Casey Myers joined Edison Partners — a nearly 40-year-old growth equity firm based out of Princeton, N.J. and Nashville, T.N. — in November 2022 to oversee and evolve the firm’s operations platform, Edison Edge. Before that, portfolio company operations were left in the hands of the firm’s investment partners, as is typical for a growth equity fund of its size.

Since then, the $1.6 billion AUM manager has inked a number of deals in the lower mid-market space, the latest of which being a $15 million minority stake in Seismos, an AI tool used for oil and gas production and exploration. The investment came from the firm’s tenth flagship fund, Edison Partners X. The firm declined to comment on the post-deal valuation of Seismos after the investment.

“Not all capital is created equal. [My belief in that comes] from my living on the ‘other side of the table.’ We didn't need just money. We needed help and understanding what was around the next curve, what was around the next corner,” said Myers. 

The ‘we’ in question is Myers' former company, software start-up SundaySky, where he worked in operations from 2013 through 2023. His resume boasts over two decades of operational experience across the software sector in total.

“[Edison Partners is] bringing actual operators to help actual operators,” he explained.

According to Myers, most PE firms rely on implementing a singular operations model from the Vista Equity Partners Playbook onto a number of different portcos. Edison, however, tries to take a more varied, personalized approach. 

“One of the fundamental principles for us is a people-first approach. We want to meet these portfolio companies where they are,” he said. “Most of the operators that these private equity firms would put across the table from me [in my previous role] had no relevant experience in my space at my size.”

It’s not just an opinion that Myers holds — other CEOs, notably that of Seismos, also prioritize operations when it comes to sourcing capital, even at the lower mid-market level. 

“Oil and gas markets are moving to a state of autonomous, intelligent, AI-driven operations. With Edison, we’ve partnered with a great operating team to help us grow exponentially as this modernization takes hold,” Panos Adamopoulos, founder and CEO of Seismos, said in a statement.

“Especially in more technical and specialized areas, put yourself in the shoes of the operator and the CEO. Do I want someone who's going to give me better terms on capital? Or do I want somebody who's got industry expertise and is going to put in place an independent seat [on the board of directors] and help me manage my board to a strategic level?” Myers explained.

Boarded up

Such a relationship with a tech company’s leadership is unique for a PE firm, as one-third of PE firms replace CEOs at technology portcos in less than a year as of 2023. 

The firm believes this distinguishes it from the value creation strategies at other PE firms, especially those at the lower mid-market level. 

“When they say ‘value creation’ … it's typical playbook stuff around pricing and packaging and talent. Let's rip and replace butts in seats. And let's shove some significant finance and accounting and reporting processes down their throats,” said Myers. “That is not what we do. When we talk about people development and leadership development, we’re helping founders by scaling their people and developing their team’s effectiveness."

When it comes to boards of directors, Myers has found that typically, Edison’s portcos have boards mainly filled with family members and purveyors of small seed capital, meaning Edison’s operational expertise is essential.

“We actually convert the board into a strategic weapon. We bring in independents. We run boards like they are public companies, in a private, controllable manner,” he explained.

And Edison’s beefing up of leadership doesn’t stop there. “When we think about lower mid-market, almost all of our CEOs or founders are first-time CEOs … Most of these folks have never really seen a strategic CFO,” he said. “[It’s not about] changing butts in seats, it's more about what the organization needs, and specifically what the combination of CEO and CFO needs to look like. And most of these founder CEOs have never really experienced that power dynamic. Same thing with CROs and CMOs.”

Another dynamic Edison Edge prioritizes is the one that exists between product and engineering teams. At the lower mid-market level, those teams [in tech companies] are usually combined. 

“We work a lot to get those two organizations separate and establish a product management ethos and a product management process,” he says, adding that Edison is looking for an ‘outside-in’ approach that can ‘drive the right trade-offs and priorities’ when it comes to its portcos.

Furthermore, Edison Edge releases a yearly index indicating its key KPIs for growth. Its 2024 iteration includes revenue forecast accuracy as its top metric. Other mechanisms Edison implements are forming customer success teams, helping manage and find the right partnerships to stimulate growth, and implementing marketing strategies and branding.

When it comes to Seismos, this value creation strategy will be used to expand across the company’s existing oil and gas user base, and then expand said base further into the geothermal and mining industries. According to Myers, there won’t be any major changes required in the software to expand into these markets. 

And, according to Myers, the game plan with Seismos is in line with the overall AI investment thesis of Edison Partners. 

“AI for us is more about helping humans go further faster,” he explained. “If you think strategically about what this industry [energy] is going through, it's going from analog to digital.”

Myers expects Seismos to reside in Edison’s portfolio for three to six years, Thereafter, he expects industry strategics or large PE firms will be natural buyers for the asset.