Our Approach

CPS makes majority investments in promising small and medium sized businesses with strong track records and great teams.

We look to partner with great people who share an entrepreneurial spirit and ambitious vision to build high-quality businesses.

While the foundations of our platforms are often leading regional players in their niche, we work to grow our portfolio companies to national and multinational scale over our long-term involvement.

We invest in a broad range of industries and verticals.

Our portfolio companies range from trusted local home services companies to cutting-edge software and technology firms with international reach. Our focus is on finding businesses with attractive fundamental characteristics, and we are comfortable exploring opportunities without a narrow industry or vertical focus in mind.

We get excited when we come across businesses with strong industry tailwinds, a clear and quantifiable value proposition to their end customers, and a history of stable performance and consistent growth.

We get very excited when we come across businesses with these characteristics serving niches that many people – and often we – haven’t heard of before.

We take a fundamentally hands-on approach to our partnerships.

We aren't suit-and-tie investors who monitor investments from an office building, far removed from the action. We are entrepreneurs and operators at heart, and actively engage with our portfolio company teams with a player-coach mentality.

Top to bottom, the CPS team isn't afraid to roll up our sleeves and solve hard problems alongside our partners. We've tackled the big questions that businesses leaders face in growing regional SMBs into national and multinational leaders, and strive to bring what we've learned from those experiences to our day-to-day involvement.

- We help our executive leadership attract and retain the right talent, top to bottom, to serve the business where they envision it being – not just where it is currently.

- We provide guidance around effective capital allocation, and help make sound decisions between investments in organic growth and growth by acquisition.

- We help scale and optimize sales teams supported by dependable analytics and reporting to fuel rapid growth.

- We assist business leaders in navigating the challenges of scaling IT and internal technology in pace with business growth, while guarding against distraction from core goals and overspending.

- We take the lessons we have learned first-hand as entrepreneurs and provide support and guidance from day one, recognizing the emotional rollercoaster that is leading a fast-growing company.

CPS has been a supportive and engaged partner in GlobalFaces since day one. As a founder, I had worries about transitioning ownership of my business but I could not be happier with the result. CPS has provided our team with guidance, support, and attention far exceeding my expectations, and has helped GlobalFaces realize growth goals that wouldn’t have been possible before their involvement.

— Nick Francis (Co-Founder and VP Development, GlobalFaces)

We transact with fairness and respect.

Working with many small business owners over the years has given us a unique perspective on the deep significance of selling a business built through hard work and sacrifice.

For founder-owners, the sale of a business is often a milestone life event. We understand this, and are guided by a set of core principles that are the foundation of a respectful and fair approach to every investment we make.

Transparency

We start every conversation around a potential acquisition with a frank explanation of who we are, how we would look to manage the business, and what we can bring to the table in a transaction. We aren’t interested in wasting your time with low-ball offers or off-market transaction structures that we know will be negotiated away.

Simply put, we put our best foot forward.

Trustworthiness

We place a lot of stock in our reputation as trusted partners.

When we make a commitment to a transaction timeline, deal terms, or post-transaction management plans, we keep it.

Timeliness

Your time is valuable, and we treat it that way. In the early stages of of a potential investment, we are committed to providing timely feedback and clear decisions about our intentions to move forward.

Once a transaction process is underway, we have a well-established roadmap for efficient due diligence and getting the paperwork done, minimizing distractions to you and your team.