Our Story

A Bold Idea

Bain Capital veterans Geoff Rehnert and Marc Wolpow launched Audax Private Equity to focus on the middle market, where they saw an opportunity to bring an institutional, strategic skillset to collaborate with management teams and build better companies.

Inaugural Fund

Audax Private Equity closes its debut fund, raising $500 million to invest in control buyouts in the U.S. middle market. One of the firm’s earliest investments was a control stake in Artisan Entertainment.

Buy & Build Takes Form

2001 was a period of growth for Audax Private Equity, as the firm continued to build out its team and resources and continued to put capital to work in the wake of the dotcom bubble. It was during this period that Audax leaned into its Buy & Build strategy, which demonstrated resilience in the face of market and economic uncertainty. More than half of Audax Private Equity's partners had joined the firm by 2001.

Crystalizing Value

The sale of Fibersense to Northrop Grumman represented one of Audax Private Equity’s first realizations and helped to validate the firm’s strategic approach to focus on value creation as a driver of outperformance. Under Audax ownership, Fibersense grew its employee base more than threefold, and invested in the transition of the company from purely research and development to R&D and manufacturing.

Operational Complexity

The sale of nash_elmo Holdings to a publicly held strategic buyer helped to demonstrate the potential of M&A as an accelerator for value creation and the Audax team’s fluency in navigating operational and transactional complexity. The carveout acquisition and subsequent merger between Elmo Vacuum Technologies Gmbh of Nuremberg, Germany and Nash Engineering of Trumbull, CT, created one of the world’s leading manufacturers of liquid ring industrial vacuum pumps.

Successor Fund

Audax raised a successor to its debut private equity fund, collecting $700 million in total, eclipsing its original $600 million target. 2005 was also a record year for Audax in terms of activity, as the firm completed six new platform investments, eight add-on acquisitions, and seven liquidity events.

Building the Team

Audax held its first and final close on its third Flagship fund, closing on $1 billion of commitments. Audax continued to build out its infrastructure and team, which as of 2007, exceeded 75 professionals and included approximately 40 members of the investment team.

Growth Toolkit

Audax formalized its Portfolio Improvement Group, which was comprised of a mix of senior professionals from strategy, consulting and operations backgrounds. This team represented the predecessor to today’s Strategic Resources Group and Portfolio Support team, which collectively numbers over 60 functional specialists and generalist consultants who collaborate closely with our portfolio companies and oversee the execution of the Audax Value Agenda.

10 Years, 100 Add-ons

Audax celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2009. At this stage in the firm’s maturation, Audax had a staff of 110 employees, with an investment team of more than 80 professionals. The firm had also crossed a significant milestone, having completed over 100 add-on acquisitions.

Independent Management Company

Audax Private Equity registered as an independent management company and investment advisor. The firm also closed its fourth Flagship fund, above target, hitting its $1.25 billion hard cap and reached another milestone, closing its 200th add-on acquisition in September of 2012.

West-Coast Expansion

Audax established its West Coast presence, first through its Menlo Park location and later moved to its current San Francisco offices.

Audax Private Equity also reached multiple transactional milestones in 2015, including the firm's 400th add-on acquisition in August of that year and its 500th transaction in total, including both new platform investments and add-ons, in September 2015.

PE Firm of the Year

Audax Private Equity was named the Private Equity Firm of the Year by Mergers & Acquisitions Journal*. The honor recognized the historic milestones achieved the previous year, the pace of Audax' activity with over 100 transactions, and the closing of the firm's fifth Flagship fund, which raised $2.25 billion.

*No financial considerations were provided to be considered or to promote the award. For more information please refer to our disclaimers page.

Diversifying the LP Base

Audax Private Equity held the first and final close on its sixth Flagship fund, reaching its hard cap of $3.5 billion with commitments from a diverse set of global institutions from North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America.

20 Years, Multiple Honors

Audax Private Equity celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019. The firm also finished the year as No. 1 most active firm in PitchBook's annual private equity league tables and was recognized in the HEC-Paris / Dow Jones PE Performance Ranking (awarded Feb. 2019).*

*No financial considerations were provided to be considered or to promote the mentioned awards. For more information see our disclaimers.

ACF Launch

Audax Private Equity formalized its philanthropic efforts through the launch of the Audax Charitable Foundation.

Audax also held the successful closing of its debut Continuation Fund, raising $1.7 billion of commitments to fund the purchase of certain assets from the firm's fourth Flagship fund.

New Strategy, New Locations

Audax Private Equity, in 2022, launched Audax Strategic Capital and opened its New York City and London office locations. In February of 2022, Audax also became a signatory for the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment.

Platform Building

Audax raised $5.25 billion for its seventh Flagship fund and $774 million for the Origins fund, Audax' debut lower middle market strategy. Combined with a GP commitment of $1.8 billion, Audax raised $7.8 billion. Audax was also voted the Mid-Market Firm of the Year in North America by readers of Private Equity International, the first of two consecutive years Audax received this honor.*

*No financial considerations were provided to be considered or to promote the awards. For more information see our disclaimers.

ASC Raises Debut Fund

ASC raised a total of $1.3 billion to invest in non-control equity, supporting the continued growth of PE sponsors' performing assets.

The Audax Charitable Foundation also reached a key milestone, having awarded commitments to more than 50 local nonprofits across the Boston and San Francisco communities since its launch.