Profile

Headquartered in New York, VSS is a private investment firm that invests in healthcare, business services, and education companies. Since 1987, VSS has partnered with lower middle-market companies, working closely with management teams to facilitate their next stage of growth. VSS provides capital for growth financings, recapitalizations, strategic acquisitions, and buyouts, with the flexibility to invest either control or non-control capital based on the needs and objectives of each company. With approximately $4 billion in committed capital across eight funds, VSS has completed over 100 platform investments and more than 600 add-on acquisitions. 

www.vss.com

Awards

2025 Top Private Equity Firms

2023 Top Private Equity Firms

2019 Top Business Services Investors

Features

Private Equity Pioneer: VSS’ Jeffrey Stevenson

GrowthCap’s RJ Lumba spoke with Jeffrey Stevenson on November 12, 2025. Jeffrey is Managing Partner of VSS Capital Partners, where he oversees the management of the firm and its funds. He joined VSS in 1982 and founded its private equity business in 1987.

Key People

Jeffrey Stevenson, Managing Partner 

Jeffrey Stevenson is the Managing Partner of VSS and has overall responsibility for the management of the firm and each of its funds. He joined VSS in 1982, shortly after its formation, and founded its private equity business in 1987. VSS has managed 8 funds with $4 billion of committed capital under management, including 4 equity funds and 4 structured capital funds. To date, VSS funds have invested in 99 platform companies, which have together completed over 600 acquisitions, representing over $13 billion in aggregate enterprise value. VSS funds focus on the healthcare, business services, and education industries. VSS makes control and non-control investments of $20 to $50 million in companies with EBITDA of $3 – $15 million and provides flexible debt and equity solutions.

Jeffrey is the Chairman of the investment committee and has served on the boards of over 31 portfolio companies and currently serves as a member of the board of the following VSS portfolio companies:  Ambulatory Anesthesia Care, Ascent Behavioral Health, Center for Rheumatology, Eximia, ITN Networks, Specialty1 Partners, and Pacesetter Health.

Previously, he served as a director of Advanstar, Brandshop, Cambium Learning, Canon Communications, Coretelligent, Cast & Crew, De Telefoongids, Mediatel, MetSchools, Ebiquity, Hanley Wood, ITE Group, Pepcom, Southern Theatres LLC, Tax Credit Co., TMP Worldwide, and Yellow Book USA, among others.

Jeffrey serves as a member of the finance committee for the not-for profit organization, Fraxa Research Foundation. Jeffrey also was previously involved with the following organizations: YPO/WPO, SBIA Board of Governors and Lincoln Center Leadership Committee.

Jeffrey holds a BA from Rutgers College.

Trent Hickman, Co-Managing Partner 

Trent is Co-Managing Partner of VSS. He is responsible for developing investment opportunities, conducting due diligence, arranging debt financing for portfolio investments, structuring investments, and monitoring portfolio companies. He joined VSS in 1999 and has been active in the Firm’s investments in Hanley Wood, Access Intelligence LLC, Pepcom, Mediatel (Yellow Brick Road), Southern Theatres, TMP Worldwide (now Radancy), Vault.com, MetSchools, Tranzact, Coretelligent, QuadraNet, GreenSlate, Really Great Reading, and Centroid Systems. Trent is currently a member of the Board of Managers of the following VSS portfolio companies: QuadraNet, GreenSlate, and Centroid Systems. In addition, he is a board observer of Coretelligent. He previously served on the boards of Access Intelligence, Tranzact, Southern Theatres, Radancy, Coretelligent, Really Great Reading, and Vault.com. Trent earned an AB in History and French from Duke University and an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Patrick Turner, Partner and Senior Managing Director 

Patrick N.W. Turner is a Partner and Senior Managing Director. He joined VSS in 2014. Patrick is responsible for developing investment opportunities, structuring investments, conducting due diligence, executing transactions, and monitoring portfolio companies. Patrick is currently a member of the board of the following VSS portfolio companies – GLOBO, ITN, Olympus, Quatrro, Remedi8, and S&A Legal Management. He previously served on the board of IT-Ernity and MRG. In addition, he is a board observer of Powerhouse.

Prior to joining VSS, Patrick was a Managing Director and a member of the Management Committee of Crescent Capital Group LP, a below investment grade alternative credit investment manager that was formerly part of Trust Company of the West, of which he also was a Managing Director. After his service with Crescent, he joined Crimson Capital, a private equity firm based in China, on whose investment committee he served. Prior to joining Trust Company of the West and Crescent in 2005, Patrick was a Managing Partner and co-founder of Canterbury Capital Partners, where he was responsible for the firm’s mezzanine investing activities. Before that, Patrick was a Director at Barclays Mezzanine Group for six years after serving as a Vice President in the leverage buyout group of Marine Midland Bank and as an Associate with Bankers Trust Company, which he joined in 1981. He has had substantial involvement in investments in over 190 companies in the United States and internationally.

Patrick holds an MBA from New York University and an MA and BA from Oxford University, United Kingdom.

David Fann, Partner, Senior Managing Director and Head of IR

David Fann is a Partner, Senior Managing Director, and Head of Investor Relations. He joined VSS in 2024. David has executive leadership roles in organizations that have invested over $50 billion in private equity, private credit, real assets and real estate for institutional clients and limited partners. Prior to joining VSS, David was Vice Chairman of Apogem Capital, a subsidiary of New York Life Investment Management.
Previously, he was a Partner and Vice Chairman of Aksia LLC. He was also a co-founder, President and CEO of TorreyCove Capital Partner LLC (merged with Aksia in 2020) and was President and CEO of PCG Asset Management. He was a Managing Director (Head of Alternatives) of US Trust and started his career at Citibank, where he was a Vice President of Citicorp Venture Capital Ltd.
David holds a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences degree in Industrial Engineering and Economics from Stanford University. He serves on the advisory boards of the Robert Toigo Foundation and the Association of Asian American Investment Managers.

Brad Corbin, Managing Director

Brad Corbin is a Managing Director and joined VSS in 2022. He is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, and structuring investment opportunities as well as providing strategic and operational support to portfolio companies. Brad is currently a board member of several VSS portfolio companies.

Michael Gebhardt, Principal

Michael Gebhardt is a Principal and joined VSS in 2024, with over a decade of middle market deal-making experience, including within business services, healthcare, technology, and government services sectors. He is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, and structuring investment opportunities, transaction execution, and supporting portfolio companies.

Aditya Govil, Principal

Aditya Govil is a Principal and joined VSS in 2021. He focuses on sourcing, evaluating, executing, and monitoring investments. Aditya is currently a board member of several VSS portfolio companies.

Sai Parepally, Principal

Sai Parepally is a Principal and joined VSS in 2022. He is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, and structuring investment opportunities as well as working closely with portfolio companies.

Jordan Margolin, Head of Business Development

Jordan Margolin joined VSS in 2021 and leads the firm’s business development efforts. He is responsible for identifying and evaluating investment opportunities and focuses his efforts on deal origination, intermediary and sponsor coverage.

Jack Hartfelder, Vice President 

Jack Hartfelder is a Vice President and Director and joined VSS in 2001. Jack’s primary responsibilities include investor relations, fundraising and due diligence, and marketing.

Funds Raised

Since 1987, VSS has raised and managed eight private capital funds (four equity buyout funds and four structured capital funds) that have focused on investing in U.S. lower middle market companies. On a combined basis, VSS has committed $4.0 billion across eight funds, and invested in over 100 portfolio companies.

To-date, VSS has raised $1.3 billion across four structured capital funds. The three most recent funds VSS has raised and managed are as follows:

Key Investments

VSS prides itself on supporting high-growth potential U.S. lower middle market businesses with flexible capital solutions across the healthcare, business services, and education sectors, and select other industries. Below is a sampling of exemplary VSS portfolio companies that the firm has helped navigate strategic and organic growth opportunities that are present in fragmented markets:

HFW: Invested November 2021
Sector: Facility & Infrastructure Services

Based in St. Louis, HFW is an AEC industry professional services company investing in architecture and engineering firms who serve metropolitan and infrastructure markets and are open to aligning with a partner for growth. Since VSS’s initial investment in 2021, HFW has welcomed ten brand partners, and meaningfully scaled its team, now employing 500+ employees across the entire platform. 

GLOBO Language Solutions: Invested December 2021
Sector: Healthcare IT 

GLOBO is a technology-enabled language solutions provider that helps organizations to communicate across 250+ languages, providing robust data and insights through a revolutionary cloud-based platform, GLOBO HQ. As AI becomes increasingly important in healthcare, third-party vendors, such as GLOBO, play an increasingly important role in patient centered care. Since VSS’s investment in 2021, GLOBO has completed two tuck-in acquisitions and has seen meaningful growth in its annual revenue and EBITDA.

Centroid: Invested April 2021
Sector: IT Services

Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, and founded in 1997 as an Oracle Consulting Services business, Centroid is today a provider of managed cloud services and enterprise workload consulting services across Oracle, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, and Google cloud platforms. Since VSS’s investment in 2021, Centroid has made four strategic add-on acquisitions, meeting the demand for digital transformation from today’s fastest growing businesses.

Lane Four: Invested October 2024
Sector: Salesforce Integration & Consulting

Lane Four is a boutique consulting firm founded in 2013 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, specializing in optimizing and scaling go-to-market operations using Salesforce and HubSpot for high-growth B2B companies.This transaction was the culmination of VSS’s thesis-driven work in the Salesforce ecosystem, seeking small players in a fragmented landscape that would benefit from the shift to digital transformation and AI adoption, bolstering efficiency.  

Treya Partners: Invested October 2024
Sector: Outsourced Business Services

Treya Partners is a San Francisco–based management consulting firm, founded in 2006, specializing in procurement value creation, strategic sourcing, and spend management advisory, particularly for private equity backed and public sector clients. As private equity firms sharpen their focus on driving value creation through operational improvements in a more challenging market, VSS sees strong potential for Treya’s continued growth.

Lumenci: Invested December 2024
Sector: Outsourced Legal Services 

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Lumenci provides a global one stop, turnkey solution for patent owners and law firms looking to monetize IP assets. Over time, Lumenci will bring together a broad suite of services to support IP-related activities including patent acquisitions and divestitures, patent litigation, patent monetization. This transaction marks the beginning of a platform that will create real value for law firms, litigation funders, and corporations with IP assets.

Capital Responsibility

VSS’s ESG policy formalizes the consideration of responsible investing factors throughout the lifecycle of its investment evaluation—from initial diligence screening through post-investment monitoring. VSS believes that consideration of ESG principles can potentially enhance the long-term value of its investments and mitigate a range of business risks.  

Given the sectors VSS focuses on—tech-enabled business services, healthcare, and education—the firm believes that companies operating successfully within its target industries often naturally align with important ESG factors and frequently demonstrate best practices and thought leadership in areas such as human capital, business efficiency, energy efficiency, and regulatory compliance, including adherence to government programs.