Less than a year into his new venture at CAVU Capital, Barry Shevlin knew there needed to be a structural change.
A longtime titan of the tech ecosystem, Shevlin served as the co-founder and CEO of Vology before launching a tech vertical at Skyway Capital Markets. In December 2020, he launched CAVU Capital, focusing on midsize companies. He was off to a strong start — he closed three deals in the firm, with two of the three hailing from the Tampa Bay area.
But through repeated conversations with longtime friends at Hyde Park Capital, Shevlin and Hyde Park Managing Director Michael Johnson knew strengths could be further leveraged.
"As Michael and I worked with investment banking and principal banking, it became more obvious I wanted to focus on the growth equity side of things," Shevlin said a day after the merger announcement.
The conversations became more serious around September 2021, with the terms agreed upon in January of this year. CAVU will retain its name and Shevlin as the CEO. It will focus on investing in companies hitting between $2 million to $5 million in EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Shevlin still has a generally large tech focus but mentioned there have been tailwinds in private aviation, process automation, tech-enabled companies and information technology service companies.
"It's putting the right people in the right seats," Shevlin said. "My passion is growing tech companies and that's what I will continue to do."
He doesn't have a specific number of deals he'd like to hit but expects to have roughly one to two deals a year. CAVU previously invested in Clearwater-based FlyFlorida, which rebranded to FlyUSA; Tampa-based Black Belt Solutions and California-based Prodoscore.
Hyde Park Capital will use the acquisition as a springboard for accelerating its technology service capabilities, expanding its team to roughly 16 people and focusing on merger and acquisition deals.
"People have taken notice of macroeconomic conditions and are starting to realize this bull market can't last forever," Johnson said in an interview with the Tampa Bay Business Journal, adding the inevitable burst that comes with a growing market has made some companies consider sales and "bringing them off the sidelines."
Shevlin believes under the new partnership, there will be even more opportunities to invest right back into the local ecosystem — something that he said did not previously garner the attention it is currently receiving.
"We’ve come such a long way — I used to say we were misunderstood because all our technology was B2B," he said, listing off tech giants like Vology, Tribridge and myMatrixx — some of which have gone on to launch their own successful firms. "They weren’t household names, but they were huge businesses. And now, it seems like every day you're writing about someone else moving to town."
