CollisionRight

CollisionRight

CollisionRight was founded in 2020 by CEO Rich Harrison and backed by Dallas-based private equity firm CenterOak Partners. The company emerged with a buy-and-build mandate in the highly fragmented U.S. collision repair market, where the top 50 operators control less than 20% of total revenue. The firm's initial anchor acquisition was Service King, a legacy multi-site operator, providing an immediate footprint across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. The strategy centers on acquiring independent body shops — typically single-location operators with strong insurer relationships — and creating back-office efficiencies through centralized procurement, billing, and talent management. The firm targets primarily aftermarket collision repair, encompassing dent removal, frame straightening, and painting, with revenue tied to direct repair program agreements with major auto insurers rather than consumer discretionary spending. The geographic footprint is concentrated in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and parts of the Southeast. The platform grew rapidly, deploying capital through a series of add-on acquisitions. By mid-2024, CollisionRight had completed more than a dozen transactions, bringing total locations to over 80, including multi-shop acquisitions like the 2022 purchase of Jerry's Body Shop in Pennsylvania. The firm added Mark Elberg, formerly of Service King, as CFO to professionalize finance operations as the network scaled. CollisionRight operates adjacent to CenterOak's portfolio but maintains an independent operator model, running each acquired shop under its legacy name to preserve local insurance referrals and customer familiarity. The structural differentiator is its hybrid model: a private equity-backed roll-up in a classic fragmented essential-service industry, operating with the local branding and insurer relationships of a small business while centralizing its supply chain and technology stack. This creates a moat against both independent shops and larger corporate consolidators like Boyd Group's Gerber Collision or Caliber, where corporate branding can occasionally weaken local customer trust.