Toronto · New York
Private Equity · Founder-Led Businesses
We back founder-led companies in North America and put a technology and AI team inside them — our own people, from our sister firm LeapHL, working alongside management from the first hundred days. Not a list of advisors on call. A delivery team with names and a schedule.
Who we are
We back the people who built the business. Founders and management keep meaningful ownership and a real voice in the company's direction.
LeapHL is a technology and AI transformation firm with its own engineers, data specialists and delivery leads. They work inside our portfolio companies under an arm's-length agreement, so the value lands on the company's books rather than on a consulting invoice.
We invest with a long-term horizon and the flexibility to hold as long as the business benefits. Durable growth beats a quick flip, every time.
Where we invest
We invest where the work is still done by hand. Essential, fragmented industries with real cash flow, where the back office runs on spreadsheets and the front line has no data — because closing that gap is the specific thing our team was built to do.
Recurring, mission-critical services with route density, contracted revenue and consolidation potential.
Vertical software, managed services and data businesses serving the mid-market, where AI can reset the margin structure.
Multi-site providers and outsourced services with demographic tailwinds and clear operational levers.
Niche producers and value-added distributors with pricing power, engineered products and sticky customer bases.
Out of scope
Underinvestment in systems, data or process is not a disqualifier. It is usually why we are interested.
The LeapHL advantage
LeapHL Equity was built out of LeapHL, a technology and AI transformation firm. Its teams have rebuilt systems, data and operations inside enterprises across financial services, retail, healthcare and telecommunications. Our portfolio companies draw on that same bench, from the first hundred days.
How we work
A disciplined, repeatable path from close to exit. Clear stages, each with named owners, measurable outcomes and a plan the management team helped write.
Baseline the business: customers, unit economics, systems, people. Agree on the three things that matter most.
Finance rigour, reporting cadence, leadership depth and governance that a larger company would envy.
Deploy the LeapHL platform: automate the back office, instrument the front line, unlock the data.
Organic growth engines plus programmatic add-on acquisitions, integrated on a proven playbook.
A stronger, more valuable company with options: continue compounding, recapitalize or transition to the right next owner.
The partnership
Two operators. No committee between you and the answer.
Harj spent twenty-five years running enterprise technology and AI transformations across financial services, retail, healthcare and telecommunications, and holds twenty-two patents in digital identity, data security and applied AI. Lauren built digital and e-commerce platforms and took the results to boards and executive committees.
We started LeapHL Equity because the businesses with the most to gain from that work were never going to hire us. They needed an owner who would simply do it.
Who we partner with
Take capital off the table, bring in a partner for the next chapter, or plan a succession that protects your people and your name.
Start a conversationLead a buyout of the business you already run, with a partner who invests in your team, your systems and your equity upside.
Situations we backA small, senior manager with a technology delivery business attached to it. Our edge is structural rather than rhetorical: we own the team that executes the value plan. You see the plan, the scorecard and the people behind it at the level of detail our boards see.
Investor relationsOur criteria are published, so you can screen us before you screen anything to us. You get a partner on the phone, not an associate, and a straight answer in the same week.
Investment criteriaPerspectives
Large enterprises have spent a decade optimizing. Founder-led companies have not, and that gap is the opportunity — but the gap only closes when someone actually does the work.
Read the perspectiveSoftware licences do not transform a company. People who have done it before do.
What changes, what should never change, and how the best transitions are designed before the deal closes.
ReadAdd-on acquisitions compound value only when systems, data and culture are integrated on purpose, not by accident.
ReadLet's talk
A first conversation is one partner, an NDA and an hour. You will leave with an honest read on what the first hundred days inside your business would look like — what we would change, and what we would leave alone. Whether or not we ever do a deal.
