Lake Capital Partners

Lake Capital Partners

Paul Yovovich and Terence Graunke founded Lake Capital in 1998 in Chicago, applying a private equity model to a niche most generalist firms overlooked: human-capital-intensive services businesses. The firm set out to acquire founder-led professional services, marketing services, and information services companies, providing liquidity to founders while building platforms with deeper management benches and broader geographic reach. Lake Capital structures control buyout and growth equity investments, targeting companies with $10 million to $150 million in revenue and recurring or contractual client relationships. The firm's portfolio has included engineering consultancy GAI Consultants, healthcare staffing firm Medical Solutions, and marketing services network Epsilon, though the latter was exited. Sectors span professional services, tech-enabled outsourcing, and specialized data and information businesses. The firm operates primarily from Chicago, with an additional office in London to source and manage European investments. Over its history, Lake Capital disclosed commitments exceeding $1.6 billion, deployed from a series of institutional private equity funds including Lake Capital Partners III. The team operates with a generalist private equity structure — managing partners supported by a dedicated group of operating advisors who assist portfolio companies with organic growth initiatives and add-on acquisitions. The firm closed its most recent flagship fund in the 2010s and has not publicly disclosed a subsequent institutional vehicle, though it continues to manage existing portfolio interests from its Chicago headquarters. Lake Capital's structural distinction is its persistent focus on services-based business models, a thesis that demands operational expertise in talent retention and client-relationship management rather than the product-engineering or technology-IP skillsets common in other mid-market private equity firms. Governance rests with the co-founders, who have maintained a consistent partnership structure for over two decades — an unusual tenure in a sector marked by frequent partner turnover.