Audax Strategic Capital, a provider of customized, mid-hold equity solutions and a core dimension of the Audax Private Equity platform, announced the final close of its inaugural fund, Audax Private Equity Solutions Fund (the “Fund”). The Fund, which closed above target, has approximately $1.3 billion of total capital to deploy when combined with related vehicles and Audax Private Equity’s GP commitment. Limited partners (“LP”) include a diverse range of domestic and global institutional investors, while the GP commitment from Audax Private Equity amounted to approximately 20% of the LP commitments to the fund.

“We want to thank our limited partners,” said Don Bramley, Partner at Audax Private Equity, who helps to oversee the ASC strategy. “Both existing investors and new Audax relationships recognized an opportunity to broaden exposure to middle market private equity investments through a strategy that looks to back performing companies while seeking to mitigate downside risk.”

“We believe we can deliver value to sponsors seeking flexible capital solutions to extend their ownership of performing investments by providing an alternative to continuation vehicles,” said Kumber Husain and Daniel Green, Managing Directors of ASC based in New York and London, respectively. “The versatility of our strategy can help create new inflection points for extended portfolio company growth.”

ASC has so far deployed roughly a third of its capital under management across eight investments in North America and Europe, supporting a range of long-tenured and respected sponsors.

“The strategy is premised on delivering capital for growth and solving bespoke portfolio management challenges at the middle to later stages of the investment lifecycle,” said David Wong, who also helps to oversee Audax Strategic Capital and is a Partner at Audax Private Equity. “Through non-control, mid-hold equity investments, ASC can facilitate passive shareholder liquidity, help GPs manage concentration limits, and has the flexibility to enable cross-fund investments.”

Investors in the new fund represent a diversified mix of public and private pensions, consultants, funds of funds, insurance companies, asset and wealth managers, banking institutions, and high-net-worth investors and family offices. The new fund received commitments from both new investors and existing Audax Private Equity LPs.

“For 25-plus years, we’ve executed, refined and invested in the Audax ‘value agenda,’ which characterizes our bottom-up, multi-layered approach seeking to drive sustainable growth,” noted Young Lee and Keith Palumbo, Partners and Co-Presidents of Audax Private Equity. “We believe our scale, breadth of resources, and experience in the middle market help to set us apart as partners for growth. ASC represents a natural extension of our investment in these areas and builds upon our partnership philosophy. We truly appreciate our relationships that help to make it possible.”

Ropes & Gray served as legal counsel to Audax, and the firm did not use outside placement agents as part of the fundraise.