Eureka Equity Partners

Managing Partner Christopher Hanssens chairs the Investment Committee. He sets strategy alongside partners Christian Miller and Alexandra Oswald, both of whom also sit on the Investment Committee. Hanssens co-founded the firm in 2004 after managing its predecessor family-office fund, Eureka I, L.P.

Eureka runs a dedicated origination function led by Managing Director of Business Development T.J. Haas, who has over 15 years of middle-market M&A experience. Haas works alongside the investment team to generate deal flow through industry relationships, management team contacts, and intermediary networks, which the firm describes as its core sourcing engine.

Eureka is an independent private equity firm, but it grew out of a family-office-sponsored first fund. The firm was formed in 2004 when its principals took over management of Eureka I, L.P., which had been backed by a fifth-generation, family-owned enterprise. It now manages capital from a broader base of limited partners alongside that original family commitment.

Eureka invests exclusively through direct transactions. Its model centers on buyouts — including management buyouts, corporate divestitures, and carve-outs — as well as minority recapitalizations. The firm does not advertise a fund-of-funds program or external fund commitments.

Eureka focuses on the lower end of the middle market, acquiring or recapitalizing companies with up to $100 million in revenue. It writes equity checks of up to $40 million, with significant additional co-investment capacity available from its limited partners for larger transactions.

Eureka I, L.P. was sponsored by a fifth-generation, family-owned enterprise whose early roots are in the Pennsylvania coal fields. That family capital provided the initial $50 million commitment that served as the foundation for Eureka's later independent fundraising, which now totals nearly $600 million.

Eureka is not structured as a co-investor alongside other private equity firms. It leads its own transactions and offers its limited partners the ability to co-invest alongside the fund on a deal-by-deal basis, which expands the total equity available beyond its $40 million per-deal target.