Source Talks is a series where we discuss deal origination with PE and M&A pros, in collaboration with David M. Toll.
In this episode, we speak with Drew Coash of Lightview Capital about the firm’s focus on IT services, and their commitment to a robust technology stack across their portfolio.
Drew, tell us a little bit about Lightview Capital and the kind of investing that you do there.
We go to market as technology and business services investors and focus on four core investment themes: compliance, enterprise automation, manage and outsource services and marketing services. And within those categories, we’re primarily targeting founder owned, bootstrap businesses with recurring or repeatable revenue streams that service a loyal set of customers. One theme that we’ve been focused on since our founding in 2012 has been IT services or technology services. It is crystal clear to us that technology has taken over virtually every sector of our economy. And we believe it is critical that businesses in all industries and of all sizes properly leverage and optimize their technology stacks.
Drew, give us an example of a technology services company that you’ve acquired recently that really brings home this opportunity.
I’ll highlight our investment in Buchanan Technologies, which provides managed IT services to mid-market and enterprise customers. So, Buchanan is based in Dallas, Texas. We met the Buchanan team back in 2018 and at the time, Buchanan was a founder-led, bootstrapped MSP looking for a collaborative capital partner to help them navigate the next iteration of their growth story. So, once we made the investment, our strategy and thesis that we came up with alongside the Buchanan team was to increase recurring revenue of the business, launch new offerings organically, and acquire adjacent services for our customer base in order to become a full-stack MSP for our clients.
Drew, tell us about the role that technology plays there in your deal sourcing operations.
We continuously leverage technology to enhance our sourcing efforts and one platform we’ve leveraged over the last few years has been Sutton Place Strategy, which is a great tool since it effectively allows us to cover key intermediaries within our sectors of interest. So, using an example here, say we’re looking to get smart on a specific industry, what we generally do first and foremost is try to identify the top investment banks or intermediaries in that industry so we can study what types of deals they’re doing. And generally, Sutton Place is the first application we pull up in that process.
Tell us about a hobby of yours.
One hobby that I have pursued outside of work the past few years has been beach volleyball. I’ve become somewhat of an avid beach volleyball player. My team won the city championship last year and we’re looking to repeat as champions this summer.
