Truelink Capital Management, a Westwood-based private equity firm, has closed a $875 million inaugural fund, the company announced last week.
The fund was oversubscribed and surpassed the original target of $600 million, according to SEC documents.
Details surrounding which institutions participated were not disclosed, but Truelink Capital Management said investors included a range of pension plans, insurance companies, consultants and financial institutions.
Truelink Capital Management founders Todd Golditch and Luke Myers said in a statement that the oversubscribed round pointed to the firm’s experience.
“The strong LP demand, we believe, is a testament to our team and the strategy, demonstrating deep sector experience and value-orientation with a well-established process of driving operational improvements and executing strategic mergers and acquisitions,” Golditch and Myers said in a statement.
Getting its start
Golditch and Myers created Truelink Capital Management in 2022 amid an unsteady time in the fundraising market. Russia had just invaded Ukraine, inflation rates spiked and the equity markets were in decline.
“The bar was extremely high and we knew it was going to be a challenge. It turned out to be the hardest thing we’ve ever done,” Golditch said. “We completed four deals and so investors got to really see us, understand us. We met with each investor several times and got to show them we’re great stewards of capital.”
Golditch said the firm received over $2 billion in demand for the fund, but didn’t close at that amount in part because existing investors entered while the fund target was still at $600 million, and also because Truelink Capital Management decided to focus on middle market companies that have anywhere from $20 million to $75 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
“We wanted to go back to our roots in (the) middle market where it’s easier to drive outsized returns,” Golditch said.
In the last two years, Truelink Capital Management closed on four platform investments including Trulite, a glass and aluminum fabricator for the architectural industry, and a handful of marketing and sales technology platforms.
It also signed a deal last month to acquire HVAC solutions firm Air Distribution Technologies.
Several of its investments have made acquisitions themselves.
In February, sales training platform Richardson Sales Performance acquired sales enablement company e4enable. Truelink acquired Philadelphia-based Richardson Sales Performance last year.
“We are enthusiastic about Richardson’s high-quality and adaptable content, and we believe the company has a solid foundation for growth, industry-leading technology and global reach,” Myers said in a statement at the time of the acquisition.
Trulite, which was Truelink’s first acquisition, nabbed glass fabricator company AIG in March.
Marketing platform Ansira, which Truelink Capital Management acquired in 2023, announced earlier this month that it acquired BrandMuscle and SproutLoud. Both are channel partner marketing companies.
“Bringing together the best of Ansira’s tech and talent with BrandMuscle and SproutLoud creates a powerful force in ecosystem enablement,” Paul Tibbitt, chief executive of Ansira, said in a statement.
PE veterans
Golditch and Myers are both veterans of Platinum Equity, a long-standing private equity firm based in Beverly Hills that trademarked its ‘M&A&O’ (mergers and acquisitions and operations) approach.
Golditch said when he first started at Platinum Equity in 2001, “we were essentially a fundless private equity firm. We grew the firm substantially.”
“We carried over a similar investment thesis from Platinum Equity. We invest with an operational lens and an operational playbook,” he added.
Truelink Capital Management focuses on the industrials sector and tech-enabled services sector – Golditch’s and Myers’ respective verticals at Platinum Equity
“We take very much a long-term view as to how we can go about improving a company and optimizing the position of a company,” Golditch said.
