Harvest Partners has brought aboard two partners to lead a platform designed to acquire mid-market companies operating in business and technology services.
Partners and Co-Heads of Harvest Partners Ascend are Bobby Kelly and Justin Lipton. Prior to joining the firm last month, Kelly served as a partner and co-founder of business information and tech-enabled services specialist CIP Capital, while Lipton served as the firm’s managing partner and co-founder.
Founded in 2010, New York City-based CIP Capital counts 12 active portfolio companies, along with four realized investments, according to its Web site. Its team page, now minus Lipton but listing Kelly as an advisor, lists 12 people, including Managing Partner Scott Marden.
New York City-based Harvest Partners, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, had raised at least $4 billion for the eighth in its series of flagship buyout funds by December 2019, according to an SEC filing. The fund is earmarked to acquire companies generating $30 million to $300 million of EBITDA in such fields as business services, industrial services, consumer, healthcare and software. The firm closed its third structured capital fund earlier this year at $1.28 billion, ahead of its $1 billion goal, according to its advisor on the fund, Davis Polk.
Kelly and Lipton are joining a private equity investment team that numbers 42 people, according to the Harvest Partners team page. Along with New York City, the firm has offices in Palo Alto, California and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
Kelly, according to his Linkedin profile, serves on the boards of CIP Capital portfolio companies Benefit Resource Inc. and People 2.0; Lipton serves on the board of home healthcare platform Pathwell, according to his Linkedin profile. Before founding CIP Capital, Kelly and Lipton worked during the first decade of this century as principals at DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, then part of Credit Suisse.
We were unable to reach executives at Harvest Partners for comment by press-time.