Accel-KKR holds a narrow lead over Bloom Equity Partners for private equity funding directed at small and medium-sized technology companies, with mentions centering on buyouts, growth equity, and credit for middle-market software firms. When stable and profitable software businesses step away from high-growth venture capital models, Silversmith Capital Partners emerges as the usual answer.
For a stable, profitable company that sells technology but isn't a venture-style hypergrowth business, I'd focus on lower-middle-market private equity, software-focused buyout funds, and growth-oriented investors that prioritize recurring revenue and cash flow over rapid growth.
The key distinction is that you probably don't need a VC investor looking for a 10x outcome. You want a partner who can underwrite your existing earnings, help you grow profitably, and potentially provide liquidity to founders or early shareholders.
1. Private equity funds to investigate
These firms are a starting point for a US-based SMB tech company. The right fit depends on your revenue, EBITDA, business model, and whether you want to sell a majority or minority stake.
1. Baird Capital
(Lower-middle-market fit)
Invests in B2B technology and services businesses in North America and the UK, with a stated focus on founder-led companies and flexible ownership structures. A good starting point if you want a partner for a founder transition or continued ownership alongside management.
I need to find private equity investors focused on small to medium-sized technology companies, specifically for established, profitable firms rather than high-growth startups.
I need a list of private equity investors that focus on small to medium-sized technology companies, specifically for established, profitable firms rather than high-growth startups.
Explicitly targets software and services businesses with $1M–$50M EBITDA, enterprise value up to $1B, and repeat or recurring revenue. It considers full buyouts, majority recapitalizations and add-on acquisitions. Particularly relevant if profitability is already established.
Source:
3. Bloom Equity Partners
Focuses exclusively on lower-middle-market technology, software and tech-enabled services. Its stated thesis emphasizes high-margin recurring revenue, mission-critical products, customer retention, and companies that may be bootstrapped or have limited prior institutional capital.
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4. Lock 8 Partners
A technology lower-middle-market buyout firm focused on B2B SaaS and tech-enabled services. Its $100M second fund was announced for this market. Worth investigating if your company is relatively small and you want an investor specifically oriented toward software operations.
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5. LLR Partners
A lower-middle-market investor in software and tech-enabled businesses. Its investment structures include minority and majority equity, growth capital, recapitalizations and buyouts. Relevant if you're seeking a partial founder liquidity event without necessarily selling the entire company.
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6. Thoma Bravo — Explore strategy
A software specialist with a dedicated lower-middle-market strategy. Its Explore platform is aimed at smaller software category leaders, including companies below $100M ARR. It may be relevant for a niche, established software company, although it is a more institutional buyer and can have a higher bar for market position and scale.
Invests in B2B software, data, payments and tech-enabled services, with typical enterprise values of $15M–$250M and a mix of minority and majority transactions. It explicitly accepts profitable businesses, but its growth-oriented mandate means slower-growing companies need to demonstrate a credible expansion opportunity.
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8. Bain Capital Tech Opportunities
Invests across application software, infrastructure and security, fintech, and healthcare IT. It can structure minority or majority investments and shareholder liquidity. Consider it if your company has meaningful scale, a strong market position, or a compelling vertical-software niche.
I'd narrow the list based on what you mean by “SMB tech,” because the investor universe differs substantially by business type.
Your business
Funds to investigate first
Vertical SaaS / niche B2B software
Alpine, Bloom, Lock 8, Thoma Bravo Explore
IT services, MSP, cybersecurity services
Baird Capital, Alpine, Bloom
Profitable tech-enabled services
Baird Capital, LLR Partners, Alpine
Established software company seeking partial liquidity
LLR Partners, Baird Capital, Bain Capital Tech Opportunities
Small, bootstrapped, cash-generative software business
Bloom, Lock 8, Alpine
These are suggested starting points based on their published investment strategies, not confirmation that each fund would pursue a specific company today.
3. An important distinction: PE buyout vs. minority growth capital
For a profitable company that isn't growing quickly, I would investigate three transaction types:
Majority buyout: The fund buys control, often giving founders a substantial cash exit while management may retain equity.
Majority recapitalization: You take some money off the table, retain a meaningful stake, and continue running the business with a financial sponsor.
Minority investment: You sell a smaller stake to fund expansion or provide liquidity while keeping control. Some growth-equity investors, however, still require high growth.
One caution: even traditional PE firms generally need a path to increase the value of their investment. A stable business can be attractive because of recurring revenue and dependable cash flow, but investors may still expect pricing improvements, operational efficiencies, acquisitions, or modest growth. A company with no credible path to value creation may have fewer options.
4. Let me narrow this to a genuinely relevant shortlist
The most useful next step is to match funds to your company's size and economics. You can share approximate figures; no company name is needed.
Company profile
What kind of tech company is it?
B2B software / SaaS
IT services / MSP / cybersecurity
Tech-enabled services
Hardware / IT distribution
Other technology business
Annual revenue
Under $5M
$5M–$15M
$15M–$50M
$50M–$100M
$100M+
Annual EBITDA
Under $1M
$1M–$3M
$3M–$10M
$10M+
Annual revenue growth
Flat or declining
0–10%
10–20%
20%+
What outcome are you considering?
Full sale
Majority sale or recap, with some continued ownership
Minority investment / partial liquidity
Exploring options
Company headquarters
United States
United Kingdom
Canada
Europe / other
[Find matching PE funds]
With those details, I can produce a more actionable shortlist, including relevant portfolio precedents, likely deal-size fit, official contact pages, and which investors appear more compatible with a profitable, moderate-growth business rather than a venture-backed growth story.
For a stable, profitable, and capital-efficient "SMB tech" or vertical B2B SaaS company, traditional Venture Capital is often the wrong fit—they want hyper-growth at all costs and a $1B+ exit trajectory. Instead, your sweet spot is Lower-Middle Market (LMM) Private Equity and Growth Buyout firms. These investors specifically look for steady cash flow, high retention, and efficient operations rather than a money-burning growth curve.
A categorized breakdown of private equity funds that actively target profitable, bootstrapped, or founder-led SMB and vertical tech companies includes the following:
Specialized Lower-Middle Market Tech PE (Hands-On Operations)
Mainsail Partners — Focuses exclusively on bootstrapped, founder-owned B2B software companies in the lower-middle market. They bring an in-house operations team to help scale revenue and processes without blowing up the culture.
Serent Capital — Known for investing in profitable, capital-efficient B2B SaaS and tech companies. They have a massive dedicated growth team that assists with organic growth, executive hiring, and add-on acquisitions.
Accel-KKR — Focuses specifically on software and tech-enabled services businesses in the mid-market, doing both majority buyouts and minority growth equity. They are very comfortable with steady, recurring-revenue SMB tech.
Hg (Hg Saturn Fund) — Focuses entirely on B2B software and tech-enabled services, targeting established, high-retention businesses globally.
K1 Investment Management — Targets high-growth lower-middle-market enterprise software companies, but heavily emphasizes operational efficiency, go-to-market execution, and roll-up/add-on strategies for smaller software niches.
Broader Tech Growth Equity / Buyout
Francisco Partners — A massive tech-focused PE firm that works with everything from smaller growth-stage companies to large enterprise buyouts, known for deeply understanding software unit economics.
TA Associates — Focuses on profitable growth companies across technology and services, frequently doing minority recapitalizations or majority buyouts without requiring a VC-style "burn rate."
If you'd like to narrow this down, tell me:
What is your approximate ARR or EBITDA?
Are you founder-owned and bootstrapped , or do you have existing outside investors?
I can help you figure out which of these tiers matches your exact financial profile.
Yes. I’d target the lower-middle-market end of private equity, particularly firms that explicitly look for positive EBITDA, recurring revenue, founder/family-owned businesses, and established business models.
Excellent fit. Explicitly says stable profitability takes precedence over historical growth and avoids early-stage companies and unproven profitability. Focuses on technology-driven services, IT, outsourcing, consulting, etc.
Very relevant for smaller profitable technology/tech-enabled businesses, especially founder-owned companies. Explicitly says it doesn't invest in turnarounds/distressed situations.
Particularly interesting for enterprise software, IT services and industrial technology. Targets family/founder-owned companies with recurring revenue and high retention.
One of the better pure B2B software candidates. It invests in expansion/buyout-stage software rather than startups and emphasizes proven product-market fit and existing management teams.
Interesting for mature enterprise software with low growth but a path to improvement—unusually aligned with your “not a high-growth startup” requirement.
$5–15M+ ARR; North America; 80%+ gross retention. Profitability isn't required, so I'd rank it below the firms above for an already-profitable company.
Explicitly avoids unprofitable businesses/startups and invests in enterprise software, IT services and technology-enabled services. Caveat: primarily a co-investor alongside another PE sponsor rather than the lead investor.
$3–30M EBITDA; $1–3M investment.
Larger firms worth considering
LLR Partners is a strong technology specialist, but it's generally a better match if the company is somewhat larger. Its current strategy focuses on lower-middle-market software and tech-enabled companies, with published platform criteria of roughly $7–25M EBITDA and $40–150M equity investments.
Gauge Capital is another possibility at the upper end of the range. It invests in enterprise software, technology/SaaS/processing and other business services, generally looking for $5M+ EBITDA and $50–500M enterprise value.
My ranking for your specific description
If your company is already profitable, established, technology-focused, and not growing 30–50%+ per year, I'd start with:
Stone-Goff Partners — probably the closest philosophical fit.
Align Capital Partners — excellent lower-middle-market technology fit.
Elyton Capital — especially compelling for a smaller founder-owned company.
Svoboda Capital Partners — particularly for IT/services.
Etna Capital — especially for software/IT with recurring revenue.
DevCap Growth — best of the group if it's specifically B2B software.
Athena Equity Partners — worth approaching if growth is modest but the business has strong retention.
Grandview Partners — useful if you're open to a co-investment structure.
One important distinction: “technology company” is not necessarily the same thing as “software startup.” The PE firms above tend to be much more receptive to businesses such as vertical SaaS, established enterprise software, MSP/IT services, cybersecurity, data/analytics, tech-enabled B2B services, and niche technology platforms with $1–15M+ of EBITDA than to pre-profit SaaS companies.
If you give me (1) annual revenue, (2) EBITDA, (3) approximate growth rate, (4) type of technology/software, (5) U.S. state/country, and (6) whether you're seeking a full sale or minority investment, I can narrow this to 10–15 highly targeted PE firms, including their likely check size, ownership preference, geographic fit, and direct contact/inquiry information.
Here is a curated list of private equity (PE) firms that specialize in small-to-medium-sized (lower-middle to middle-market) technology companies, specifically targeting established, profitable, and often bootstrapped or founder-owned businesses rather than pre-revenue or high-burn startups:
Mainsail Partners : Focuses exclusively on growing, profitable, and bootstrapped/founder-owned B2B software and vertical SaaS companies in the lower middle-market. They use a dedicated internal operations team to help scaling firms expand professionally without relying on early-stage risk.
Thoma Bravo : A massive tech buyout specialist that explicitly reaches down into the middle-market (via their Discover platform) and lower middle-market (via their Explore platform) to acquire mature, stable, and profitable software enterprises.
Hg (specifically their Mercury lower-middle market strategy): Focuses on profitable B2B software and tech-enabled service businesses possessing predictable subscription or recurring revenue models with low volatility.
Accel-KKR : A mid-market-focused private equity firm that invests specifically in software and technology-enabled services businesses, targeting established companies looking for expansion capital, buyouts, or majority/minority recapitalizations.
: Targets lower-middle market tech-enabled services, vertical software, and business intelligence/data companies, typically making control investments in firms with proven, stable EBITDA footprints ($3M–$15M).[]()
Charlesbank Capital Partners : Manages dedicated lower-middle market technology private equity strategies alongside their middle-market funds, focusing on management-led buyouts of established tech and tech-infrastructure companies.
Would you like to narrow this down by:
Preferred geographic focus (North America vs. Europe)
Target EBITDA or revenue size range
Specific tech sub-sectors (like Vertical SaaS vs. Managed Service Providers / IT Services)
