Partnering with
software companies
people love.
Five Elms is one of the most active and experienced software investors globally. With more than $2.9 billion in assets under management, our team has grown to over 75 professionals. Our deep expertise growing software companies and our established operating principles have helped 70+ global software platforms accelerate growth, build category leaders, and scale to successful outcomes.
We typically invest $15 -150+ million in each founder-owned business, are comfortable with majority or minority ownership stakes, and provide both founder liquidity and growth capital.
Why do founders choose to partner with Five Elms?
Humility + Hustle
Our relaxed, open, and honest working style is one of the reasons we’ve successfully earned founders’ trust – and a seat at the table in businesses where additional capital is truly optional.
Much like the companies we back, we aren’t the incumbent behemoth in our industry – we try harder.
Operational Value Add
Our Operational Value Creation Team has been purpose-built to grow key operating functions in a historically resource-constrained organization (e.g., sales ops, marketing, financial infrastructure, or building out an experienced senior management team for scale).
Optimal Capitalization
Our investment range is purposefully broad. Not enough capital can stunt growth and product innovation, allowing the competition to catch up.
Too much capital can suffocate a business, create excessive founder dilution, lead to poor decision-making, and reduce the landscape of exit scenarios where everyone wins.
Highly Flexible Capital
We are highly flexible and tailor our investment to meet what each business needs: majority or minority investment, growth capital or founder liquidity. We can also support companies over multiple funding rounds.
Who do we like to partner with?
Challengers to the “Old Guard"
Our company founders are rapidly taking market share from incumbents by developing better ways to solve their customers’ problems and providing the next-generation solution in their category.
Culture Bearers
Our best performing companies are intentional with company culture – it’s crucial to their success. We have a very simple playbook: great products + great people = great outcomes.
Vertical Market Leaders
We typically back founders who experienced their customer’s pain points firsthand, often times in a specific vertical market. We believe that these category winners earn the right to sell additional products throughout the value chain, and inherently make their customers better businesses at the end of the day.
Must-Have Products
We look for products that customers can’t live without and have the retention rates to prove it. We invest in businesses with strong product-market fit, that have a right to win, and are ready to capture more of the market they serve.
The people behind the
companies we back.
By the numbers...
While our focus and values have stayed consistent over the last 17+ years, we’ve grown steadily in other ways.