Who is Level Equity?
Level Equity is a New York growth equity firm founded in 2009 by Ben Levin and George McCulloch, both formerly of Insight Venture Partners, now Insight Partners. Ben Levin serves as CEO. The firm has offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Greenwich, Connecticut.
Level Equity has raised $4.5 billion across its equity and credit business lines since inception and has made more than 125 investments with more than 60 liquidity events. The firm runs three strategies: core growth equity, opportunistic growth, and structured growth capital.
Level invests from closed-end funds, so portfolio companies get sold or recapitalized within a fund’s life. In December 2021 Level closed Growth Partners V at $775 million alongside a $350 million Opportunities Fund. In March 2025 Level closed Growth Partners VI and Opportunities Fund 2025 at a combined $1.4 billion, oversubscribed.
What does Level Equity buy?
Level Equity buys into bootstrapped software companies with $5 million or more in recurring revenue and little institutional capital raised to date. The firm invests across minority growth capital, majority recapitalizations, and structured equity or credit, which lets it pitch founders almost any transaction shape.
| Criterion | Level Equity’s stated profile | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring revenue | $5M or more | Firm website |
| Funding history | Little institutional capital raised to date | Firm website |
| Structures | Minority growth capital, majority recapitalizations, structured equity and credit | Firm website |
| Structured capital size | $3M to $30M per transaction | Firm website |
| Sectors | Software and technology-enabled businesses in non-cyclical end markets | Firm website |
| Geography | North America, Europe, Israel, Australia, New Zealand | Firm website |
Equity check sizes for Level’s core growth deals are not published. The $3 million to $30 million range applies to the structured capital line, and the 2025 fund pair gives Level $1.4 billion of fresh capacity across all three strategies.
What has Level Equity actually invested in?
Level Equity’s track record includes exits to major strategics, though sale prices are rarely disclosed on Level’s side.
| Company | What it does | Level entry | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wombat Security | Security awareness training | 2014 | Sold to Proofpoint, 2018; terms not disclosed by Level |
| simPRO | Field service management software | 2016 | Recapitalized by K1, 2021; terms not disclosed |
| CloudCheckr | Cloud management platform | 2017 | Sold to NetApp, 2021; terms not disclosed |
| HVR Software | Data replication | 2019 | Sold to Fivetran, 2021; terms not disclosed by Level |
| Instaclustr | Managed open source data platform | 2019 | Sold to NetApp, 2022; terms not disclosed |
| Chronus, Eftsure, HackEDU | Mentoring software, payment fraud protection, security training | 2021 | Active investments; terms not disclosed |
Level also held positions in Made.com and Vacasa through their 2021 public listings. Deal pace is steady rather than spray-and-pray: Level completed ten new investments in 2021, a representative year, against a team of roughly 40 people at the time. The pattern across the portfolio is consistent: enter a capital-efficient software company early, hold roughly 3 to 5 years in disclosed cases, and exit to a strategic acquirer or a larger sponsor.
What does Level Equity typically pay?
Level Equity does not publish valuations, and no purchase multiple for a Level deal is public. The only sized disclosure the firm makes is the $3 million to $30 million range on structured capital transactions. Undisclosed pricing is itself information: a buyer that never publishes prices keeps every future negotiation anchored to nothing.
Windsor Drake’s published valuation research places private equity platform acquisitions of SaaS companies at 4 to 6 times revenue, with add-ons at 3 to 5 times revenue, and finds strategic acquirers pay 15 to 30 percent premiums over financial buyers. A founder negotiating with Level alone has no way to know where a specific offer sits against those bands without testing the market.
How does Level Equity find companies?
Level Equity sources most deals internally by contacting tens of thousands of software companies to create proprietary investment opportunities. The model comes straight from the founders’ training at Insight Venture Partners, the firm that industrialized outbound sourcing in software investing. Level’s associates call and email bootstrapped founders years before any transaction is discussed.
Proprietary is buyer vocabulary. A proprietary deal is a deal in which the founder never created competition, and buyers pursue proprietary deals because uncontested entry prices run lower. The persistence of the outreach is a compliment to the business, not a commitment to a price.
What does a Level Equity approach look like?
The typical arc is a cold email or call from an associate, periodic check-ins that can run for years, a metrics request, and eventually a term sheet. Because Level offers minority, majority, and structured products, the pitch often flexes to whatever the founder says: growth capital if the founder wants to keep building, a recapitalization if the founder wants liquidity. Structural flexibility is a genuine advantage for the founder only when a competing offer exists to price each structure against.
Term sheets come with exclusivity requests. Buyers ask for 30 to 90 days of exclusivity as a standard position, and Windsor Drake recommends conceding no more than 30 to 45 days. A founder fielding this sequence should read Windsor Drake’s guides to unsolicited offers and the offer-received hub before sharing financials.
What is life like after selling to Level Equity?
Level Equity runs an in-house value creation team called NextLevel Operations, staffed with functional specialists across finance, operations, and go-to-market. The firm’s stated principle is that no business gets a standardized playbook. More than 60 liquidity events since inception means the realistic end state for a Level portfolio company is another sale, to a strategic or a larger fund, within the fund’s life.
Public founder accounts of life under Level ownership are limited, and most published material comes from the firm itself. Founders should ask Level for references from exited CEOs, including at least one whose company underperformed plan. A buyer with more than 60 completed liquidity events can supply both kinds of reference on request.
Who else competes with Level Equity for bootstrapped software companies?
Level’s direct competitors run the same outbound-to-bootstrapped model. Mainsail Partners works the identical profile from San Francisco and Austin, Serent Capital targets founder-led B2B software, and PSG operates the buy-and-build version at larger scale. Permanent-hold acquirers such as Volaris and ESW Capital compete for the same vertical software companies with full-buyout structures. Windsor Drake maps the whole field in its guide to private equity firms that buy SaaS companies.
What would a competitive process change?
The Proprietary Discount is the gap between what a serial acquirer pays in an unbanked bilateral negotiation and what the same business clears in a competitive process. Windsor Drake measures that gap at 15 to 25 percent of enterprise value. Level Equity built its sourcing engine specifically to transact before that competition forms, which is rational for Level and expensive for an unadvised founder.
A process replaces one buyer’s flexibility with a market’s verdict. Windsor Drake runs sell-side processes opening with a buyer universe of 150 to 300 potential acquirers, and founders deciding whether to engage help should start with whether you need a banker.
If Level Equity has already approached you, Windsor Drake’s Approach Response engagement runs a competitive process alongside the live offer in 4 to 6 months.
Questions founders ask
Is Level Equity a private equity firm?
Level Equity is a growth equity firm, a branch of private equity focused on established, capital-efficient companies rather than buyouts of mature businesses or bets on startups. Level invests across minority stakes, majority recapitalizations, and structured equity or credit.
What size company does Level Equity invest in?
Level Equity states that target companies typically have $5 million or more in recurring revenue and little institutional capital raised to date. Structured capital transactions run $3 million to $30 million; equity check sizes for core growth deals are not published.
What is the connection between Level Equity and Insight Partners?
Level Equity founders Ben Levin and George McCulloch both worked at Insight Venture Partners before forming Level in 2009. Level applies the same outbound sourcing model to smaller, bootstrapped software companies than Insight typically pursues.
What has Level Equity paid in past deals?
Level Equity does not disclose purchase prices or multiples, and exits such as CloudCheckr to NetApp, Wombat Security to Proofpoint, and HVR to Fivetran were announced without terms on Level’s side. Windsor Drake’s published valuation research places PE platform acquisitions of SaaS at 4 to 6 times revenue.
Why does Level Equity keep calling my company?
Level Equity sources most deals internally by contacting tens of thousands of software companies, and persistent outreach means the company fits a screen, not that a specific price is in mind. The outreach aims to start a bilateral conversation before any competing buyer appears.
Does Level Equity buy majority stakes?
Level Equity pursues both minority growth investments and majority recapitalizations, plus structured equity and credit. A founder can sell partial liquidity or control depending on the negotiated structure; the structure offered first is the one that suits the buyer.
How long does Level Equity hold companies?
Level Equity does not publish a target hold, but disclosed cases ran roughly 3 to 5 years: Wombat Security 2014 to 2018, CloudCheckr 2017 to 2021, HVR 2019 to 2021, and Instaclustr 2019 to 2022. Closed-end funds require exits within the fund’s life.
Last reviewed July 28, 2026 by Jeff Barrington, Founder and Managing Director, Windsor Drake. Content on this page may be cited with attribution and a link to https://windsordrake.com/acquirers/level-equity/