Ilona Capital

Brian Hodges is the Managing Partner and leads all investment activity. The firm operates with a lean, founder-led decision-making structure rather than a large investment committee. Hodges oversees sourcing, diligence, and portfolio governance, often working alongside operating partners on post-close execution.

Ilona targets founder-owned, bootstrapped software businesses that typically have not run broad auction processes. The firm relies on direct outreach and its network of operating partners, rather than intermediary-led processes, to find companies at the Rule-of-40 inflection point. Because it writes equity checks from committed deal-by-deal capital, it can move quickly when a founder is ready to transact.

Neither. Ilona is a growth-equity firm that raises capital per transaction rather than from a fixed fund. It sits between a traditional private equity fund and a permanent-hold operating group, with the flexibility to own businesses indefinitely. It does not operate as a family office or a venture capital firm.

Ilona executes direct growth-equity investments exclusively. It does not invest as a limited partner in other funds. Each investment is a control or significant-minority equity position in a single operating company, with no fund-of-funds activity.

Ilona targets expansion and late-stage growth-equity rounds in companies with $5M–$50M in revenue. It focuses on businesses that are profitable or near breakeven, avoiding pre-revenue startups. The firm enters at the point where capital accelerates organic scaling rather than funding product-market-fit discovery.

Ilona avoids venture-style cash-burn models, pre-revenue biotech, hardware, and sectors with heavy physical infrastructure capital requirements. It concentrates on capital-efficient software and tech-enabled services where unit economics are already proven. Consumer internet and speculative crypto have not appeared in its disclosed portfolio.

Ilona does not operate under a fixed fund duration. Without LP pressure to exit on a clock, it can hold businesses for a decade or more when the compounding trajectory justifies it. The permanent-capital structure means it can defer sales processes and reinvest cash flows rather than pursuing exits to generate near-term distributions.