PE Firm Seaside Equity Partners Assets Surpass $1B as ‘Mission Critical’ Strategy Pays Off
Del Mar-based private equity firm closed two funds despite tough environment.
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Seaside Equity Partners, a San Diego-based private equity firm investing in “mission critical services” has closed a total of $723 million across two new funds.
This is Seaside’s third fund, named Seaside Equity Partners III. It was targeting $550 million and exceeded its fundraising goal, according to sources familiar with the matter. The close comes at a difficult time for overall private-equity fundraising.
In addition, Seaside raised a second fund totaling $155 million. Named Navigator I, it will focus on companies smaller than those in which the firm usually invests.
“We are very fortunate and lucky,” said Andrew Thompson, Managing Partner at Seaside Equity Partners. “I got an email this morning saying that the average fundraising period for private equity funds is currently about 20 months.”
“In terms of our Seaside Navigator fund I, we plan to invest in businesses under $3 million in profit,” said Thompson. “We are seeing more and more interesting opportunities in spaces that we are familiar with, that we think would be great investments … but have historically been too small for our main fund. We are pretty excited about supporting similar businesses that don’t need as big of a check size.”
The firm raised the new capital from family offices, endowments, state pensions, insurance firms, and other institutional investors. With the larger fund, the firm is likely to back around 10 main portfolio companies.
Shannon Advisors served as the placement agent for both funds. As of today, Seaside Equity Partner has approximately $1.35 billion assets under management.
Founding Story
Founded in 2017, Seaside Equity Partners invests in companies between $3 million and $15 million of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
The firm typically focuses on majority stakes in companies that provide what it describes as “mission critical services,” across sectors that include logistics and transportation, compliance or cybersecurity, data management, education services, and human capital management services.
“When we launched Seaside in 2017, no one was working in our space,” said Thompson. “Since then we’ve done about 60 deals. We focus exclusively on the western half of the United States,” said Thompson.
Prior to Seaside, Thompson was the managing director of private equity firm Wafra, where he launched and led the firm’s west coast division from 2014 to 2017.
Track Record and Why San Diego
Seaside Equity Partners has remained in deal-making mode throughout 2025.
In particular, it announced a merger agreement with TruePoint Solutions and Gray Quarter in January. More recently, it led an investment into Capstone Accounting and Tax in April.
Other portfolio companies include a roofing company called BlueThread Services, emergency response company Boomer Environmental LLC, as well as Cascade Training Solutions — an education and training services to healthcare professionals.
Seaside’s management team includes CFO Debbie Fritzer, managing director Navid Shirazi, among other team members. It employs 20 staffers at its San Diego office.
“San Diego remains one of the most desirable places to be in the world,” said Thompson. “We’ve been able to recruit great talent and interesting people to join us here at Seaside Equity Partners. Our entire team is based here, with over half being from San Diego or having close ties here.”
San Diego is home to several private equity firms including JMI Equity, Neos Partners, StepStone Group, Tide Rock and HCAP Partners. Collectively, those firms manage tens of billions in assets across various specializations.