” said Joe Benavides, the managing partner of OceanSound. “Their support underscores our ability to identify attractive platform company investments which we can transform into more strategically valuable businesses due to our proprietary perspectives and standardized ownership processes.”
OceanSound makes control investments of $75 million to $300 million in North America-based technology and technology-enabled services companies serving the government and enterprise industries. Typical target companies will have enterprise values of $150 million to $750 million. With the close of Fund II, OceanSound now has $3.7 billion in assets under management and has invested in nine platform companies which, in turn, have completed 38 add-on acquisitions.
Last month, OceanSound acquired PAR Excellence Systems from Northlane Capital Partners. PAR is a Cincinnati-headquartered provider of inventory management systems— both hardware products and cloud-based software products —used by government, non-profit, and private healthcare organizations.

PAR’s systems use weight-based precision scales to track inventory levels continuously. Data from storage locations is transmitted to PAR’s software, which auto-generates orders and provides guidance for internal inventory refills.
“The successful closing of our second fund can be attributed to OceanSound’s differentiated, all-weather investment strategy together with proven execution which has included capital returned to investors from our inaugural fund,” added Mr. Benavides. “Since starting the firm shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, we have raised two funds, closed a continuation fund, returned the majority of our inaugural fund’s capital to our investors, and closed nearly 50 transactions in challenging markets, especially for newer firms. We could not be more pleased with all we have accomplished and are confident in our execution as we build a scalable private equity business.”
New York City-headquartered OceanSound was founded in 2019 and is led by Managing Partner and Co-Founder Joe Benavides alongside fellow partners and co-founders Ted Coons and Jeff Kelly.
© 2024 Private Equity Professional | October 2, 2024