Who We Are
As investors in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), we partner with entrepreneurs and management teams to provide bespoke capital solutions – both equity and debt – to facilitate corporate kinetics – mergers, acquisitions, recapitalizations and growth financings. Small business owners today face a complex labyrinth of choices regarding how to fund a business plan, and all too often settle for an imperfect outcome – taking on too much inflexible debt or experiencing more equity dilution than desired. Our goal is to provide integrated financial solutions and tailor capital to the specific circumstances of a situation to ensure a proper fit. But most importantly, we seek to engender trust through transparency and flexibility, and provide our experience and advice when it’s needed. We look to help our partners focus on and protect the opportunities presented in the expanses of their business – we are their Firmament.
In antiquity, the term "firmament" represented the mystical arch that held the stars, protecting the earth from above.
Our Approach
VALUE-ADDED PARTNER
We place considerable emphasis on working to support the long-term objectives of our investment partners, and strive to be a loyal and ethical constituent. We bring the totality of our resources to bear to catalyze winning outcomes, and work through difficult situations to engender the trust of our fellow investment stakeholders.
VERSATILE CAPITAL
Our investments can finance leveraged buyouts, complete recapitalizations or restructurings, and provide liquidity for organic growth inflection points or add-on acquisitions. We participate in transactions either as a sponsor or a financing source and have broad industry experience, with a willingness to look at challenging deals.
SOLUTION PROVIDER
We have the ability to move up and down the capital structure depending on a company’s need and our assessment of the risk profile of the investment. We target transactions that range across the capital structure with an emphasis on common and structured equity, unitranche and one-stop senior debt, and junior debt. We provide tailored solutions for each opportunity and have considerable flexibility when structuring terms.
USER FRIENDLY
Our investment team possesses a wide breadth of skills in areas such as operations, control equity, M&A advisory, distressed and credit investing. We strive to provide quick turnaround times and thoughtful analytical rigor, with a focus on speed of execution. We seek to be very selective in our deal screening and avoid chasing deals.
We operate across a diverse range of industries including:
Firmament is a proud member of the ESG Data Convergence Initiative (EDCI) which streamlines the private investment industry’s historically fragmented approach to collecting and reporting ESG data in order to create a critical mass of meaningful, performance-based, comparable ESG data from private companies. This allows GPs and portfolio companies to benchmark their current position and generate progress toward ESG improvements while enabling greater transparency and more comparable portfolio information for LPs.
Philanthropy
Firmament believes that maintaining a focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in our business decisions is essential in developing sustainable long-term strategies for our portfolio companies. Our ultimate goal is to invest for both strong returns and positive social and environmental change.
The Firmament Foundation is our philanthropic initiative dedicated to serving a variety of causes, including individuals with disabilities, pediatric illness, support for veterans and children’s education, among others. The Firmament Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization (EIN: #83-2233523). For more information please contact info@firmamentfoundation.com.
“Doing good in communities across the country is core to our mission.”
CHRISTOPHER SMITH, FOUNDING PARTNER, FIRMAMENT
Firmament Foundation partnered with Full Court Peace, a non-profit organization that uses basketball to unite communities all around the world. Full Court Peace hosted a 300-player summer youth league on the courts we helped repair!