LightBay Capital

LightBay Capital is a growth-focused private equity firm based in Los Angeles. It invests flexible capital in middle-market services companies, mainly in the United States. The firm has raised about $1.65 billion across two funds: its debut fund, LightBay Investment Partners, closed at $615 million in 2018, and LightBay Investment Partners II closed at its hard cap of $1.04 billion in 2023. As of that 2023 close, LightBay had partnered with 11 companies and has successfully completed more than 140 add-on acquisitions. LightBay typically invests $100 million to $300 million of equity per transaction, with room to go larger for strong growth opportunities. It targets market leaders and innovative disruptors that have high returns on capital, strong employee engagement, meaningful growth potential, and mission-driven management ready to scale. The firm invests in healthcare services (care delivery, outsourced services and healthcare technology) and business services (human capital, commercial services and professional services). It has also historically invested in consumer businesses. Its investment activities include traditional leveraged buyouts, minority growth investments, structured investments, platform acquisitions, and add-on acquisitions. LightBay partners with management teams as a patient investor, finding and removing a company’s key growth constraints, usually capital, talent, systems or technology, and investing in people, processes and infrastructure. It uses more equity and less debt to keep flexibility, and it is prepared to invest when others pull back during market disruption. A fixed share of its fees and carried interest goes to The LightBay Foundation, which supports local mission-driven organizations. LightBay Capital was founded in 2016 by Nav Rahemtulla and Adam Stein, former partners in Ares Management’s private equity group, and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States.