Victor Hwang

I spoke with Christien Louviere of BDE Capital about his journey from a $330mm exit to becoming an independent sponsor. Christien shared excellent insights for folks looking to partner with business owners, rather than buy sellers out completely. Below are a few of the topics we covered: - Why he moved from “zero-to-one” startups to a buy-then-build strategy - How Christien's background shaped a focus on growth vs. cost-cutting - Why 20–40% rolled equity is central to his deal structures—and how it builds trust with sellers - Using scenario analysis with AI tools to evaluate management teams and uncover hidden key-person risks - How to identify when a $3–5M EBITDA company truly has a middle management layer—or is still founder-reliant For anyone investing in or buying small businesses, Christien’s approach provides a fresh lens on growth, alignment, and deal structuring. 🎥 Watch the full interview here → https://lnkd.in/ekfkaiej 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/e86Agx6V

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Layer is tackling one of the most overlooked pain points for SMBs: accounting. They’re gaining real traction doing so. Emergence is leading their seed round to bring embedded, AI-powered accounting to the SMB software stack. Kevin Spain highlights what makes this team and product so compelling. 

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Wealth professionals looking to introduce private market investments into client portfolios are finding that client education is essential. Managing Director James Martin shares a key insight from our Global Private Wealth Survey that highlights how stronger education equips clients to confidently embrace private markets.

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Big milestone for Firmable. We’ve raised $14m Series A led by Airtree. Sales has moved through a few big waves: intuition-led, CRM-led, data-led. We’re now entering the next one – intelligence-led sales. The opportunity isn’t just better data. It’s turning that data into clear direction and action, without adding more work for sales teams. That’s what we’re building at Firmable: a foundation of trusted external data, layered with intelligence that helps sellers know who to focus on and when. Led by Airtree, this round supports our expansion across Asia and into the US – and accelerates the build-out of AI agents that take the admin work off sales teams so they can focus on what they do best. Proud of the team, grateful to our customers and investors. We’re just getting started. Read the exclusive in the AFR. https://lnkd.in/gr66uknb Leigh Jasper | Tara Salmon | Karthik Venkatasubramanian| Chester Thompson| Chath Widanapathirana

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Greenfield Partners is proud to be deepening our partnership with Capitolis as they announce today a $56M strategic round. If you’ve spent time in market infrastructure, you know how rare it is to see deep market insight paired with real product velocity. The team at Capitolis has both, and the result is infrastructure that makes capital markets safer and more efficient. We’re increasing our investment alongside Barclays, BNP Paribas, J.P. Morgan, fellow investors Canapi Ventures, 9Yards Capital, and existing investors Citi, Morgan Stanley, State Street, and UBS to fuel the next stages of Capitolis’ Capital Marketplace and Portfolio Optimization solutions. https://lnkd.in/exK8nQYx Kudos to Gil Mandelzis and the entire Capitolis team!

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🤝 Anrok x KongBasileConsulting KongBasileConsulting (KBC) is a San Francisco–based accounting and consulting firm supporting VC-backed SaaS and technology companies as they scale. Their team specializes in building finance and compliance foundations that can grow alongside fast-moving startups without slowing them down. Together, Anrok and KBC help shared clients stay ahead of sales tax complexity as they expand into new states and markets. Trusted by high-growth teams like Unit, Zeck, and Jupiter Intellinger, this partnership brings clarity and confidence to an increasingly complex compliance landscape. With Anrok, KBC’s clients gain: • Real-time visibility into sales tax obligations across jurisdictions • Proactive alerts for nexus thresholds and compliance milestones • Automated tax calculations that integrate seamlessly with modern billing systems • Streamlined filing workflows that free finance teams to focus on growth Proud to partner with the KBC team to support the next generation of SaaS operators. See how high-growth teams are using Anrok 👉 https://lnkd.in/g43YViv6

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Calendar → Planner → Projects → AI employees. Motion is rebuilding the SMB productivity stack for an agentic world.  Stacey Bishop and I are thrilled to share our investment in Motion. They raised $60M, powered by an oversubscribed $38M Series C led by Scale Venture Partners. Harry Qi, Ethan Yu, and Omid Rooholfada are at the heart of it, driving the change every SMB has been waiting for. AI is reshaping business at a speed we've never seen. But for most SMBs it’s still out of reach: too complicated, too expensive, and way too much overhead. The Motion team is breaking down those barriers by replacing the productivity suite with a set of out-of-the-box AI employees, ready to work on day one. A 25-person accounting firm in Kansas City can now have AI teammates handling client follow-ups, prepping docs, updating records, scheduling meetings - the tedious, time sucking stuff that gets in the way of actual work. The team has built a single platform where humans and AI genuinely collaborate. Motion is following a GTM playbook that has led to some of the most significant business outcomes in SaaS: start with a wedge, win the SMB market, then expand across categories and upmarket. We’ve seen this across SaaS giants and within our own portfolio. Box defined content, HubSpot defined inbound marketing, and BILL defined Accounts Payable. They all began with focused products that evolved into comprehensive suites. Motion’s agentic productivity platform is already reaching 10k+ SMBs and is just getting started. The future of agentic work is here, and I can’t wait to see what this team accomplishes! Read more about the story here: https://lnkd.in/dvwkazfK

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Flare Capital Expands the Team, Again…  Ours is an extremely competitive business. In addition to providing capital, venture capitalists assist with recruiting, connecting portfolio companies to potential customers, and setting strategic direction. Great entrepreneurs have no shortage of investors with whom to partner. Therefore, the privileged position for investors is to flex on thought leadership and be able to draw on relevant prior experiences. As such, we could not be more excited to welcome Dr. Graham Gardner and Dr. Rochelle Walensky as Executive Partners to the firm. Flare Capital Partners

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