Alpine Investor’s 2023 Year-in-Review

This past year marked many milestones for us at Alpine Investors. Though 2023 was a year of growth and transformation, we remain committed to the North Star-goals that drive our people-driven strategy: Be the best place to work for top talent; Become a top performing PE firm by partnering with enduring software and services businesses; and be a Force For Good in the world by having a positive impact on our employees, our teams, and our communities.

Alpine closed its oversubscribed Fund IX at its hard cap of $4.5b, doubling our assets under management (AUM) to over $16b. We also completed our $3.4b single-asset GP-led continuation vehicle with Apex Service Partners, one of the largest of its kind. And last but not least, we closed 170+ deals in 2023, including the launch of several platforms.

In 2023, we also stayed true in our ongoing commitment to being a Force For Good in the world. For example, we re-certified as a B Corporation, and achieved an overall B-Corp score of 103.1, which improved from our 2019 score of 90.¹ The Alpine team donated over $290k (including Alpine matching contributions) to 120 nonprofits around the world in our annual Giving Week, onboarded four more ASV fellows, and held two volunteering events for our teams to give back to their communities.

Above all, we couldn’t have done it without our community of values-aligned people. In 2023, Alpine HQ surpassed 150 employees and hired over 15 leaders into its portfolio executive programs.

Read on for our review of more key moments in 2023. Thank you to everyone who has been part of our journey thus far and here’s to our next year ahead.

Deals

From over 17,000 sourced deals, Alpine closed over 170 deals across our software and services verticals.²

In 2023, Alpine launched the following platform investments:

• Ascend, Alpine’s accounting services platform focused on partnering with entrepreneurial CPA firms. Ascend acquired 8 businesses.
• AlpineX launched its water services vertical, Axia Water, through its acquisition of Madera Pumps.
• Cobalt Service Partners, Alpine’s access solutions platform that buys businesses across the following categories: overhead doors and docks, commercial doors, security gates, access control systems, and video surveillance systems. Cobalt’s first acquisition was Piedmont Door Solutions.
• Medusind, a leading provider of revenue cycle management services to the healthcare industry. Medusind acquired 6 businesses.
• Vertex Service Partners, Alpine’s residential home improvement services platform with a focus on roofing and other exterior services exterior residential platform focused on repair and roofing. Vertex acquired 11 businesses.

In 2023, Alpine also completed significant add-on investments through its platforms including:

• AlpineX, Alpine lower middle market business services platform, acquired 14 businesses.
• Apex Service Partners, Alpine’s HVAC, plumbing and electrical services business acquired 46 businesses.
• Evergreen Services Group, Alpine’s family of managed IT companies, government service providers, and application management companies, acquired 22 businesses.
• Orion Services Group, Alpine’s field services business, acquired 18 businesses.
• Trilon Group, Alpine’s infrastructure and engineering platform, acquired 11 businesses.
• TEAM Services Group, Alpine’s home healthcare services platform, acquired 22 businesses.

In addition to these deals, Alpine closed one of the largest single-asset GP-led continuation vehicles at $3.4 billion with Apex Service Partners, an HVAC, plumbing and electrical services leader.

To learn more about these deals, visit our Updates page for latest announcements.

Award-winning People and Firm

In 2023, we hired over 50+ people to the Alpine team. We also placed 15+ professionals within our portfolio companies’ executive leadership teams. To support our growth, we moved to a new office in New York City and renovated our HQ in San Francisco. Learn more about our team here and read their stories or insights here.

Our growing team and our firm also won multiple awards throughout the year:

• Alpine was the first-ever PE firm to win Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies Award, earning the top spot among their finance awardees for 2023.³
• Alpine’s Fund VIII was awarded PEI Wire’s Best Buyout Fund Over $1.5 Billion.⁴
• Named one of Inc.’s Founder-Friendly Investment Firms for the fifth year in a row.⁵
• Alpine become a Certified Great Place To Work for the fifth year in a row, and consequently was awarded two distinctions on FORTUNE’s workplace lists (Best Place to Work for Millennials and Best Workplace in the Bay Area).⁶
• Named one of GrowthCap’s Top PE Firms for the second year in a row.⁷
• April Smith was recognized as one of WSJ’s Women to Watch in Private Equity.⁸
• Jacob Zodikoff was recognized on GrowthCap’s Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors of 2023 list.⁹
• Samina Hydery Burke was recognized on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in its finance category.¹⁰

Force For Good

We will be publishing our annual Force For Good report in Spring 2024, which will give a deeper look into Alpine’s initiatives to be a positive impact on its communities. But as a sneak peak, there are a few ways we showed up as a firm this year that we’re excited about.

We completed a third-party assessment of Alpine’s (including Alpine Operations Group) 2022 carbon emissions.¹¹ As part of our efforts to help mitigate the climate impact of our operations, we have partnered with Working Trees, an Alpine Social Ventures Foundation backed company, that works with farms to plant trees on pasture – a practice called silvopasture – to store carbon while simultaneously providing shade for heat-stressed livestock, fodder to lower reliance on external feed, and valuable tree products. Alpine purchased ex-ante carbon credits from Working Trees’ Brazilian carbon project, which will fund the planting of ~28,000 trees across ~300 acres of degraded pasturelands in the Brazilian Amazon.¹²

We also continued our work supporting the next generation of social-impact leaders through Alpine Social Ventures, with the following 2023-24 Fellows:

• Drew Barvir and Gabe Moynihan, co-founders of Sonar. The Stanford, California-based company uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze online activity to predict and facilitate timely support for youth mental health challenges.
• Touré Owen, founder of Mobo. Owen’s goal is to revitalize the Black barbershop as a source of economic opportunity for barbers and joy for customers by solving some of its longstanding challenges.
• Magdalena Ramirez and Sebastián Espinoza, co-founders of the Stanford start-up Mi Tribu. As parents themselves, Ramirez and Espinoza are creating a digital platform to support Spanish-speaking families from fertility through pregnancy and postpartum into early childhood by matching groups of women in the same stage of motherhood with the support and guidance of a healthcare specialist.

Additionally, we saw record PeopleFirst engagement across our firm and portfolio in 2023:

• 66 portfolio leaders engaged in AEx
• 252 portfolio leaders using PeopleFirst coaching
• 51 Alpine employees using PeopleFirst coaching
• 351 attendees at the 2023 Growth Summit, Alpine’s annual event that brings the firm and our portfolio leaders together for learning, connection, and celebration.

Finally, we remained committed to our diversity and inclusion (D&I) goals throughout the year. In 2023, we supported our firm’s employee resource groups (ERGs), and our entire firm gathered in San Francisco for an ‘Advocates for Inclusion’ workshop.

Curious to learn more? Sign up for our newsletter, PeopleFirst Perspectives, and check out our news and insights on our website. Again, we thank our community for their partnership in 2023 and look forward to what 2024 has in store.

¹B Labs is the global non-profit that runs the private certification of for-profit companies. Alpine pays an annual fee as part of its certification. For more information about the selection criteria, please visit: https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp/company/alpine-investors.
² The selected portfolio companies listed are not necessarily representative of all past or current investments, but were selected to illustrate our industry focus, inclusive of both platforms and add-on investments. They were not selected for inclusion on the basis of performance. The reader should not assume that investment in any securities of such issuer has been or will be profitable.
³ Fast Company is a New York City-based publication and media brand that covers business, innovation and creativity. Alpine is not affiliated with Fast Company. As part of the application to be considered for this award, Alpine paid a fee and filled out a nomination form to be reviewed by Fast Company’s editorial staff. For more information about the selection criteria and process, please visit Fast Company’s website.
⁴This award is organized by Private Equity Wire, a London-based events and information provider for the private equity community, with manager data provided by Bloomberg, a New York City-based financial, software, media and data company. Private Equity Wire and Bloomberg are not affiliated with Alpine. Alpine was nominated for this award by Private Equity Wire and Alpine did not pay a fee for submission or acceptance of this award. For more information about the selection criteria and process, please visit https://awards.privateequitywire.co.uk/us-awards. This award was given to Alpine on October 25th, 2023 and was based on information from 2021 through October 25th, 2023.
⁵Inc. is a New York City-based media brand for entrepreneurs and is not affiliated with Alpine. Alpine paid a fee for submission to be considered for this award. For more information about the selection criteria and process, please visit Inc.’s website. This award was given on October 31st, 2023 and was based upon information from the previous year.
⁶ Great Place to Work is an authority and data platform on workplace culture and is not affiliated with Alpine. Alpine paid a fee to be considered for this certification. For more information about the selection criteria and process, please visit greatplacetowork.com. This award was given to Alpine in January 2023 and was based on surveys and data from the time of certification through the year prior. Fortune, an American business publication, partners with Great Place to Work, a business that researches and recognizes exceptional workplace cultures, to produce these awards and neither are affiliated with Alpine. Alpine paid a fee to be considered Great Place to Work certified. Alpine was recognized for these awards on July 18, 2023 and June 12, 2023 based off employee survey data collected in January 2023 for the calendar year 2022. For more information about the selection criteria and process, please visit Great Place to Work’s website.
⁷GrowthCap is a media company with a focus in providing CEOs a better understanding of the universe of capital alternatives offered by institutional investors such as private equity firms, growth equity firms, venture capital and family offices. GrowthCap is not affiliated with Alpine and Alpine paid a fee in acceptance of the award. The award was given on September 18th, 2023 and was based on Alpine’s performance and reputation in 2023. For more information about the selection criteria and process, please visit GrowthCap’s website.
⁸The Wall Street Journal is a newspaper and media brand and is not affiliated with Alpine. Alpine did not pay a fee for submission or acceptance of the award. For more information about the selection criteria and process, please visit WSJ Pro’s newsletter. This award was given on November 5th, 2023 and was based upon information provided of the honoree’s career.
⁹GrowthCap is not affiliated with Alpine and Alpine paid a fee in acceptance of the award. The award was given on January 10th, 2024 and was based off of Jacob’s performance and reputation spanning across his career through 2023. For more information about the selection criteria and process, please visit GrowthCap’s website.
¹⁰Forbes is an American business publication owned by Hong Kong-based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments and is not affiliated with Alpine. Alpine did not pay a fee for submission or acceptance of the award. For more information about the selection criteria and process, please visit https://www.forbes.com/30-under-30-nominations/. This award was given on 11/28/23 and was based upon Samina’s career to date and her recent achievements.
¹¹Scopes 1 and 2 (emissions from Alpine’s own operations and electricity consumption) and select Scope 3 emissions (including emissions from employee business travel, employee commuting, purchased goods, and certain categories of waste).
¹²Alpine makes no independent claims regarding validation or verification of this carbon project.