Next Capital

The founding partners — Sandy Lockhart, Patrick Elliott and John White — remain actively involved in investment decisions alongside partners James Murphy, Bing Jiang and Adam Dicembre. The firm operates a partnership model, with senior team members maintaining board seats across the portfolio. The investment committee is internal to the partnership.

The firm states a focus on businesses with an enterprise value of A$50 million to A$200 million, a range it has maintained since inception. For larger transactions, Next Capital brings in co-investors to supplement its fund capital. This allows the firm to pursue deals above its core band while maintaining its mid-market concentration.

Next Capital's portfolio companies are headquartered in Australia and New Zealand. The firm assists these businesses with international expansion — particularly into Asian markets for sourcing, manufacturing and distribution — but does not directly acquire companies based outside Australasia. The founding team has cited deep experience operating across Asian growth markets.

The firm's website explicitly states it does not invest in real estate, early-stage financing, or natural resources. Everything else is within the mandate, and the portfolio reflects this generalist approach, spanning environmental services, transport, education, hospitality, financial comparison platforms, defence services, and furniture.

Next Capital has used multiple exit paths: trade sales to strategics (Infinite Care, 2017; Aero-Care, 2014), sales to financial buyers (Discovery Parks, 2014; Go Bus, 2014), IPOs (Vitaco, 2015), and continuation-fund vehicles (SilverChef, 2025). This multi-channel approach means the firm is not dependent on any single exit window.

Yes. In 2025, Next Capital began warming up investors for a SilverChef continuation fund, indicating the firm's willingness to extend its hold on certain assets beyond a traditional fund life when it sees remaining value-creation runway. This adds a liquidity-management tool to the firm's traditional trade-sale and IPO exit playbook.

The firm closed its Fund V at A$375 million in 2022, with backing from local high-net-worth investors and Australian institutions. The firm does not publicly disclose total AUM. The leadership team's investment heritage extends to 1988 through their prior roles at Macquarie Bank, giving them more than 35 years of combined deal data.