For capital partners
Built from both sides of the table.
We acquire, transform, and hold founder-led businesses, preserving legacies while compounding value.
Two principals make every decision.
Rocky Lopez, Managing Partner. Sean Mahoney, Managing Partner.
Buy
We buy founder-led industrial companies, most of them directly from their founders.
We buy in Niche Manufacturing, Specialty Chemicals, and Industrial and Essential B2B Services, across the United States. These are essential businesses with durable demand.
Rocky Lopez has led 17 acquisitions, 6 platforms and 11 add-ons. He bought most of those companies through relationships he built. We have a live conversation open in each sector.
- Sectors
- Niche Manufacturing, Specialty Chemicals, Industrial and Essential B2B Services
- EBITDA
- $2M–$8M
- Enterprise value
- Under $75M
- Revenue
- Above $10M
- Equity check
- $5M–$25M per deal
- Geography
- United States, Midwest and Northeast preferred
- Ownership
- Founder- or family-owned; not currently PE-owned
- Business model
- Owns its own formulas and product IP
Build
We build with systems and technology from the start.
Honeywell, PerkinElmer, and Phoenix Controls were clients of AndPlus, the consultancy Sean Mahoney founded and sold to Ensono, a KKR-owned company.
A recycling plant was losing quality on one shift, because the forklift drivers could not tell which bales matched the recipe for the paper being made. Software that told a driver whether the bale in front of him was the right one raised quality 30 percent, almost eliminated breakages, and saved nearly $1M a month.
A procurement team of three people had 2 million SKUs and no reliable view of what any of them should cost. Software that priced every SKU gave them that view, and they saved $3M in their first six months negotiating with vendors.
At HarborWind, Sean does the same systems and technology work in-house.
Results from client engagements led by Sean Mahoney at AndPlus, the consultancy he founded and sold in 2022.
Compound
We compound by holding the companies that keep growing.
We are long-term holders with no mandatory exit timeframe. We measure each company by the multiple of capital it returns over the hold.
Modest debt at entry, paid down early, makes a long hold survivable.
These are three outcomes from Rocky’s record at The Randolph Group.
Bought a project-based industrial-safety business directly from its founder, kept it in its community, recruited a strategic leadership team, and built recurring revenue and a modern facility, more than doubling it to about a 6 to 7x outcome.
Recapitalized a distributor out of a PE seller during a sector downturn, swapped a cost-cutting CEO for a growth CEO, modernized its systems and inventory science, and expanded into the fastest-growing US markets, nearly tripling revenue to about a 5x outcome.
Bought a founder-owned specialty-manufacturing business that didn’t own its own product IP, brought the formulas and then the manufacturing fully in-house, and built an R&D capability, roughly doubling revenue to about a 4 to 5x outcome.
Results reflect prior-firm transactions led by a HarborWind partner.
Funding
How a deal gets funded
We fund each acquisition with our own money alongside a small group of family offices and private investors who invest deal by deal. Each company is funded as its own deal.
Step by step
- 1. The company
- We find a founder-led company that fits our criteria and get to know its owner.
- 2. The funders
- We line up our equity and debt partners and confirm their interest before we sign a letter of intent.
- 3. The letter of intent
- We sign a letter of intent with the owner.
- 4. Diligence
- We review the company’s finances, operations, and contracts in detail.
- 5. The close
- Equity and debt fund the purchase at closing. We aim to close within 90 days of signing.
Who funds a deal
- Both partners
- Both partners invest their own money in every deal, and we roll part of our closing fee into the company’s equity.
- Family offices and private investors
- Equity, invested deal by deal.
- Lenders
- Modest debt at entry, paid down early.
Roles
What each partner did
- Sourced
- Rocky found most of these companies through his own network and bought them directly from their founders.
- Structured and closed
- 17 acquisitions from the initial offer through diligence to close, 6 platforms and 11 add-ons.
- Governed
- Board seats at the companies he backed, chief executive and senior-leader recruiting, strategy set with management.
- Modernized
- Sean built and sold the consultancy that did systems, data, and AI work inside other companies.
Results reflect prior-firm transactions led by a HarborWind partner.
The companies, by sector
These are companies The Randolph Group held while Rocky Lopez was its investor. Results reflect prior-firm transactions led by a HarborWind partner.
- Industrial materials manufacturing
- Industrial safety compliance
- Industrial tooling distribution
- Specialty manufacturing
- Industrial fabrication services
People
The two principals
Rocky Lopez
Managing Partner
Rocky Lopez was Principal Investor and CFO at The Randolph Group, a Chicago family office. He sourced and closed acquisitions of industrial companies, then sat on their boards, recruited chief executives, and set strategy with management.
Sean Mahoney
Managing Partner
Over a twenty-year software career Sean Mahoney founded AndPlus, a digital transformation consultancy that did systems and AI work inside industrial companies including Honeywell, PerkinElmer, and Phoenix Controls. He sold it to Ensono, a KKR-owned company, in 2022. At HarborWind he owns the modernization plan.
Working together
How we work with capital
Two principals make every decision, and there is no investment committee. Both partners invest their own money in every deal, and we roll part of our closing fee into the company’s equity. We line up our equity and debt partners and confirm their interest before we sign a letter of intent.
Tell us early which sectors and structures you will not do, so that we send you only the deals that fit. We will sit down and walk you through Rocky’s acquisitions and his role in each, and the business Sean built and sold.
Rocky Lopez(312) 848-9778rlopez@harborwind.com
Sean Mahoney(813) 417-4211smahoney@harborwind.com
Thank you.
A member of our team will be in touch within one business day.