Focus

Edgewater is solely focused on areas where we have deep experience. We selectively look for investment opportunities where our unique experience and capabilities enable us to bring value to each business beyond a source of capital. We are not a believer in one-size-fits-all private equity. Underpinning our sector experience, our values demand that we take care of our people, empower our leaders, and protect our communities by ensuring our companies have leading environmental, health, and safety practices.

Sector Experience

Specialty Industrials

Specialty
Industrials

Edgewater’s Specialty Industrials vertical targets industrial products and services that have a high cost of failure in an end product or system. Our businesses possess application specific knowledge that enables superior performance for their customers.

Life Science

Life
Science

Our Life Science vertical is focused on companies that exhibit a strong differentiated position in technologies and services to support small molecule and biologic drug research, development, and manufacturing. Our deep experience extends to both clinical and non-clinical (CMC) organizations, ranging from discovery to commercial supply.

Advanced Materials

Advanced
Materials

Our Advanced Materials vertical is centered on businesses that leverage the composition, structure, properties, and processing of materials to provide unique solutions for the customer’s specific application. Our companies tend to have extremely high application knowledge which they utilize to solve problems for their customers.

Specialty Chemicals

Specialty
Chemicals

Edgewater has decades of experience in the Specialty Chemicals sector. From hazardous chemistries to specialty reagents, niche blending and processing capabilities, we can quickly identify and unlock the potential in specialty chemical companies.

Characteristics of an Edgewater Company

High Cost of Failure

High Cost
of Failure

Products or services contributing a small but critical element of an end product or system.

High Unit Economics

High Unit
Economics

Lower overall cost, but delivering high value to an end product or system.

Technical Selling Process

Technical Selling
Process

Requires comprehensive understanding of the role and value of critical components.

Solution
Providers

Enhance the overall customer experience by overcoming technical challenges.

Typical Financial Profile

Typical
EBITDA:
<$25 Million

Add-Ons:
Any Size
with Positive
Cash Flow

Equity
Investment:
Up to
$50 Million

Typical
Revenue:
<$100 Million

Typical Deal Type

carve outs

Edgewater’s carve-out experience runs deeper than words on a page. Since the firm’s inception, over half of our acquisitions have been corporate carve-outs. By offering surety of closing, limited transition services requirements, and acting as a good steward of the business, we have built a legacy of trust and respect with our corporate contacts.

owner operations

When we invest in a company, we act as a partner. We don’t run the business or make mandates. We align with our portfolio companies on strategy and provide them with the tools to take the business to the next level. Our lower middle-market focus and Midwestern Values of honesty, humility, and integrity are foundational reasons why we are a partner of choice in owner-operator transactions. We do what we say and say what we do.

Operating Partner Practice Areas

Unlike most private equity firms, Edgewater has an unparalleled depth of dedicated leaders who drive our investment in thesis-specific practice areas which are subsets within our four main sectors. Our Operating Partners each lead their respective practice areas, bringing decades of technical, operational, and commercial experience along with a deep network of contacts and connections to help drive successful outcomes for our portfolio companies.