---
title: Chicago Private Equity Firm, About | HarborWind
description: Meet the operator and investor behind HarborWind, a Chicago private equity firm with Boston roots. We have sat on both sides of the table. Get to know us.
image: https://harborwind.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/harborwind-partners/images/og-default.png
---
- [Home](https://harborwind.com/)
- [About](https://harborwind.com/about)
- [Team](https://harborwind.com/team)
- [Insights](https://harborwind.com/insights)
- Industry Focus
- [Our Investments](https://harborwind.com/portfolio)
- [Investment Criteria](https://harborwind.com/investment-criteria)
- [Niche Manufacturing](https://harborwind.com/niche-manufacturing)
- [Specialty Chemicals](https://harborwind.com/specialty-chemicals)
- [Industrial and Essential B2B Services](https://harborwind.com/b2b-services)
- [Portfolio](https://harborwind.com/portfolio)
[Start a Conversation](https://harborwind.com/contact)
Menu
[Home](https://harborwind.com/) [About](https://harborwind.com/about) [Team](https://harborwind.com/team) [Insights](https://harborwind.com/insights)
Industry Focus
[Our Investments](https://harborwind.com/portfolio) [Investment Criteria](https://harborwind.com/investment-criteria) [Niche Manufacturing](https://harborwind.com/niche-manufacturing) [Specialty Chemicals](https://harborwind.com/specialty-chemicals) [Industrial and Essential B2B Services](https://harborwind.com/b2b-services)
[Portfolio](https://harborwind.com/portfolio)
[Start a Conversation](https://harborwind.com/contact)
1. [Home](https://harborwind.com/)
2. Chicago Private Equity Firm, About | HarborWind
About HarborWind
# Who we are, and why we built it.
BostonChicago
 [Brand Film](https://harborwind.com/about#video)
Why we exist
## We built HarborWind to prove a thesis.
Rocky Lopez and Sean Mahoney met at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Rocky had spent his career investing in industrial companies. Sean had spent his building the technology that modernizes them. From those two seats they reached the same thesis. Lower-middle-market companies adopt new technology later than startups or their larger counterparts do. A company this size can often transform how it operates and reach a new level of scale with the systems it already has in place. That lag is the opportunity.
The thesis came from watching it play out. Rocky spent 14 years as Principal Investor and CFO at a Chicago-based family office. He led 17 lower-middle-market acquisitions and served on the boards of the companies he backed. The pattern across those years was hard to miss. The companies that modernized how they operated grew faster than the ones that did not. He wanted to build a firm that helped them do it sooner.
Sean built companies. He founded AndPlus, a software and AI firm, and spent more than a decade growing it before selling it in 2022 to Ensono, a KKR portfolio company. He stayed on to run its North American consulting arm. His work was modernizing how other companies run, and he sold the one he built himself. He knows what selling a business asks of an owner: judging the timing, choosing a single buyer, handing over what took years to build, and carrying the weight of the people who spent their careers helping build it. That experience shapes how he sits across from an owner weighing the same decision.
HarborWind was deliberate. For years the idea came up on annual golf trips, at school reunions, and at family get-togethers, until they decided it was time to prove the thesis they had built. Sean left the firm he had been running on his own. Rocky left the family office. In January 2026 they founded HarborWind as equal business partners.
Two cities, one name
## HarborWind takes its name from both cities.
Sean works from Boston, on the harbor. Rocky has always lived in Chicago, the Windy City. Two of America's greatest cities, proving that modernization can have an outsized impact on the lower middle market.
Modernization is our thesis.
The principals
## The principals you will work with directly.
As HarborWind grows, the promise stays the same. The people who make the decisions are the people you deal with.
### Rocky Lopez
Managing Partner
Rocky is a career investor in the lower middle market. Before HarborWind he spent 14 years at a Chicago-based family office. He ran the full life of a deal there, from sourcing and structuring the capital through diligence and closing, and then served as a board partner to the companies he backed. He can read a company's financials and understand the full story they tell: where the value is, where the risk sits, and what it will take to grow. His judgment rests on fundamentals, and he brings that discipline to every company HarborWind looks at. Rocky is a lifelong Chicagoan. He lives there with his wife, their twin boys, and their Sheltie, Lola.
### Sean Mahoney
Managing Partner
Sean is a framework thinker with real battle scars. He founded AndPlus, grew it for more than a decade, and sold it in 2022. He carried the payroll, the customers, and the hard decisions himself, and the frameworks are what he learned from doing it. He is a founder who became an investor, and the order matters. At HarborWind he works with leadership at the board and strategic level, where a company's technology decisions get made. What he brings is memory: he has been the owner on the other side of the table. Sean grew up in Tampa, and a video call with him usually reveals an extensive Buccaneers and Lightning memorabilia collection in the background. He lives in the Boston area with his wife, two children, and their Cavapoo, Brewster.
Full backgrounds for the HarborWind team are on our [team page](https://harborwind.com/team).
How we work
## The things we do without being asked.
How a firm behaves before there is a deal tells you how it will behave after one. The principals stay closely involved in the day-to-day of the firm. We are aware of every inquiry that reaches HarborWind, and we answer each one ourselves. We tell you early if we are not the right buyer, because a fast and honest no is worth more to you than a slow maybe.
We hold what we buy. One of the companies Rocky backed before HarborWind is an industrial materials manufacturer. It was bought near breakeven years ago. It is still owned and still compounding, because holding it was the strategy, and the strategy is working. That is the kind of owner we intend to be. We don't disappear.
Results reflect prior-firm transactions led by a HarborWind partner.
What we’re building
## Carrying good companies into their next phase.
HarborWind exists to carry good industrial companies into their next phase of growth. The businesses we buy are already strong. We add the technology and systems that let them compound what they have built, and we add them carefully, because change done well strengthens a company and earns the trust of the people inside it. We believe this is how modernization ought to happen in the industrial economy: adding what compounds, protecting what already works, and keeping faith with the people who got the company here.
We are new. HarborWind opened in January 2026, and the newness is deliberate. The years before it were spent building companies and buying them, and that work now runs under our own name. We buy founder-led businesses in niche manufacturing, specialty chemicals, and industrial and essential B2B services, and we hold them for the long term. What we look for, and why, is on our [Investment Thesis page](https://harborwind.com/investment-criteria).
Get in touch
## We would like to hear from you.
Every conversation with HarborWind is confidential, unhurried, and without obligation. There is no pitch on the other end, and no clock.
### For owners considering a sale
You spent years building the company. If you are beginning to think about its next chapter, that is reason enough to talk. Tell us where the business stands and what you want for it, and we will tell you plainly whether HarborWind is the right buyer.
[Start a Conversation](https://harborwind.com/contact)
### For investors in the lower middle market
The lower middle market rewards patience and discipline. If you invest here and want to see how HarborWind puts capital to work, we will walk you through the thesis, the companies we look for, and the way we build them.
[Explore Investing With HarborWind](https://harborwind.com/contact)
Not ready for either? You can follow what we publish and stay at a distance for as long as you like. [Join our mailing list.](https://harborwind.com/about#subscribe) Or read [why we buy founder-led industrial businesses](https://harborwind.com/insights/why-we-buy-founder-led-industrial-businesses).
## Ready to explore a partnership?
Whether you’re thinking about succession, a growth partnership, or simply curious, we’d love to have a first conversation.
[Start a Conversation](https://harborwind.com/contact)
Buy. Build. Compound.
## Firm
- [About](https://harborwind.com/about)
- [Team](https://harborwind.com/team)
- [Portfolio](https://harborwind.com/portfolio)
- [Media Kit](https://harborwind.com/media-kit)
## Approach
- [Investment Criteria](https://harborwind.com/investment-criteria)
- [For Business Owners](https://harborwind.com/for-business-owners)
- [For Advisors & Intermediaries](https://harborwind.com/for-intermediaries)
- [Selling Your Business](https://harborwind.com/selling-your-business)
## Sectors
- [Niche Manufacturing](https://harborwind.com/niche-manufacturing)
- [Specialty Chemicals](https://harborwind.com/specialty-chemicals)
- [Industrial and Essential B2B Services](https://harborwind.com/b2b-services)
## Writing
- [Insights](https://harborwind.com/insights)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/harborwind-partners)
## Offices
**Chicago**901 W. Jackson Blvd., Suite 306
Chicago, IL 60607
[(312) 449‑4963](tel:+13124494963)
**Boston**24 School St, Second Floor
Boston, MA 02108
[(617) 701‑4963](tel:+16177014963)
HarborWind Partners invests its own equity alongside other equity partners to fund acquisitions. Nothing on this website constitutes an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to purchase any securities. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
© 2026 HarborWind Partners
HarborWind Partners Buy. Build. Compound.
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