CIP Capital closes on $230 mln after long fundraise

CIP Capital held a final close and will not offer any additional interests, according to a Form D filing on Feb. 19.

Executives at the firm did not respond to a request for comment.

CIP Capital Management formerly called its private equity pool Compass Investment Partners Fund LP through Feb 15, 2013, according to regulatory filings. The date of first sale for the fund is listed as Oct. 20, 2011.

The same four executives appear on both the old and new SEC filings for the fund: Bobby Kelly, Justin Lipton, Scott Marden and Melissa Vlak. All are listed on the firm’s website as managing directors and co-founders. The group previously worked at DLJ Merchant Banking Partners.

CIP Capital targets companies with EBITDA of $7 million to $20 million in business-to-business information management, tech-enabled services, marketing services, and knowledge services such as online training, according to its website.

In one recent deal, CIP Capital in January formed eDriving LLC, a provider of online driver’s education, by combining portfolio company I Drive Safely with DriversEd.com.

Also in January, CIP Capital portfolio company OnCourse Learning added Gannett Healthcare Group, a provider of continuing education and related services for nurses and other healthcare professionals.

Besides OnCourse Learning and eDriving, CIP Capital lists two other portfolio companies: RevSpring and CoAdvantage. RevSpring is an outsourced provider of revenue cycle services to the healthcare and accounts receivable management markets. CoAdvantage sells outsourced human resource services to small and mid-sized businesses.

In a 2012 interview with Buyouts, Marden said the firm was founded by a team that worked together for four years at DLJ Merchant Banking.

“Our passion has always centered on growing companies in the middle market, where there was better deal flow,” Marden said at the time. “Our premise has been putting money to work in places where we can make a real difference… Our secret sauce is a marriage of deep operating experience and world-class transactional experience.”

DLJ Merchant Banking Partners III, a vintage 2000 fund, rang up an IRR of 20.2 percent as of Dec. 31, 2013, for the Public School Employees’ Retirement System. The IRR performance nearly hit the top-quartile threshold of 21.9 percent, according to an annual survey of public pension fund data by Buyouts.