Velocity Capital Management

Velocity Capital Management

Velocity Capital Management was founded in 2021 by David Abrams alongside Arne Rees and Erin O'Brien Edwards, bringing over 80 years of combined investment and operating experience to the lower-middle market. The New York-based firm focuses exclusively on the sports, media, and entertainment (SME) sectors, backing owner-operators of intellectual property and the technology and services companies that support them. The firm explicitly avoids investing in professional sports teams. Velocity structures its investments through control acquisitions, growth equity, and corporate carve-outs, seeking founder-led or management-owned businesses with enterprise values up to $1 billion and $5–50 million of EBITDA. Its investment thesis centers on IP disruption and commercialization across four core areas: IP owners and operators, business services, technology and data, and media. The firm pursues targets headquartered in the US and Europe, leveraging a network of operating partners with deep sector expertise — including senior advisors from MidOcean Credit and HBSE Ventures. Recent data on specific portfolio holdings or fund closes has not been made public. The firm runs a lean operation from its single office at 1 Penn Plaza in New York, with a team of 14 professionals spanning investment, operations, and compliance. David Abrams chairs the Investment Committee, on which Rees and Edwards also sit. Operating partners and senior advisors — including Richard Zimmerman, a 30-year hospitality veteran, and Steven Shenfeld, Chairman of MidOcean's Credit business — supplement the core team. In September 2023, Velocity added Matthew Zimmerman as a Vice President to lead capital formation and investor partnerships (per firm website). Velocity's structural edge lies in its sector purity and operational intensity. By concentrating entirely on IP-centric SME businesses and maintaining a bench of operating partners with direct industry P&L experience, the firm positions itself as a strategic partner rather than a purely financial sponsor. Its early-stage, boutique scale — undisclosed AUM and a deliberately narrow mandate — creates a capacity-constrained model that limits competition with large generalist GPs in its target deal size.