Thompson Street Capital Partners

TSCP sources a meaningful share of its transactions through a proprietary network of regional intermediaries, operating advisors, and long-standing relationships with family- and founder-owned businesses in the Midwest and lower Midwest. The firm's St. Louis headquarters places it in close proximity to companies that rarely appear in broad auction processes run by coastal investment banks. Managing partners Jim Cooper and Brian Kornmann have cultivated this regional pipeline over two decades, giving the firm a first-look advantage on many middle-market opportunities.

The firm targets control equity positions in cash-flowing middle-market companies, with a heavy emphasis on management buyouts, corporate carve-outs, and recapitalizations of founder-led businesses. TSCP writes equity checks between $50 million and $250 million, targeting companies with EBITDA of $5 million to $25 million. The partnership generally avoids venture-stage, distressed, and minority-growth investments.

TSCP does not invest in energy, real estate, or venture-stage companies. The firm concentrates on four verticals — healthcare services, enterprise software, industrial technology, and specialized business services — and has historically declined opportunities in sectors where it lacks operational expertise or where cash-flow visibility is weak.

Thompson Street Capital Partners is a pure institutional asset manager — it raises capital from third-party limited partners including pensions, endowments, and family offices. It does not manage a single-family fortune and does not operate as a family office. The firm's principals, Jim Cooper and Brian Kornmann, built the platform as a traditional private equity partnership rather than as a vehicle for a single source of wealth.

TSCP is overwhelmingly a direct investor — it leads control buyouts and does not operate a fund-of-funds or LP commitment program. The firm's emphasis is on acquiring and operating platform companies directly, often executing add-on acquisitions through those platforms.

Investment decisions rest with managing partners Jim Cooper and Brian Kornmann, who have led the firm since its 2000 founding. The partnership operates with a centralized investment committee structure, though detailed governance disclosures are limited in public filings.

TSCP does not actively market a co-investment program to external limited partners, but is known to accommodate LP co-investment requests on a deal-by-deal basis — typical for a middle-market buyout firm of its size. The primary investment approach remains control buyouts led directly by the TSCP partnership.