Profile

Founded in 2007, Long Ridge Equity Partners is a specialized growth equity firm focused on financial technology, business technology, and innovative services companies. Leveraging deep sector knowledge and an extensive network of industry resources, Long Ridge serves as a value-added partner to high-growth businesses. Since its founding, Long Ridge has sponsored some of the most successful growth companies in the financial technology, business technology, and innovative services sectors, providing leading management teams with partnership, strategic resources, and capital to drive profitable expansion. The firm manages $1.7 billion of committed capital as of October 2025.

Awards

2025 Top Growth Equity Firms

2024 Top Growth Equity Firms

2023 Top Growth Equity Firms, Best Growth Investment Firms

2022 Top Growth Equity Firms, Best Growth Investment Firms

2021 Top Private Equity Firms

2020 Top Software Investors,

2015 Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors

Features

Focused Growth Equity: Long Ridge’s Kevin Bhatt

GrowthCap’s RJ Lumba spoke with Kevin Bhatt on August 13, 2025. Kevin is a Managing Partner at Long Ridge Equity Partners and a member of the firm’s Investment Committee. He joined the firm in 2010 and oversees the firm’s strategic direction as well as deal teams responsible for sourcing, evaluating, and managing portfolio companies.

Key People

Jim Brown, Founder and Managing Partner

Jim Brown, Founder and Managing Partner at Long Ridge, brings over 25 years of experience investing in and supporting high-growth companies in financial and business services, as a board member and advisor to some of the most successful and innovative players in the financial and business services sectors. At Long Ridge, Jim leads the overall strategy and direction of the firm, in addition to leading deal teams focused on the sourcing, evaluation, and management of the firm’s portfolio companies. Prior to establishing Long Ridge, he held key roles at TH Lee Putnam Ventures and GE Equity. Jim’s investment experience and board responsibilities include: Ametros, AuthenticID, BlueTarp, Carson Group, FXCM, Liquidnet, NinjaTrader, Portware, Provana, RFG Advisory, Stonegate Mortgage, Structured Portfolio Management, TradAir, Proof, Pacific Crest Services, and OnCorps AI.

Kevin Bhatt, Managing Partner

Kevin is a Managing Partner at Long Ridge and brings over 20 years of experience investing in companies across the business and financial technology landscape. At Long Ridge, Kevin leads the overall strategy and direction of the firm, in addition to managing deal teams focused on the sourcing, evaluation, and management of Long Ridge’s portfolio companies. Before joining Long Ridge in 2010, Kevin held roles at AEA Investors, TH Lee Putnam Ventures, and McKinsey & Company. Kevin’s investment experience and board responsibilities include: Acqueon, Avetta, Broadway Technology, BROWZ, Carson Group, Drawbridge, EQIS, Portware, ProcessUnity, Ripjar, SALI Fund Services, Stonegate Mortgage, TRUE, GoTu, and OnCorps AI.

Angad Singh, Partner

Angad Singh joined Long Ridge in 2012 and serves as a Partner. Beyond his investment responsibilities, he plays a key role in the Firm’s development, including recruiting and mentoring junior members of the investment team. Prior to his tenure at Long Ridge, Angad held roles at Alinda Capital Partners and McKinsey & Company, where he focused on infrastructure investments and growth strategy projects in the financial services and energy sectors, respectively. Angad’s investment experience and board responsibilities include: QX Global Group, Ametros, BlueTarp, Carson Group, MessageGears, Neighborhoods, Oritain, Portware, Provana, Stonegate Mortgage, and TradAir.

Andrew Cedar, Partner

Andrew Cedar assumed the role of Partner at Long Ridge in 2022 and has been an integral part of the investment team since 2016. Andrew previously held roles at McKinsey & Company, where he reported directly to the Global Managing Partner and was a consultant advising companies in the U.S., Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. Andrew also worked on the Obama Administration’s national security and foreign policy team, as Senior Director for Global Engagement at the White House National Security Council, an advisor at the State Department, and on the Obama-Biden transition team in 2008. Andrew’s investment experience and board responsibilities include: Acqueon, Ametros, Carson Group, Oritain, and RFG Advisory.

Jason Melton, Partner

Jason joined Long Ridge in 2014 and serves as a Partner. Prior to joining Long Ridge, Jason worked at Barclays in the Financial Institutions Group, offering strategic advice to financial technology and services companies on M&A and capital markets transactions. Jason’s investment experience and board responsibilities include: AuthenticID, Avetta, Broadway Technology, BROWZ, Drawbridge, NinjaTrader, ProcessUnity, SALI Fund Services, Ripjar, and Pacific Crest Services.

Funds Raised

In July 2023, Long Ridge Equity Partners IV (“Fund IV”) closed on $730mm of total commitments. After three months of fundraising, the significantly oversubscribed fund held a single close at its hard cap of $650mm of Limited Partner commitments plus an additional $80mm of commitments from the General Partner and the firm’s network of executives and advisors.

New and returning investors in Fund IV include leading endowments, foundations, public pensions, asset managers, insurance companies, wealth managers, and family offices. 100% of the institutional investors in Long Ridge Equity Partners III returned as investors in Fund IV.

Key Investments

NinjaTrader: Exited May 2025
Sector: Capital Markets Technology

NinjaTrader provides award-winning trading software and brokerage services to active traders. Founded in 2003, NinjaTrader has evolved into an industry leader supporting millions of traders around the globe with best-in-class technology, discount commissions and world class support.

Carson Group: Exited July 2021
Sector: Wealth / Asset Management

Carson Group provides market-leading wealth management tools and services to financial advisors and direct clients. Carson’s flagship partner program offers an integrated technology platform for advisors, offering services including asset management, research, marketing, and compliance. Carson also runs a nationally recognized registered investment advisor for retail clients and offers expert coaching, practice management, and national conferences to advisors.

Broadway Technology: Exited February 2020 
Sector: Capital Markets Technology

Broadway Technology powers fixed income and foreign exchange trading for the largest global banks. The company provides front-office trading applications and enterprise solutions to address mission-critical trading needs for banks, brokers, and asset managers.

Acqueon: Exited August 2024
Sector: Marketing Technology

Acqueon offers an industry-leading, modern customer engagement platform that allows enterprises to proactively connect with customers for outbound sales, service, and revenue capture opportunities using customers’ preferred communication channels. The Company’s proprietary technology platform seamlessly integrates with existing contact center technology, centralizes customer data across disparate silos, and enables personalized campaign creation with holistic, fully automated compliance built in.

SALI Fund Services: Exited November 2021
Sector: Insurance / Wealth / Asset Management

SALI Fund Services provides a turn-key solution for the creation and administration of Insurance Dedicated Funds (IDFs). SALI administers funds for a broad range of alternative asset managers, including many of the world’s largest hedge funds, credit funds, and private equity funds. 

Ametros: Exited January 2024
Sector: Insurance / Payments  

Ametros is the industry-leading provider of post-settlement medical administration services for injured workers receiving funds from workers’ compensation and liability settlements. The platform custodies settlement funds, negotiates healthcare discounts, processes medical payments, and manages compliance reporting to Medicare.

OnCorps AI: Invested December 2025
Sector: Capital Markets Technology

OnCorps AI is a leading agentic AI platform for fund operations, delivering intelligent exception resolution for asset managers and fund administrators. The platform detects discrepancies in trade reconciliations and fund documentation, autonomously investigates root causes, and learns from patterns to prevent future breaks. PIMCO, GMO, and other leading institutions—representing $13 trillion in assets—rely on OnCorps to reduce manual effort and streamline their fund operations.

GoTu: Invested November 2025
Sector: Marketplace

GoTu is the nation’s leading dental talent marketplace. Its on-demand platform connects hygienists, assistants, and associate dentists with dental practices to fill shifts in real time. Founded in 2019, GoTu has filled more than 500,000 shifts across 44 states and Washington D.C., improving flexibility, reliability, and efficiency for both professionals and practices.

Pacific Crest Services: Invested May 2025
Sector: Insurance Technology

Pacific Crest Services (PCS) is a leading insurance alliance dedicated to empowering licensed independent agents. Founded in 2008, the platform provides independent agents with access to more than 300 national and regional carrier appointments along with a full suite of support services, including training, mentorship, back-office support, technology tools, and compliance resources.

Proof: Invested January 2024
Sector: Marketplace

Proof is a litigation services marketplace that provides law firms and government agencies with document delivery through a nationwide network of process servers, electronic court filing services, and remote notarization. Proof utilizes machine learning to extract case caption information, determine optimal process server geolocation, and facilitate compliant, in-person document delivery. Proof’s easy-to-use platform gives legal practitioners a fast, accurate, and fully transparent experience that provides real-time updates and jurisdiction-specific documentation of the serve.

RFG Advisory: Invested September 2023
Sector: Wealth / Asset Management

RFG provides a turn-key integrated platform that provides independent wealth management advisors with tools and resources to manage and grow their practices. The platform includes cutting-edge technology, institutional-caliber investment management, marketing, compliance, business consulting and operational support.

Oritain: Invested October 2021
Sector: ESG / Governance Risk & Compliance

Oritain is a globally recognized solution for origin verification that helps multinational companies identify and prove the origin of product inputs, enabling customers to meet trade regulations and advance environmental, social, and governance (“ESG)” related sourcing efforts. The company has built a proprietary database of origin footprints based on the chemical composition of source inputs, enabling customers to launch inquires on product-specific supply chains, extract product chemical data at first-& third-party labs, pinpoint the origin of inputs, and communicate results.

ProcessUnity: Invested September 2018
Sector: Governance Risk & Compliance

ProcessUnity provides cloud-based software for risk management. Many of the world’s leading companies have adopted ProcessUnity’s Vendor Cloud solution to automate the onboarding, due diligence and assessment processes associated with Third-Party Risk Management – shifting away from manual spreadsheets or legacy systems. The company helps mitigate brand and reputational risk by providing a holistic view of an organization’s vendor population, including visibility into vendor security practices, policies and performance.

The portfolio companies reflected above may not be representative of all Long Ridge portfolio companies. For a complete list of Long Ridge portfolio companies, please visit: https://long-ridge.com/portfolio/ 

Capital Responsibility

Since its inception, Long Ridge has been committed to incorporating ESG principles in decision-making processes, investment strategy, employment practices, and as a steward of its portfolio companies. The firm’s ESG policy draws upon two industry frameworks: the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment and ILPA’s Diversity in Action Initiative, the latter of which Long Ridge is a signatory. Long Ridge believes that prioritizing ESG initiatives not only benefits its stakeholders but also advances good business practices and improves investment outcomes.

Long Ridge’s investment strategy has long focused on technology that advances ESG functions in enterprises within the firm’s core financial and business technology verticals. Active and exited investments (e.g. Browz, Avetta, ProcessUnity, Drawbridge, Ripjar, Oritain) provide solutions across ESG-advancing solutions, including employee health and safety, supply chain transparency, ethical raw materials sourcing, corporate governance, cybersecurity, KYC/AML, and human and labor rights protection. Long Ridge considers ESG principles in positioning its companies for growth and success. The firm actively engages with its executives and advisors to assess ESG impact, appoint diverse senior leadership, and encourage governance in-line with socially conscious corporate behavior (e.g. inclusive hiring, customer and employee privacy protection, cyber risk mitigation, board oversight).

Long Ridge also strives to be a responsible employer, with senior leadership setting diverse, equitable, and inclusive practices around hiring and talent development. ESG is a core pillar of Long Ridge’s firm stewardship, with buy-in and leadership from the most senior levels of the Firm and across investment and back-office functions.

CEO Reviews

Omani Carson, Founder & Chairman, Carson Group

“When I was looking to grow Carson Group, I didn’t need capital. What I wanted was a partner. Long Ridge has been exactly that: a trusted partner and a seamless part of our team. They’ve helped professionalize and institutionalize the business, which has taken us to the next level and maximized our potential as a pioneer in the industry.”

Tyler Moeller, Co-Founder & Former CEO, Broadway Technology

“Long Ridge has helped to push our understanding of what’s possible for our business. Across a number of dimensions, they have helped us refine our strategy and focus our efforts. We feel like they are absolutely a core part of our team and are completely aligned with our success.”

Marques Torbert, Former Chairman & CEO, Ametros

“We were introduced to Long Ridge through another investor and we immediately liked them as people. We felt supported knowing that Long Ridge had a growth-oriented background and a track record of success, and the team was very fair and transparent throughout the whole process. When it came down to deciding on who to work with, we chose Long Ridge.” 

Scott DePetris, Former President, Drawbridge and Former President & COO of Portware

“Long Ridge works with their heads up—whereas operators are often heads down on the day to day operations. The team knows how to scale companies by leveraging a deep understanding of the financial business metrics and by providing suggestions through shared experience, not forced prescriptions.” 

Alfred Eskandar, Former CEO, Portware

“Portware was my second opportunity to successfully partner with the Long Ridge team. We were fortunate to have our choice of investors, but Long Ridge’s insight, value-add, and approach to partnership made it an easy decision.”