Rainier Partners

Day-to-day investment decisions rest with co-founders and managing partners Jon Altman and Alex Rolfe, who launched the firm in 2020 and brought over 30 years of combined investing and operating experience. The firm operates a flat structure with a small team of principals, vice presidents and associates supporting sourcing, diligence and portfolio work. Dave Shephard, Executive Director of Portfolio Operations, is the senior resource charged with value creation inside portfolio companies.

Rainier runs a formal finder's-fee program for intermediaries and maintains a Director of Business Development, James Whittle, dedicated to cultivating intermediary relationships. The firm's stated preference for family-founder transitions, corporate carve-outs and complex situations often surfaces deals outside broad auction processes. Its Western US concentration and Seattle anchor give it a geographic lens that differs from New York or Chicago generalist buyers.

Rainier invests directly in operating companies — no public record indicates it makes fund commitments as a limited partner. Its model targets majority or structured minority equity positions in lower middle-market services businesses, with check sizes between $15 million and $75 million, which it sources, underwrites and manages in-house.

The firm targets the lower middle-market — companies generating $5 million to $25 million in EBITDA — and is stage-agnostic within that band, pursuing growth capital, management buyouts, corporate divestitures, founder liquidity events and public-to-private transactions. It does not operate a dedicated late-stage or early-stage venture strategy.

Rainier concentrates on business, consumer, industrial and financial services, and does not list technology, healthcare products or hard-asset manufacturing among its focus areas. The portfolio as disclosed — janitorial services, fitness franchise operations, pet retail, automotive tools, flooring distribution and benefits administration — reflects a persistent bias toward people-heavy, route- and facility-based services rather than product-centric or software-led businesses.

Rainier's two-man managing-partner construct and dedicated portfolio-operations executive create a concentrated governance model that aims to move faster on creative capital solutions for sellers. The firm's explicit focus on founder-family transitions, carve-outs and complex situations, combined with a single-city headquarters and a sector palette limited to four services verticals, distinguishes it from multi-sector, multi-office middle-market platforms.

No philanthropic foundation, donor-advised fund or impact vehicle is disclosed in connection with Rainier Partners or its managing partners. The firm's public footprint is confined to its private equity investing activity and portfolio-company appointments.