Profile

Serent Capital is a growth-focused private equity firm investing in capital-efficient, B2B SaaS and technology companies. From its founding, Serent set out to build a distinctly different firm that prioritizes founders and their companies and provides true hands-on resources through its 20+ person Growth Team. Serent’s in-house Growth Team is equipped with a wide range of resources to help companies accelerate growth, including strategic and operational support to drive revenue generation, assistance in building a top-tier executive team, guidance for transformative M&A, and a community of 400+ founders and operating executives. With $5 billion of assets under management, the firm has partnered with over 60 founder-led, industry-changing companies and offer unparalleled hands-on operational support. Discover how Serent Capital is fueling the growth of innovative companies across a range of industries at www.serentcapital.com.

Awards

2023 Top Private Equity Firms

2022 Top 25 Private Equity Firms

Key People

Lance Fenton

As a Partner at Serent Capital since 2008, Lance has primarily focused on the financial services market, where he currently leads the firm’s activities in fintech, payments, and specialty finance. He has also made significant investments in the hospitality and real estate sectors. With his leadership, Lance has worked with portfolio company executive teams to execute value creation initiatives, improving performance and accelerating growth through strategies such as new market entry, product development, and M&A. Before joining Serent, Lance was part of Fortress Investment Group and served as a teacher in New York City; he holds degrees from Cornell University, the City College of New York, and Stanford University.

Kevin Frick

Kevin, a Co-Founder, and Partner at Serent Capital, has a long track record of working with CEOs and their management teams to help their companies achieve their full potential and has engaged on topics of strategy, sales, marketing, operations, and mergers and acquisitions. Before co-founding Serent, he was a partner at McKinsey & Company, leading their West Coast Private Equity practice, and played a crucial role in evaluating investments and guiding portfolio companies to achieve set goals. With his leadership, the practice saw a 60+% compound annual growth rate, and he has been instrumental in advising over 100 companies towards significant bottom-line improvements. Kevin holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan and remains an ardent supporter of the Solve ME/CFS Initiative as an emeritus board member.

Prital Kadakia

As a Partner at Serent Capital, Prital leads the portfolio operations team and works closely with portfolio companies on initiatives to drive revenue and earnings. His work encompasses areas like sales force effectiveness, pricing, operational efficiencies, strategy development, and digital marketing. Before joining Serent, he held executive positions at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and McKinsey & Company and led strategy and business planning for Mars Chocolate. Prital holds an AB in economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

Stewart Lynn

Stewart, a Partner at Serent Capital, leads the firm’s investment efforts in software companies within sectors like real estate, transportation, govtech, and entertainment. Since joining Serent in 2013, he has spearheaded numerous investments and collaborated with executive teams on key growth initiatives such as strategy development, go-to-market scaling, pricing, payments, and M&A. Prior to Serent, Stewart served as a Vice President at the Seabury Group and as a consultant at Bain & Company. He holds a joint JD-MBA from Stanford University and a BA in economics and mathematics from Northwestern University.

Funds Raised

Since inception in 2008, Serent has invested in over 60 founder-led, B2B technology companies and has approximately $5 billion in assets under management. Since its founding, Serent has raised five funds in 2008, 2013, 2017, 2019, and 2022. Its most recent fund, Fund V, closed at $1.1 billion and targets founder-led B2B software companies.

Key Investments

Avionté: Invested January 17, 2014
Sector: HR Tech

Avionté Staffing Software is a leading provider of staffing and recruiting technology solutions for the human resources industry. The company’s innovative suite of front- and back-office software products is designed to provide staffing companies and recruiters a way to improve business processes and profits through extensive functionality, complete integration and a unique user experience.

ePayPolicy: Invested January 8, 2020
Sector: FinTech

ePayPolicy provides an easy-to-use, end-to-end solution with integrations into leading agency management systems, allowing agencies, MGAs/wholesale brokers and premium finance companies to get up and running with electronic payments in days, dramatically reducing the number of paper checks they process, while simplifying their accounting reconciliation with automated data entry. Since its founding in 2014, ePayPolicy has become one of the market-leading E&S-focused solutions serving over 2,300 customers, processing $2 billion in payments annually, and leading in customer satisfaction with customer ratings nearly 5x higher than the market average.

SHR: Invested March 16, 2020
Sector: Hospitality

SHR is a leading provider of meaningful technology that helps hotels execute their best revenue-generation strategies. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, with offices in Europe and Asia-Pacific, SHR has a history of innovation starting with Windsurfer® CRS, SHR serves thousands of properties around the globe with an evolving suite of AI-driven solutions, ranging from high-level distribution to intricate guest management. In addition, the company offers Revenue Management for Hire to brands, chains, and management companies. SHR brings hoteliers nimble, real-world technology intelligently supported by tested industry experts—keeping hotels competitive.

Raintree: Invested December 6, 2021
Sector: Healthcare

Raintree Systems is a leading provider of electronic health record (EHR) and revenue cycle management (RCM) software solutions to the therapy market. Raintree’s EHR and practice management solutions are used by more than 25,000 users across North America. Raintree’s commitment to “Software-as-a-Relationship” distinguishes them from other providers in the market.

XDimensional Technologies: Invested January 7, 2021
Sector: InsurTech

XDimensional Technologies offers comprehensive insurance management, processing, and distribution solutions, which empower and connect agents, brokers, wholesalers, MGAs/MGUs, program administrators, carriers, and policyholders. The Nexsure Insurance Platform is scalable, cloud-based (SaaS), and designed to drive efficient business production, superior customer service, and insightful business management. Nexsure has three editions Agency+, Wholesale+, and Policy Admin+, that share a single database to streamline collaboration and increase productivity across the insurance ecosystem.

ParentSquare: Invested: August 3, 2021
Sector: EdTech

ParentSquare is relied upon by millions of educators and families in over 44 states for unified, effective school communications. ParentSquare provides parent engagement tools that work from the district office to the individual classroom, supported by powerful metrics and reporting. ParentSquare’s technology platform features extensive integrations with student information and other critical administrative systems, translation to more than 100 languages, and app, email, text, voice, and web portal access for equitable communication.

BS&A: Invested: May 10, 2023
Sector: GovTech

BS&A is a leading ERP software provider for municipalities across the United States. The company’s platform empowers local government to streamline business processes and operations across finance, utilities, HR, community development, property assessments, and property taxes.

Next Gear Solutions: Exited September 16, 2021
Sector: Field Services

Next Gear Solutions, a market leader in digital workflow platforms and solutions for the property restoration industry, was acquired by CoreLogic, a leading global property information, analytics, and data-enabled solutions provider.

CoConstruct: Exited February 24, 2021
Sector: Construction

CoConstruct, a provider of construction project management software for the residential construction industry, was acquired by Buildertrend, the leading provider of cloud-based construction software for homebuilders, remodelers and specialty contractors. This transaction makes Buildertrend the largest construction management software platform dedicated to empowering independent and custom homebuilders, contractors, and remodelers with the tools to better coordinate projects, control finances, and communicate with clients and crews.

CEO Reviews

Donny Wyatt, Founder, CoConstruct

“Serent was really thoughtful and cultivating that relationship over a couple of years where I realized I think they understood the market, they understood founders, they understood the fears of founders and really just how to partner at a values level.”

Gabby Wong, CEO, FranConnect

“The thing that makes Serent different from other private equity companies is that they’re really smart operators. They understand what it takes to grow a company—not only in terms of the financial engineering but more importantly from a strategic and operational perspective. They have a real depth of experience in how to take products to market and then how to grow those products within the market.”

Katherine Novikov, Co-Founder, Diamond Mind

“Serent is different from other firms; they bring more integrity to the table, and they are going to do what they say they are going to do. They are capable, ‘salt of the earth’ people that added a tremendous amount of value and operational resources that helped us grow Diamond Mind.”

Rod Jimenez, Co-Founder and CEO, SHR

“The Growth team at Serent are a bunch of A-players that are available to help the portfolio companies with all kinds of challenges from go-to-market to human capital, to M&A.” 

Garret Gray, Founder and CEO, Next Gear Solutions

“Regardless of what kind of deal you strike…you’re giving up some level of control. It’s important that you trust who you give it to. Three and half years in, I still trust them, and there’s no shoe that’s been dropped.”