Freshstream Investment Partners

Freshstream was founded in 2014 by Andrew Smith and Marco Caputo, both former senior partners at Cinven, one of Europe's largest buyout firms. Day-to-day investment decisions rest with the small partnership group, which includes CEO Marco Caputo and Partner Martijn Verhoef. The concentrated partnership structure means deal-level decisions are made by the same small team that will manage the asset post-close.

Freshstream is structured around a single permanent-capital investment vehicle rather than raising successive 10-year closed-end funds. A small group of family and institutional capital partners committed to the vehicle at formation, and the firm does not run periodic blind-pool fundraising processes. This gives Freshstream unusual flexibility on hold periods and exit timing compared to conventional mid-market European PE managers.

The firm concentrates on companies headquartered in the United Kingdom and the Benelux region — the Netherlands and Belgium in particular. Freshstream operates from a single London office and pursues thematic deal sourcing in these markets rather than a broader pan-European origination model.

Freshstream's permanent-capital architecture means the firm itself is a single direct-investment vehicle; it does not allocate capital to external managers as a fund-of-funds. The firm's entire activity is direct, control-oriented equity investing in mid-market European companies.