815 Independent Sponsor Deals Analyzed
Greg Brown is a Professor of Finance at UNC Kenan-Flagler and Founder of the Institute for Private Capital. On July 15, 2026, he published the first large-scale study of independent sponsor performance, covering 815 deals. Investor-reported transactions generated a 2.86x average gross TVPI and 29.3% gross IRR, outperforming matched non-IS PE deals by 0.73x TVPI and 11.4% IRR on average, with no statistically significant increase in downside risk.
More recent episodes
7x Organic EBITDA Growth After Liberating Employees
Rise Run Capital's Corbin Cook and Alex Swanston discuss their independent sponsor success: 5 platforms, $50m+ EBITDA, and a 7x exit in 4 years.
The Applied AI Engineer: A New PE Weapon
Chris Breaux shares how he left $500m investment banking to build Emberline, an independent sponsor focused on government, defense, and vertical tech with AI-driven growth.
Acquiring $10m of EBITDA as Industry Operators
Edoardo Maggini discusses Star Step's specialty coatings rollup strategy, aggregating founder-led businesses to achieve $10m EBITDA across 5 acquisitions in the USA and Europe.