Pacific Defense, a portfolio company of HCI Equity Partners and Emerald Lake Capital Management, has acquired Spear Research.
Spear Research provides engineering-related research and development to the US government. The company specializes in radar and electronic warfare, signals intelligence, autonomous command and control, algorithm development, data analytics, hardware design and development, and integration and test services. Spear Research is a based in Nashua, New Hampshire.
HCI Equity and Emerald Lake formed Pacific Defense in January 2020 to invest in Spectranetix and Perceptronics. California-based Spectranetix provides open architecture systems used in ground, sea and air military platforms to address electronic warfare threats; and Virginia-based Perceptronics is a provider of artificial intelligence, decision support and machine learning software used in defense applications.
The buy of Spear adds to Pacific Defense’s services in advanced military open systems architecture used by the US Army and US Air Force. Pacific Defense is headquartered in El Segundo, California and is led by CEO Travis Slocumb.
“Delivered system performance is critical for end-user adoption of our technologies,” said Mr. Slocumb. “Spear’s expertise will help us ensure that our customers can port their applications and rapidly get the capabilities and performance they need to pace the growing and complex threat environment.”
Emerald Lake has more than $500 million in assets under management and was co-founded in 2018 by former Ares Capital professionals Daniel Lukas and Carling O’Brien. The firm has offices in Los Angeles and New York City.
HCI invests in industrial products and service companies that have from $20 million to $200 million in annual revenue and $5 million to $20 million in EBITDA. Sectors of interest include aerospace and defense; transportation products and services; distribution; infrastructure products and services; niche manufacturing; and industrial services. The firm, founded in 2003 and headquartered in Washington DC, is led by managing partners Dan Dickinson and Doug McCormick.
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