Pacific Growth Investors

PGI sources opportunities across the Western US, focusing on Precision Manufacturing, Business Services, Technology, and General Industrial sectors. The firm targets companies with at least $20 million in revenue and an experienced management team that wants to remain in place. Co-founders Mark Sampson and Thomas Webster lead sourcing, leaning on a three-fund track record and operating-partner relationships to access off-market lower-middle-market situations.

The firm structures flexibly, combining common equity, preferred equity, senior secured debt, and subordinated debt with warrants. Ticket sizes run $5 million to $25 million per transaction. The structure is designed to provide growth capital, acquisition financing, or recapitalization liquidity without forcing founders to cede operating control — a feature the firm highlights as central to its model.

PGI is an institutional asset manager that has raised and deployed three commingled funds since 2003. It is the successor firm to Vintage Capital Partners. The firm does not disclose its limited partner base publicly, but its fund structure, portfolio concentration, and investment-committee governance point to pooled third-party capital rather than a single-family mandate.

PGI takes majority or significant minority equity positions but explicitly leaves operating control with existing management. It acts as the control financial sponsor while positioning itself as a collaborative board-level partner rather than an operator. Operating Partners Robert Thompson and Timothy Dowd supplement portfolio-company teams with strategic and operational support on an as-needed basis.

The firm's published investment guidelines narrow its aperture to Precision Manufacturing, Business Services, Technology, General Industrial, Aerospace/Aviation, Medical Device/Diagnostics, and Software. It does not list consumer, retail, hospitality, or healthcare services outside of diagnostics, suggesting those areas fall outside its current mandate.

PGI frames its sustainability work around three pillars — Profits, People, and Planet — and ties value creation to reinvestment in employee training, benefits, facility upgrades, and energy reduction. At Spectra Aerospace, the firm partnered with management to rebuild two manufacturing facilities with more efficient equipment and processes. The framework is not a separate impact fund but an operating philosophy embedded in standard deal work.

The firm's first realized exit was the sale of True Position Technologies to HBD Industries in December 2017, from the second fund. Combined with portfolio-company holding patterns that include formation plays (Spectra Aerospace in 2019) and refinancings (ConQuest Firespray's $29 million round in 2019), the evidence suggests patient capital with hold periods stretching across multiple years rather than rapid flips.