Boston, MA, October 29, 2024 – Inc., the leading media brand and playbook for the entrepreneurs and business leaders shaping our future, today announced its sixth annual Founder-Friendly Investors list, honoring the private equity, venture capital firms, and lenders with a track record of backing founder-led companies. This year’s list recognizes Yellow Wood Partners among 269 companies.
The prestigious list celebrates the investors that believe in backing founder-led businesses and helping them thrive. All companies on the list have successful track records of collaboration and remaining actively involved with the businesses they invest in.
“It has been a complicated few years for growth companies and the companies that fund them,” said Mike Hofman, editor-in-chief of Inc. “So we are happy to share with our readers the best, latest guidance on which venture capital firms, private equity firms, and growth-capital lenders have the track record and reputation of being especially good partners to founders and CEOs.”
Over the past 10 years, approximately 45% of Yellow Wood’s investments have been in founder-owned and operated businesses. This demonstrates the firm’s deep understanding of the unique needs of founder-owned businesses and their commitment to preserving these brands’ legacy while driving long-term growth. Investments in Parfums De Coeur, Dr. Teal’s, Cantu, Bodycology, Eylure, Elegant Touch, Me! Bath, Future Beauty Labs, and Beacon Wellness Brands have all been acquired from founders.
Yellow Wood believes in the power of collaboration and actively fosters relationships with founders, recognizing that their vision and leadership are integral to success. They spend a significant amount of time with founders before making an investment to ensure that it is a good fit and align on shared growth objectives. This alignment allows them to work side by side with founders, combining their background and knowledge with the firm’s operational and strategic guidance to drive results. Yellow Wood is also dedicated to enabling entrepreneurs to retain significant ownership stakes in their company or the platform post investment. They recognize the importance of this ownership, which aligns everyone's interests for long-term success.
To compile the list, Inc. went straight to the source: entrepreneurs who have sold to private equity and venture capital firms. Founders filled out a questionnaire about their experiences partnering with private equity, venture capital, and debt firms and shared data on how their portfolio companies have grown during these partnerships.
To see the complete list, go to: https://www.inc.com/founder-friendly-investors/2024
Introduced in 2019, the Founder-Friendly Investors list quickly established itself as one of Inc.’s most resourceful franchises. It has become a go-to guide for entrepreneurs who want to grow their companies while retaining an ownership stake.
The November 2024 issue of Inc. magazine is available online now at https://www.inc.com/magazine and will be on newsstands beginning October 29.
About Inc.
Inc. is the leading media brand and playbook for the entrepreneurs and business leaders shaping our future. Through its journalism, Inc. aims to inform, educate, and elevate the profile of our community: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters who are creating our future. Inc.'s award-winning work achieves a monthly brand footprint of more than 40 million across a variety of channels, including events, digital, print, video, podcasts, newsletters, and social media. Its proprietary Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since its launch as the Inc. 100 in 1982, analyzes company data to rank the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The recognition that comes with inclusion on this and other prestigious Inc. lists, such as Female Founders and Power Partners, gives the founders of top businesses the opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. For more information, visit www.inc.com.
About Yellow Wood Partners
Yellow Wood Partners is a Boston-based private investment firm that invests exclusively in the consumer industry in the middle market. The firm seeks to acquire branded consumer products that sell into a variety of consumer channels, including mass, drug, food, specialty, value, club, and e-commerce. Yellow Wood's Consumer Operating DNA® investment and operating strategy is based on utilizing the firm's functional operating resources to help maximize brand performance by driving organic growth to increase operating efficiencies. The firm further seeks to acquire additional brands to accelerate growth in its limited number of platform companies. For more information, please visit www.yellowwoodpartners.com.