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True Equity
True Equity, founded by Mike DiFebbo and Chris Feeney, runs a concentrated lower-middle-market buyout and growth equity strategy from Haddonfield, New...
True Equity
True Equity was founded in 2013 by Mike DiFebbo and Chris Feeney, two veterans of the institutional private equity world who stepped away from large-platform shops to target a segment they believed was underserved: founder-led, lower-middle-market companies in the Tri-State area and Mid-Atlantic. The firm operates from Haddonfield, New Jersey, deliberately outside the orbit of Manhattan's GP density. The firm runs a hybrid strategy, combining control buyouts of profitable industrial and services businesses with minority growth investments in enterprise software and tech-enabled healthcare companies. True Equity targets companies with $2 million to $8 million in EBITDA for buyouts and $10 million to $50 million in revenue for growth deals. Publicly disclosed portfolio activity includes investments in industrial manufacturing, field services, and vertical SaaS platforms. The firm has executed both platform acquisitions and add-on integrations, often partnering with founder-operators who retain meaningful equity stakes post-close. True Equity closed its debut institutional fund — the size of which it has not publicly disclosed — and as of early 2024 continues to deploy from that vehicle alongside co-investment capital from a network of family offices and high-net-worth individuals in the Philadelphia and New York corridors. The team remains deliberately lean, leveraging a distributed advisory board of operating executives rather than building out internal functional specialists. The firm has not publicly disclosed its total professional headcount. The firm's structural differentiator is its single-fund, low-partner-count architecture. Unlike the multi-product platforms from which its founders came, True Equity does not manage a family of funds, a credit arm, or a secondaries vehicle. The focus is entirely on a concentrated portfolio of 8–12 platform investments, where the partners sit on every board and carry deal execution personally — a model that shrinks the distance between the IC and the portfolio-company P&L.
General information
Firm type
Private Equity
Year founded
2013
AUM
Undisclosed (Altss estimate: sub-$500M)
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Haddonfield
Corporate office
Haddonfield, NJ, United States
Principals
Michael A. DiFebbo
Managing Partner
Christopher M. Feeney
Partner
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at True Equity?
Mike DiFebbo and Chris Feeney, the firm's Managing Partner and Partner respectively, make all investment decisions. The partnership structure is intentionally flat, with both founders sitting on every portfolio company board and carrying deal execution personally. No investment committee operates above or outside the two founding partners.
Does True Equity pursue control buyouts or minority growth investments?
True Equity does both. The firm targets control buyouts in profitable industrial manufacturing and business services companies generating $2 million to $8 million in EBITDA, while simultaneously making minority growth equity investments in enterprise software and tech-enabled healthcare companies with $10 million to $50 million in revenue. This dual-mandate structure is unusual for a fund of its size.
Is True Equity structured as a single-family office or an institutional fund manager?
True Equity operates as an institutional private equity fund manager, not a family office. The firm raised its debut committed fund from institutional investors and a network of family offices rather than managing the wealth of a single founding family. The name reflects the partnership structure, not a family-office origin.
What is True Equity's geographic focus?
True Equity concentrates on companies headquartered in the Tri-State area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut) and the Mid-Atlantic region. The firm's Haddonfield, New Jersey location places it within driving distance of its target acquisition markets without the overhead of a Manhattan office. The firm has not disclosed investments outside the eastern United States.
How large is True Equity's current fund?
True Equity has not publicly disclosed the size of its debut fund. Altss estimates the vehicle is sub-$500 million based on the firm's lower-middle-market positioning, lean team structure, and the capital intensity of the buyout and growth investments it targets. The firm has not reported any subsequent fund closes as of early 2024.
What is the firm's approach to portfolio construction?
True Equity runs a concentrated portfolio, targeting 8 to 12 platform investments per fund. The partners sit on every board and avoid delegation to junior investment professionals. The firm uses add-on acquisitions to build out platform companies and retains founder-operators with meaningful equity stakes post-close, a model that keeps portfolio-level management fees low relative to multi-fund peers.
Does True Equity have any other investment vehicles or philanthropic arms?
The firm has not publicly disclosed any adjacent vehicles, credit funds, secondaries funds, or philanthropic foundations. True Equity appears to operate a single institutional fund with co-investment capital raised on a deal-by-deal basis from the family office and high-net-worth networks in the Philadelphia-New York corridor.
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