Sterling Partners

Sterling Partners is a private equity and venture capital firm founded in 1983, specializing in early venture, buyout investments in growth stage, small, and middle-market private companies primarily in the United States. With nearly $4 billion of capital under management, the firm invests between $5 million and over $150 million of equity in each company, focusing on industries with positive, long-term trends such as healthcare, technology, business services, and education. They seek partnerships with companies that have the potential for organic or acquisition-driven growth, offering operational expertise, experience, and a network of industry professionals to drive value in their portfolio companies. Sterling Partners prefers controlling or non-controlling interests and typically seeks to be the first institutional investor in companies, with a preference for minority investments. The firm has additional offices in Baltimore, Maryland; Delhi, India; Admiralty, Hong Kong; and Mexico, Mexico.

Courtney Altman

Vice President

Alex Amedeo

Associate

Nishaad Balachandran

Senior Associate

Douglas L. Becker

Co-Founder and Managing Director

Renee Berghoff

Director

Sean Bisceglia

Operating Partner of Education Opportunity Fund

Jim Boyce

VP of Information Technology

Michael Brown

Vice President

Logan Derck

Director and Associate Director

Ishan Dey

Associate

Shawn Domanic

VP

Jeffrey Elburn

Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer

Rick Elfman

Managing Director

Avi Epstein

Managing Director, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer & Chief Operating Officer

Michael Gershenzon

Vice President

R. Christopher Hoehn-Saric

Co-Founder & Senior Managing Director

Jeffrey J. Keith

Operating Partner

Whitney Krutulis

Vice President of Investor Relations

Sam Leibovitz

VP

Alan Macksey

Managing Director

Zachary Ozog

Associate

Patrick Quay

Investment Associate

Jason Rosenberg

Managing Director

Scott Schelle

Principal

Ryan Schultz

Investment Associate

Steven Taslitz

Co-Founder and Chairman

Shoshana Vernick

Managing Director of Education Opportunity Fund

Matthew Warren

VP

Todd A. Wilson

Principal and Operations Partner

Eugene Yeh

VP

48 past transactions

Traffic Solutions Corporation

Merger/Acquisition in 2018
Traffic Solutions Corporation, through its subsidiaries, manufactures, rents, and sells traffic control and safety products. The company offers a range of products, including barricades, message and arrow boards, crash cushions, and solar-powered message boards. It also provides various services, including construction zone traffic control, permit process management, overhead sign installation, and striping services, as well as lane, road, and freeway closures. The company serves public and private utilities; federal, state, county, and city agencies; road and bridge building firms; general contractors; and special event producers in the Western United States. Traffic Solutions Corporation was formerly known as Traffic Control and Safety Corporation. The company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Newport Beach, California with locations in Hawaii, and Nevada.

School of Rock

Venture Round in 2011
School of Rock, LLC owns, operates, and franchises a chain of schools that provide performance-based after school music education in the United States and internationally. It teaches guitar, bass, vocals, keyboards, and drums; and combines weekly private music instruction and group band rehearsals to prepare students to take the stage in front of live audiences in an authentic concert setting. School of Rock, LLC was formerly known as Paul Green School of Rock Music, LLC. The company was founded in 1998 and is based in El Segundo, California.

Panopto

Private Equity Round in 2016
Panopto helps businesses and universities create searchable video libraries of their institutional knowledge. Since 2007, the company has been a pioneer in video capture software, video content management systems, and inside-video search technology. Today, Panopto’s video platform is the largest repository of expert learning videos in the world. Headquartered in Seattle with offices in Pittsburgh, London, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Sydney, Panopto has received industry recognition for its innovation, rapid growth, and company culture.

IO.com

Private Equity Round in 2008
IO, the leading provider of next-generation modular data center technology and services designs, engineers and delivers data center infrastructure for the world's largest enterprises, governments and service providers.

TidePoint

Series A in 2000
A provider of business partner infrastructure solutions

SAVO

Venture Round in 2014
Founded in 1999, SAVO is a provider of on-demand, collaborative Sales Enablement solutions. Whether you have 10 sales reps or 10,000, SAVO plugs your sales reps into the collective genius of your entire organization by connecting them to the best resources, insights and expertise so that they never sell alone. By leveraging key Web 2.0 concepts, SAVO: - Pushes the best content, resources, and information at the right time; - Empowers anyone across the organization to contribute content, insights, and feedback, regardless of role; - Allows reps to rate the quality, relevance, and effectiveness of content through star ratings, comments, and usage statistics; - Makes it easy to customize content to maximize the impact, without compromising your brand. SAVO has been developed and refined through long-standing relationships with companies such as Morgan Stanley, CareerBuilder.com, Acxiom, AutoTrader.com, AmerisourceBergen, Citigroup, ADP, SPSS, and FedEx Kinkos. The combination of real-world client experience, an innovative consulting approach and award-winning technology uniquely positions SAVO to deliver practical solutions to enable the entire sales organization.

Cerebro Capital

Private Placement in 2020
Cerebro Capital, Inc. develops a web-based portal designed for middle-market companies looking to utilize credit facilities for operations, organic growth, or acquisitions. It integrates data from over 80 lenders, offers analytics to match the type of financing to the lender, and offers graphical interfaces for data interpretation. The company was formerly known as MCB Enterprises, LLC. The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.

EdCast

Private Placement in 2019
EdCast is an AI-powered knowledge cloud for unified discovery, knowledge management, and personalized learning. EdCast aggregates all learning content including those from LMS, intranet, external providers, subject matter experts, and preferred resources on the web. The company's machine learning curation engine ensures that only the highest quality, most relevant, and contextual content is presented to your team. EdCast’s AI-based targeting engine learns about your team and makes continuous learning recommendations directly to where they are working – including Slack and Salesforce.

Results Physiotherapy

Private Equity Round in 2014
Results Physiotherapy is an Outpatient Orthopedic Physical Therapy Company committed to world-class treatment of its patients with a growing presence in Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, Louisville, Raleigh, Huntsville, Knoxville and the Tri-Cities. Results specializes in the “Hands-On” treatment of post-surgical patients, neck and back pain, sports injuries, motor vehicle accidents, workman’s compensation, arthritis, headaches, running injuries, TMJ, women's health and a variety of conditions.

Education Holding Costa Rica EHCR, S.R.L

Merger/Acquisition in 2020
Education Holding Costa Rica EHCR, S.R.L. provides educational services. Education Holding Costa Rica EHCR, S.R.L. was formerly known as Laureate Holding Costa Rica S.R.L. The company is based in Costa Rica.

Florida Coastal School of Law

Acquisition in 2004
Florida Coastal School of Law is a school.

Radial

Merger/Acquisition in 2015
Radial is the leader in omnichannel commerce technology and operations, enabling brands and retailers to profitably exceed retail customer expectations. Radial’s omnichannel solutions connect supply and demand through efficient order management, fulfillment and transportation options, intelligent fraud, payments, and tax systems, store fulfillment solutions, and personalized customer care services.

Hoffman Southwest

Merger/Acquisition in 2015
Hoffman Southwest Corp. (HSW) is a leading provider of water flow solutions services. Its Professional Pipe Services (Pro-Pipe) division is a leader in underground pipeline condition assessment and repair, providing state-of-the-art closed circuit television (CCTV) inspection services, including video inspection, underground mapping, cleaning and rehabilitating sewage pipelines for municipalities, contractors, engineers, government agencies, facility owners, homeowners and natural gas providers in the western United States.

Data Cubed, LLC

Private Placement in 2020
Data Cubed, LLC designs and develops a platform for electronic clinical outcomes assessments (eCOA). The company offers linkt platform to create study; Linkt Platform that enables users to report their diet and nutrition; Linkt Cognition to measure cognition with fun tasks; Linkt eCOA for validated surveys; and Linkt eConsent for various study populations. In addition, it offers Linkt Location that provides real time outcomes and events; Linkt Patient Engagement that enables participants to create and unlock rewards for their personal avatars; Linkt Sensor to improve data collection with third-party sensors; and Linkt Virtual Visit, a digital engagement tool to reduce geographic barriers and improve the patient experience in clinical trials. The company also offers study design, instrument validation, data analysis, third party integration, and custom app design services. Data Cubed, LLC was incorporated in 2016 and is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Big Blue Marble Academy

Private Placement in 2018
Big Blue Marble Academy, LLC offers childcare education services. It provides curriculum of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education with a second language enrichment that gives all ages exposure to another language for global learning. The company also offers programs, such as cultural awareness, character development, Spanish immersion preschool, after school programs, and summer camps according to ages. The company was founded in 2012 and is based in Gilbert, South Carolina.

Cerebro Capital

Private Placement in 2018
Cerebro Capital, Inc. develops a web-based portal designed for middle-market companies looking to utilize credit facilities for operations, organic growth, or acquisitions. It integrates data from over 80 lenders, offers analytics to match the type of financing to the lender, and offers graphical interfaces for data interpretation. The company was formerly known as MCB Enterprises, LLC. The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.

Black Rifle Coffee

Private Placement in 2018
Black Rifle Coffee Company, LLC engages in the coffee production activities. It offers light roast, medium roast, dark roast, extra dark roast, coffee rounds, five pound bags, decaf, and cocoa coffees. It also offers apparel, that includes shirts, women's shirts, hats, tank tops, and sweat shirts; and other gears, that includes mugs, cups, glasses, thermoses, stickers, and tumblers. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Shorelight

Private Placement in 2020
Shorelight Education, LLC provides higher education programs for international students in the United States. It offers services in the areas of research and resources, application assistance, student visa and pre-arrival, campus transition, academic support, and career development. The company partners top tier universities to build degree programs and provide services that support students ranging from the application process to graduation—and beyond. The company was incorporated in 2013 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Big Blue Marble Academy

Private Equity Round in 2018
Big Blue Marble Academy, LLC offers childcare education services. It provides curriculum of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education with a second language enrichment that gives all ages exposure to another language for global learning. The company also offers programs, such as cultural awareness, character development, Spanish immersion preschool, after school programs, and summer camps according to ages. The company was founded in 2012 and is based in Gilbert, South Carolina.

Fancy Sprinkles

Series A in 2018
Fancy Sprinkles is a woman-owned, women-run company. It was started in 2016 by now CEO & Creative Director Lisa Stelly Osbourne. Fancy Sprinkles strives to make the very best in confectionery sprinkles as a direct-to-consumer, e-commerce-based business, and has the ability to work directly with its customers and provide them with exceptional goods and customer service.

Telenisus

Series C in 2001
Telenisus is a technology firm that provides e-commerce internet solutions to its clients. It was founded in 1999 and is based in Illinois.

Stella

Venture Round in 2023
The Stella Center provides relief from symptoms of trauma through a procedure, Stellate Ganglion Block, which interacts with the sympathetic nervous system to help restore normal psychological function and address the biological symptoms associated with trauma. The treatment can help support the brain’s natural fight or flight response. Reported effective by research publications, this procedure can lead to a restored sense of safety and calm for many patients and has been shown to improve responsiveness to traditional resources like psychotherapy and medication.

Traffic Solutions Corporation

Private Equity Round in 2018
Headquartered in Irvine, CA, Traffic Solutions Corporation (“TSC”) is one of largest providers of traffic control products and services with 18 locations in California, Hawaii, and Nevada. The company offers a diverse array of traffic control solutions, including job-site work, product sales, equipment rental, sign manufacturing, and installation for customers. TSC’s scale, broad capabilities, professionally trained staff, and strong product distribution capabilities significantly differentiate the company from the competition.

SecureNet Payment Systems

Private Equity Round in 2012
SecureNet is streamlining the way businesses accept payments in-store, online and via mobile device. It is the first processor to implement a single stack of APIs for all types of transactions, in all development languages, across all channels. This means shorter integration times and a simpler certification process. The platform is backed by detailed analytics that help companies make informed decisions to grow their business, and security features that rank among the highest by the Payments Card Industry. SecureNet’s unique direct connection to card networks makes pricing the most transparent and straightforward in the industry. By choosing SecureNet to process payments and provide industry-leading technology and useful consumer data, businesses are not only getting paid, but getting smart.

Taylor Associates Communications, Inc.

Private Placement in 2019
Taylor Associates Communications, Inc., doing business as Reading Plus, develops assessments for educators to offer differentiated literacy instruction for each student. The company's assessment integrates comprehension, vocabulary, motivation, and reading efficiency. Taylor Associates Communications, Inc. was founded in 1995 and is based in Winooski, Vermont.

Reading Plus

Private Equity Round in 2019
Reading Plus, LLC engages in designing and producing reading assessments. It develops software and hardware that integrates comprehension, vocabulary, motivation, and reading efficiency into one program. The company was founded in 1930 and is based in Winooski, Vermont.

Avectra

Series A in 2007
Avectra, Inc. provides on demand membership management software solutions. The company’s products include netFORUM Enterprise, which is designed to manage tasks, including processing and maintaining member profiles, information, communications, and transactions for its members; and netFORUM Team and Pro Editions that provides the tools, which enable to identify, secure, and build members for life to the small and mid-sized organizations. It also provides consulting services; implementation, training, and development services; designs and implements Web sites; and ASP hosting services. Avectra, Inc. was formerly known as ABLAZE Business Systems, Inc. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia with additional offices in Los Angeles and Chicago.

Cerebro Capital

Seed Round in 2018
Cerebro Capital, Inc. develops a web-based portal designed for middle-market companies looking to utilize credit facilities for operations, organic growth, or acquisitions. It integrates data from over 80 lenders, offers analytics to match the type of financing to the lender, and offers graphical interfaces for data interpretation. The company was formerly known as MCB Enterprises, LLC. The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hoffman Southwest

Acquisition in 2015
Hoffman Southwest Corp. (HSW) is a leading provider of water flow solutions services. Its Professional Pipe Services (Pro-Pipe) division is a leader in underground pipeline condition assessment and repair, providing state-of-the-art closed circuit television (CCTV) inspection services, including video inspection, underground mapping, cleaning and rehabilitating sewage pipelines for municipalities, contractors, engineers, government agencies, facility owners, homeowners and natural gas providers in the western United States.

IO.com

Private Equity Round in 2011
IO, the leading provider of next-generation modular data center technology and services designs, engineers and delivers data center infrastructure for the world's largest enterprises, governments and service providers.

First Choice Emergency Room

Private Equity Round in 2011
First Choice Emergency Room represents an entirely new concept in the delivery of emergency medical services. First Choice Emergency Room is a free-standing, fully equipped emergency room. All of their physicians are board certified, emergency medicine physicians and their nurses are registered nurses with emergency room training. They are prepared to manage all adult and pediatric major and minor emergencies.

Grand Rapids Ophthalmology

Private Equity Round in 2017
Grand Rapids Ophthalmology, P.C. provides eye care services including ophthalmology, optometry, and retail optical services throughout West Michigan. The company was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Fancy Sprinkles

Private Placement in 2018
Fancy Sprinkles is a woman-owned, women-run company. It was started in 2016 by now CEO & Creative Director Lisa Stelly Osbourne. Fancy Sprinkles strives to make the very best in confectionery sprinkles as a direct-to-consumer, e-commerce-based business, and has the ability to work directly with its customers and provide them with exceptional goods and customer service.

SAVO

Series A in 2005
Founded in 1999, SAVO is a provider of on-demand, collaborative Sales Enablement solutions. Whether you have 10 sales reps or 10,000, SAVO plugs your sales reps into the collective genius of your entire organization by connecting them to the best resources, insights and expertise so that they never sell alone. By leveraging key Web 2.0 concepts, SAVO: - Pushes the best content, resources, and information at the right time; - Empowers anyone across the organization to contribute content, insights, and feedback, regardless of role; - Allows reps to rate the quality, relevance, and effectiveness of content through star ratings, comments, and usage statistics; - Makes it easy to customize content to maximize the impact, without compromising your brand. SAVO has been developed and refined through long-standing relationships with companies such as Morgan Stanley, CareerBuilder.com, Acxiom, AutoTrader.com, AmerisourceBergen, Citigroup, ADP, SPSS, and FedEx Kinkos. The combination of real-world client experience, an innovative consulting approach and award-winning technology uniquely positions SAVO to deliver practical solutions to enable the entire sales organization.

UPshow

Angel Round in 2017
UPshow, Inc. develops a digital signage and social TV software platform that transforms the TVs at businesses into customized marketing and entertainment screens. It allows patrons to display their social media posts instantly on TVs within a venue to feature new products, promotions, events, trivia, and interactive games. The company serves bars, restaurants, retail, automotive, entertainment, fitness, and healthcare industries. The company was incorporated in 2015 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.

Amerigo Education

Venture Round in 2017
Amerigo supports international students at U.S. high schools with a holistic and supportive approach that emphasizes success and growth.They help international students seeking a preparatory education in the United States thrive both in and out of the American classroom. Combining a nurturing boarding environment, supplemental academic support, English language development, and an approach oriented around successful college outcomes, Amerigo prepares students with the skills, values, and care required to succeed in high school, at the college level, and beyond.

AnAerobics

Series A in 2002
AnAerobics, a Rochester, N.Y.-based developer of anaerobic wastewater treatment systems.

School of Rock

Venture Round in 2012
School of Rock, LLC owns, operates, and franchises a chain of schools that provide performance-based after school music education in the United States and internationally. It teaches guitar, bass, vocals, keyboards, and drums; and combines weekly private music instruction and group band rehearsals to prepare students to take the stage in front of live audiences in an authentic concert setting. School of Rock, LLC was formerly known as Paul Green School of Rock Music, LLC. The company was founded in 1998 and is based in El Segundo, California.

Centerre Healthcare

Venture Round in 2005
Centerre Healthcare Corporation develops and operates rehabilitation hospitals. It offers programs for strokes, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, burns, traumatic injuries, and hip/knee/orthopedic problems. The company also provides specialized rehabilitation services for medical, psychological, social, and functional needs of patients and families. Centerre Healthcare Corporation was founded in 2002 and is based in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Lecturio

Private Equity Round in 2021
Lecturio provides the highest quality medical education content delivered in the most advanced teaching platform for medicine. Built in collaboration with instructors from Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Brown University and more, Lecturio combines excellent didactics with high-tech delivery. Leading universities around the world trust us to help them deliver their unique approaches to teaching medicine and the platform adapts to their curricula and teaching methods.

Altus Traffic

Private Placement in 2018
Altus Traffic Pty Limited provides traffic management, traffic planning, flagging, and traffic control services. It offers traffic management services, such as traffic equipment hire, hazard planning, labor hire, and consulting; risk management services; and traffic planning permit services, which include attending pre-work meetings, submitting of specific traffic planning documentation, liaising and negotiating with contractors and road authorities, gaining traffic control permits, and demonstrating applicable insurance documentation. The company also provides traffic management planning (TMP) services, including pre-work audits evaluating risk before the job commences; traffic control plans for temporary traffic control; traffic planning; and submission of traffic management plans (TMP) for permit approval. In addition, it offers services, such as professional traffic management, accredited traffic controllers/flaggers, project management and hazard planning, planning and assessment approvals, and hazard and job safety analysis on sites; and equipment rental, including arrow boards, VMS boards, traffic lights, and water-filled barriers. Further, it provides services, such as OH and S traffic controller accreditation, hazard analysis, work site diary notes, and traffic management plan adjustments. It serves sectors, such as utility supply or servicing, including water, gas, sewer, and telecommunications; road, parks, or building maintenance; and communications, underground boring, rail installation and maintenance, asphalt and spray sealing, line marking, road authority, public works agencies, TV and film, civil construction, land development, general building contracting, concrete pouring and pumping, and crane supply. The company was founded in 2002 and is based in Port Melbourne, Australia. It has locations in Australia and the United States.

Cortera

Series B in 2004
Cortera is a provider of comprehensive business-to-business payment and purchase behavior data and insights on public and private companies. The company tracks $1.6 trillion in business-to-business purchases across 45 spend categories to deliver insights on 20 million U.S. business locations. Cortera's solutions enable companies of all sizes to better understand their customers, suppliers and business partners by gaining visibility into what they purchase, how they pay and how their purchase and payment behavior changes over time. Thousands of companies across diverse industries use Cortera solutions to increase revenue, improve sales and marketing effectiveness, and reduce risk. Cortera is privately held with offices in Boca Raton, Florida; Boston and Quincy, Massachusetts and Bangalore, India.

DBi Services

Venture Round in 2016
Founded in 1978, DBi Services is a world leader in transportation infrastructure operations and maintenance. With over 60 locations in six countries, DBi operates a fleet of over 2500 specialized vehicles and has been recognized by "FleetOwner" Magazine as one of America's Top 500 Private Fleets.

Champ

Series B in 2022
Through the application of its secure, patent-pending technology, CHAMPtitles ends the reliance on legacy systems to manage U.S. automobile titles. CHAMPtitles partners with each party in the vehicle title ecosystem to reduce their costs in handling titles, turning the burdensome administrative process of issuing a vehicle title into a profitable activity.

Cerebro Capital

Seed Round in 2020
Cerebro Capital, Inc. develops a web-based portal designed for middle-market companies looking to utilize credit facilities for operations, organic growth, or acquisitions. It integrates data from over 80 lenders, offers analytics to match the type of financing to the lender, and offers graphical interfaces for data interpretation. The company was formerly known as MCB Enterprises, LLC. The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.