Private Equity Fort Lauderdale: Top Firms in 2026

Key Facts: Fort Lauderdale's PE Market

• Fort Lauderdale has 33 active, verified private equity firms operating in Broward County as of January 2026, making it one of South Florida's fastest-growing investment hubs.
• Florida's broader PE ecosystem spans 80+ private equity, growth equity, and mezzanine firms, anchored by H.I.G. Capital's $37 billion in assets under management (AUM) headquartered in Miami.
• Typical deal sizes for Fort Lauderdale-area lower middle market firms range from $5 million to $200 million in enterprise value, with most firms targeting companies generating $3 million to $25 million in EBITDA.
• The dominant investment strategy across local firms is founder and family-owned business transitions, with leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, and management buyouts as the most common deal structures.
• Florida's no-state-income-tax environment and Sun Belt population growth are driving both firm relocations to the region and an increase in deal flow from owner-operated businesses seeking succession capital.
• South Florida PE networking associations maintain active event calendars supporting deal origination and limited partner (LP) to general partner (GP) introductions across Broward County and the broader region.

Private Equity in Fort Lauderdale: Market Overview

Fort Lauderdale private equity firms occupy a distinct position within South Florida's PE ecosystem, sitting between Miami's mega-fund concentration and Boca Raton's operational buyout specialists. The 33 verified PE investors active in Broward County skew toward boutique buyout firms, growth equity investors, and early-stage venture capital. Most target founder-owned businesses in the $15 million to $150 million enterprise value range. CNN/Money ranked Fort Lauderdale among the 100 Best Places to Live and Launch a Business, citing it as one of the fastest-growing global trade markets.

The Las Olas Boulevard corridor has become the city's financial services hub, drawing fund managers who benefit from access to both Miami-Dade and Palm Beach deal flow. Port Everglades ranks among the busiest cargo ports in the US, generating a natural concentration of logistics, distribution, and industrial services companies. These businesses align closely with the investment thesis of most area PE firms. Strong population inflows from the Northeast and Midwest have expanded consumer services demand across healthcare, fitness, and food and beverage throughout Broward County.

Florida's business climate provides structural advantages that no other major PE hub replicates at scale. The absence of state income tax reduces the effective tax burden on carried interest and management compensation. This makes Florida-based fund structures financially attractive for both GPs and their portfolio company executives. Relocated finance professionals have expanded the regional talent pool, driving measurable new fund formation in Fort Lauderdale since 2020.

Firm Comparison at a Glance

The following table covers representative private equity, growth equity, and venture capital firms active in Fort Lauderdale and greater South Florida, sorted by disclosed AUM where available.

Miami and Boca Raton anchor the larger capital pools, while Fort Lauderdale-headquartered firms concentrate in growth equity, lower middle market buyouts, and seed-stage venture. Strategy diversity across the region means founders and entrepreneurs in nearly any sector can find a strategically aligned partner within South Florida's PE ecosystem.

Top Picks by Investment Strategy

Largest AUM in Florida: H.I.G. Capital manages $37 billion in equity capital across its global platform, with 100+ active portfolio companies generating combined revenues above $30 billion. No Florida-based PE firm comes close to this scale.

Founder Transition Specialist: Trivest Partners has completed 300+ transactions totaling over $6 billion since 1981, making it the most experienced partner for founders and family business owners seeking buyout or recapitalization structures in the US and Canada.

Top Aerospace and Defense Investor: AE Industrial Partners has executed 48 acquisitions across 17 platform investments and 31 add-ons since April 2015, deploying more than $2 billion in committed capital in aerospace, defense, power generation, and specialty industrial markets.

Premier Mid-Market Equity Plus Debt Provider: Comvest Partners brings $3.6 billion in AUM and $5.1 billion deployed since founding, offering both equity and private credit capital to US middle market companies from its West Palm Beach base.

Fort Lauderdale Growth Equity Leader: Firelight Capital targets branded consumer and retail concepts with revenues between $25 million and $100 million, deploying equity checks of $10 million to $30 million in apparel, wellness, beauty, and food and beverage.

Seed-Stage B2B Tech Investor: Las Olas Venture Capital has closed two funds and opened Las Olas VC III in December 2024, deploying $1.5 million to $3 million per investment into B2B SaaS and vertical AI companies modernizing business workflows.

Lower Middle Market Buy-and-Build: Alterna Equity Partners closed Fund I in May 2024, targeting founder-owned businesses at $15 million to $150 million in enterprise value with $3 million to $15 million in EBITDA, as demonstrated by the Mod Op marketing platform and Bulk Express Transport acquisitions.

Facilities and Services Roll-Up: Hidden Harbor Capital Partners has built 11+ platform companies across facilities, residential, industrial, and environmental services using buy-and-build strategies and a differentiated carve-out capability.

Top Fort Lauderdale-Area PE Firms in Detail

Las Olas Venture Capital

Las Olas Venture Capital is the only Fort Lauderdale-headquartered VC fund actively deploying at scale, making it the go-to seed investor for B2B software founders building enterprise tools across the US. The firm writes checks of $1.5 million to $3 million per investment and completes four to six deals annually. Two closed funds and a third open as of December 2024 demonstrate consistent fundraising momentum. The firm focuses exclusively on B2B SaaS and vertical AI applications that modernize business workflows, with recent investments including Annie and Bite. Founding partners Mark Volchek and Dean Hatton have backed more than 25 software companies, giving the team deep product development networks for founders raising their first institutional round.

Firelight Capital

Firelight Capital occupies a narrow but defensible niche as the region's dedicated growth equity investor for branded consumer and retail businesses. The firm targets revenues between $25 million and $100 million with EBITDA of $3 million to $15 million. It deploys majority equity investments of $10 million to $30 million across apparel, health and wellness, beauty, and food and beverage, categories where brand equity compounds alongside operational scale. Portfolio holdings include footwear, home decor, and outdoor products brands, reflecting a consistent preference for businesses with tangible consumer identity over pure commodity plays. Consumer entrepreneurs who have scaled a brand to $30 million in revenue but need capital to accelerate retail distribution or franchise expansion are Firelight's primary target.

Harbor Beach Capital

Harbor Beach Capital takes a mid-market generalist approach, covering technology, healthcare, and industrials without the sector restrictions of a thematic specialist. The portfolio includes Atlantic Southern Paving and Sealcoating, a pavement maintenance and construction services business serving commercial and municipal customers across the US. This holding illustrates the firm's appetite for asset-light service businesses with recurring revenue characteristics. Harbor Beach pursues both buyouts and growth equity structures, giving it flexibility to engage companies seeking either a full exit or a minority recapitalization. Its Fort Lauderdale base positions it to source deals throughout Broward County and compete for transactions in the $10 million to $75 million enterprise value range.

Alterna Equity Partners

Alterna Equity Partners built its investment thesis around the lower middle market founder succession opportunity. The firm targets businesses with enterprise values of $15 million to $150 million and EBITDA of $3 million to $15 million or more. It closes majority acquisitions while retaining founder and management teams as equity participants. Fund I closed in May 2024, and Alterna has already demonstrated buy-and-build capability through its Mod Op platform. Mod Op acquired Crenshaw Communications in October 2023 and AMG Marketing Resources in March 2022, growing into a multi-brand marketing operation. The firm also holds Bulk Express Transport, an environmental and industrial logistics business operating across the Southeast. Founders of service businesses generating $5 million or more in EBITDA will find Alterna's track record more relevant to this size range than most regional competitors.

H.I.G. Capital

H.I.G. Capital is the largest private equity and alternative assets firm headquartered in Florida, managing $37 billion in equity capital across a portfolio of more than 100 active companies with combined revenues exceeding $30 billion. The firm provides both debt and equity capital to small and mid-sized companies, deploying a value-added operational approach that distinguishes it from financial-engineering-only sponsors. H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 300 companies worldwide across healthcare, food, retail and consumer, transportation, manufacturing, and oil and gas services. Its international affiliate offices span London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo, enabling global deal origination that no other Florida-based fund manager replicates. Companies with $10 million or more in EBITDA benefit from H.I.G.'s combination of domestic and international portfolio value-add resources.

Sun Capital Partners

Sun Capital Partners built its reputation on one of the most operationally intensive PE models in the middle market. The firm has acquired more than 550 companies since 1995, with revenues across those investments aggregating over $50 billion, a track record that exceeds nearly any other Florida-based fund. Sun Capital focuses on identifying untapped operational potential in business and consumer services, healthcare, industrial, and consumer companies, then deploying sector-specific resources to accelerate improvement. Offices in Boca Raton, Los Angeles, New York, and London through an affiliate give the firm broad deal sourcing reach. The cumulative $14 billion in capital commitments across its fund history reflects institutional LP confidence in a repeatable operational value creation model.

Trivest Partners

No Florida-based PE firm has partnered with more founder and family-owned businesses than Trivest Partners. The firm has completed over 300 transactions totaling more than $6 billion. These cover consumer and retail, healthcare, niche manufacturing, technology, business services, and value-added distribution across the US and Canada. Coral Gables headquarters places Trivest within the Miami-Fort Lauderdale corridor. The investment mandate explicitly targets businesses where founders or management teams want a structured transition rather than a complete exit. Founders who want a partner that preserves company culture, rather than imposing a generic playbook, consistently name Trivest as the most aligned option in South Florida.

Comvest Partners

Comvest Partners is the region's most complete capital provider for middle market companies, combining equity and private credit in a single platform. With $3.6 billion in AUM and $5.1 billion deployed since its founding in 2000, Comvest brings both scale and a multi-cycle track record to growth equity and leveraged buyout transactions across the US. The firm structures both senior secured debt and equity in the same transaction, simplifying the capital stack for management teams and reducing the number of counterparties in a deal process. This dual-mandate approach particularly suits companies in the $25 million to $150 million enterprise value range that need both growth capital and acquisition financing from a single counterparty. The West Palm Beach base keeps the firm embedded in South Florida deal networks while its national mandate generates deal flow well beyond the region.

AE Industrial Partners

AE Industrial Partners has no comparable rival in Florida for aerospace, defense, government services, and specialty industrial investment. The Boca Raton firm has completed 48 acquisitions since April 2015, including 17 platform investments and 31 add-on acquisitions. Deploying more than $2 billion in committed capital across two funds, that pace demonstrates genuine buy-and-build execution rather than aspirational strategy. AE Industrial targets market-leading companies that can leverage its sector knowledge, operating experience, and industry relationships to drive both organic growth and acquisition-led expansion. Defense contractors, aerospace manufacturers, and power generation services businesses seeking a fund that understands their regulatory environment and customer base have no stronger regional option.

Hidden Harbor Capital Partners

Hidden Harbor Capital Partners approaches private equity with an explicitly values-driven philosophy, differentiating through people-first culture and long-term partnership over financial engineering. The firm has built 11 or more platform companies across facilities services, residential services, industrial services, infrastructure, automotive aftermarket, and environmental services, executing buy-and-build strategies within each theme. A standout differentiator is Hidden Harbor's carve-out capability. The firm has developed operational infrastructure to acquire non-core business units from larger corporations, a transaction type that most lower middle market players cannot execute. Portfolio companies include Dayco, Inspire Aesthetics, and Stella Environmental Services. Equity tickets of $10 million to $50 million target platforms with $4 million to $25 million in EBITDA, with lower thresholds of $2 million to $3 million accepted for residential, commercial, and facilities management businesses.

WM Partners

WM Partners holds $1.1 billion in AUM dedicated entirely to the health and wellness sector, making it the most concentrated wellness-focused fund manager in South Florida. The Aventura-based firm deploys a $1 billion fund into growth equity investments across fitness, nutrition, personal care, and consumer health businesses. That level of capital concentration brings operational networks, distribution relationships, and management talent pipelines that generalist PE firms cannot match. Wellness entrepreneurs who have scaled past $20 million in revenue and need a partner with direct relationships across retail, digital, and franchise channels should consider WM Partners before approaching generalist investors.

White Wolf Capital

White Wolf Capital focuses on management buyouts and recapitalizations in manufacturing, business services, information technology, security, aerospace, and defense. The firm targets companies with revenues of $20 million to $200 million and EBITDA up to $20 million, operating as a value investor that explicitly seeks situations where sellers retain meaningful equity stakes post-close. This alignment structure suits owner-operators who want capital and strategic support without ceding day-to-day control. White Wolf's buy-and-build strategy targets companies near revenue ceilings where capital injection and operational support can unlock the next phase of scale.

Investment Trends and Capital Flows

Founder and Family Business Transitions

The dominant theme across South Florida's lower middle market is founder succession. Most Florida-based PE firms set EBITDA floors between $3 million and $25 million. This captures the wave of Baby Boomer business owners seeking liquidity without full operational exits. Recapitalizations and management buyouts are the most common deal structures, allowing founders to take partial liquidity while retaining equity participation in future upside.

Healthcare Services Consolidation

Healthcare platform acquisitions remain one of the most active deal categories in the region. Blue Sea Capital in West Palm Beach has built dental and oral specialist platforms through Beacon Oral Specialists and Specialty Smile Partners. HealthEdge Investment Partners in Tampa focuses on broader healthcare services, and WM Partners deploys $1.1 billion specifically into health and wellness businesses. Broward County's population growth, driven by retiree inflows and working-age migration, expands the patient base supporting these platforms.

Buy-and-Build in Facilities and Industrial Services

Hidden Harbor Capital Partners has executed one of Florida's most aggressive buy-and-build programs, assembling 11+ platform companies in facilities management, residential services, industrial services, and environmental sectors. The carve-out strategy acquires underperforming or non-core units from large corporations, feeding the pipeline with businesses that need operational transformation rather than just capital. Add-on acquisition cadence in this segment is accelerating as uncommitted capital from 2021 to 2023 vintage funds enters its deployment cycle.

B2B SaaS and Vertical AI Investment

Las Olas Venture Capital is deploying Fund III into B2B SaaS and vertical AI companies that automate and modernize business workflows, writing $1.5 million to $3 million seed checks four to six times per year. South Florida's post-pandemic technology talent influx has expanded the addressable startup pipeline well beyond what Fort Lauderdale could generate organically. Relocations from San Francisco and New York drove most of this growth. Enterprise software serving healthcare administration, logistics, and professional services aligns with the industry concentrations already present in the regional economy.

Sun Belt Population Growth as a Macro Tailwind

Florida added more than 300,000 net new residents annually between 2020 and 2024, driving consumer services demand across healthcare, fitness, food and beverage, and home services. This population inflow creates organic deal flow for PE-backed service businesses already operating in the region. Above-market revenue growth becomes achievable without aggressive expansion strategies, reducing execution risk compared to equivalent investments in slower-growth geographies.

How to Evaluate PE Investors in This Market

Match your business metrics to firm criteria before initiating outreach. Most South Florida lower middle market firms require EBITDA of $3 million to $25 million and enterprise values of $15 million to $200 million. Contacting a firm whose EBITDA floor is $10 million when your business generates $2 million signals insufficient preparation and wastes time on both sides.

Assess how each firm creates value beyond capital. Sun Capital deploys a dedicated operational team. AE Industrial brings aerospace and defense-specific relationships. Las Olas VC provides go-to-market and product development networks for SaaS businesses. A generalist sponsor providing only a board seat is a fundamentally different proposition from a sector specialist who can open distribution channels or accelerate acquisition pipelines.

Evaluate a fund's stage in its lifecycle. A firm in year seven of a ten-year fund has limited remaining uncommitted capital. It typically prioritizes exits over new platform investments. Alterna Equity Partners closed Fund I in May 2024, giving it the most deployment capacity among recently formed South Florida lower middle market funds. Comvest's $3.6 billion in AUM and Trivest's active mandate signal ongoing capacity, but fund vintage should always be verified.

Review portfolio company references and completed exit track records. Sun Capital's 550+ acquisitions and Trivest's 300+ transactions provide enough data points to assess how each firm behaves with management teams post-close. For emerging managers like Firelight Capital or Harbor Beach Capital, request direct introductions to portfolio company CEOs. Regional PE networks and industry associations provide informal reference pathways that formal due diligence processes often miss.

Red flags include vague or undisclosed investment criteria and absence from industry associations such as the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA). Additional warning signs include no named portfolio companies on the firm's website and stated fund sizes that don't align with disclosed deal size targets. Firms with these characteristics often lack the institutional infrastructure to execute and close transactions efficiently.

Which Firm Fits Your Needs?

Founders running a service business with $5 million to $15 million in EBITDA and an enterprise value below $100 million should evaluate Alterna Equity Partners and Trivest Partners first. Both firms built their investment thesis around founder-to-PE transitions and prioritize management team retention. Both have executed majority acquisitions with flexible deal structures. Alterna's Fund I vintage gives it fresh capital; Trivest's 300+ completed transactions provide the deepest reference base in the region.

Operators in healthcare, wellness, or facilities services have three credible specialists within South Florida. WM Partners brings $1.1 billion concentrated in health and wellness brands. Hidden Harbor Capital Partners has assembled 11+ service platforms across facilities, industrial, and environmental sectors with a differentiated carve-out playbook. Blue Sea Capital in West Palm Beach executes healthcare roll-ups in dental and oral health. Choosing among them requires matching your specific sub-sector and deal structure preference to each firm's active pipeline.

Tech founders at the seed stage have one natural home in the Fort Lauderdale market. Las Olas Venture Capital is the only locally based VC fund actively deploying from an open fund into B2B SaaS and vertical AI. The firm writes $1.5 million to $3 million checks and maintains structured follow-on capacity across prior portfolio companies.

LPs seeking to build exposure to South Florida-based fund managers should engage through regional industry networking events, where most active GPs maintain a presence. Comvest Partners ($3.6B AUM) and WM Partners ($1.1B) offer the clearest institutional track records for LPs conducting formal manager due diligence. For smaller allocations targeting emerging managers, Alterna's May 2024 Fund I close signals an active fundraising posture. M&A advisors will find that most Fort Lauderdale-area PE firms respond most efficiently to pre-qualified introductions. Lower middle market deal platforms and direct regional network relationships are the most productive sourcing channels.

Methodology

This article was compiled using firm-level data from publicly available PE firm directories, a verified database of 33 Fort Lauderdale PE firms current as of January 2026, and individual firm websites. Deal activity and representative transactions were sourced from firm-disclosed announcements and publicly available legal counsel transaction records from South Florida PE law practices. Firm selection for this guide to Fort Lauderdale private equity prioritized investors with disclosed investment criteria, named portfolio companies, and verifiable AUM or fund size data. Where AUM was not publicly disclosed, firms were evaluated on deal count, sector depth, and market presence. Data reflects publicly available information as of early 2026.