Avalon Equity Partners

Managing Partner David L. Gollob leads investment decisions, a role he has held since founding the firm in 1989. Partner Sven W. Nilsson shares responsibility for deal origination and execution. The firm operates a lean partnership structure with no publicly disclosed investment committee beyond the named partners.

The Small Business Investment Company license provides Avalon access to SBA-guaranteed debentures at up to 2:1 leverage against private capital. This structure lowers the firm's cost of capital but imposes statutory caps on investment size and restricts portfolio companies to US-based small businesses meeting SBA revenue and net-worth thresholds. The result is a permanent focus on lower-middle-market control deals without the fundraising cycle pressure facing conventional funds.

Avalon has invested across enterprise software, media, and industrial technology. An early concentration in radio broadcasting and media roll-ups gave way over successive funds to government services, regulated industries, and B2B software platforms. The firm's current SBIC mandate favors cash-flowing businesses with entrenched customer relationships, often in fragmented markets suited to buy-and-build consolidation.

No. Avalon raises capital through successive SBIC fund vehicles, each licensed by the SBA. The SBIC structure replaces limited-partner fundraising cycles with a regulatory licensing process and SBA-guaranteed leverage. This arrangement imposes periodic SBA examinations and reporting requirements that a conventional fund does not face.

Unlike independent sponsors who raise deal-by-deal equity, Avalon operates committed SBIC funds with SBA-guaranteed leverage. The committed capital eliminates single-deal financing risk, while the SBIC structure provides permanent leverage at government borrowing rates. The trade-off: investment size caps and geographic constraints that an unregulated independent sponsor does not face.