Wealth & Finance International - Fund Awards 2015

Wealth & Finance Fund Awards 2015 58 Strattam Capital Best for Core Enterprise It And Services Buy Outs Strattam Capital is a modern private equity firm that takes an innovative and focused approach to investing in underap- preciated companies within the business IT market. We spoke to Adrian Polak, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Strattam Capital. Company: Strattam Capital Name: Adrian Polak Email: [email protected] Address: 106 East 6th Street, Suite 900 Austin, Texas 78701 Bob Morse and I founded Strattam in September of 2013 because we were seeing so many opportunities in the small to mid-sized range that we really felt that we needed a fund with a dedicated focus to maximize the return potential. Many of our historical IT investments had been in the small to mid-sized range and we took the most satisfaction and enjoyment from working with those companies. We also felt that by combining the strategy that had made us so successful in our previous investments, which takes a modern, entrepreneurial approach to investing, and combining that with the very disciplined and rigorous processes that have become part of our DNA from our backgrounds at very institutional firms, we’d have a highly differentiated approach that would produce great outcomes for our investors. Our philosophy for managing a fund is distinctly similar to what we look for in a management team. We believe that the people are critical to making the difference between a strong premise and a winning strategy. We’ve assembled a terrific team at Strattam, which combines very strong institutional backgrounds with entrepreneurial mindsets; that combination allows us to be consistent and disciplined, but agile enough to react quickly to changing market dynamics. The next layer is incredibly focused on the business of our business. We recognize that that no one area of our operations is any more or less important than any other. While outstanding returns are the reason we’re here, if the cost is out of control expense ratios, regulatory risk, and poor client relations, we won’t be able to maintain that level of performance for long. We’re faced with a bit of a catch-22: while much of the industry we invest in, business IT, is built to create new and improved tools to solve long-term business problems; the industry we’re actually in, private equity, often uses the same tools that have been the standard since the industry really took off about 20 years ago. At Strattam, we look to match the challenges presented by a dynamic, growing space with a modern set of investment processes and a really differentiated model that resonates with entrepreneurs. Part of our process is to define the sub-sets of the larger business IT universe where we believe we can have maximum impact, and where we expect to be able to map the entire peer group. We also have to remain current with trends in our sub-sectors, which means we spend a lot of time in the field, and a lot of time talking to key people up and down the customer chain to get a deep understanding of critical buying patterns and levers. We see ourselves as the preferred partner to top management teams, and belive this is a critical part of our edge. The segment that we invest in is huge, and highly fragmented. At the same time, highly skilled and motivated management teams are a scarce resource, so good companies led by great managers tend to be able to pick their partners. We offer more than just capital to the companies we invest in, we offer a roadmap to building our companies into peer group leaders. Not only does that create value on a numerical basis, the challenge is what gets the best CEOs out of bed in the morning. Our track record of building value, through up and down cycles, by building leading companies resonates with entrepreneurs and owners, which is a distinct edge. Finally, the focus we’ve developed as specialists has allowed us to successfully invest with conviction across the economic cycle. We believe that ability to deploy and return capital in markets that aren’t always friendly compounds over the long term in a very meaningful way. Sellers recognize who is there for the boom times, and who is there for the long haul.