For Entrepreneurs

At Westward, working with small to mid-sized businesses in the media, marketing services, information, and communications industries is all we do. We share your commitment to building great businesses in these industries, and our expertise and relationships have been garnered over years of experience in precisely this area.

Westward’s heritage lies at the intersection of Madison Avenue, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street. Consequently, we bring a highly relevant network of relationships that spans the country from New York, the epicenter of the media and marketing community, to Silicon Valley, the source of many of the industry’s most disruptive trends. Focused solely on our target industries, our relationships run the gamut from entrepreneurs, senior executives and agency representatives, to investors, lenders, investment bankers and research analysts, to consultants, recruiters, accountants and lawyers. Because our industry experience spans both traditional and emerging business models, we are able to “cross-pollinate” our investments with relationships and perspective from both sides of this divide. At the same time, we bring a breadth of financial expertise that allows us to provide our portfolio companies with sophisticated financial support wherever needed.

Westward’s focused approach was specifically designed to serve the needs of established, small to mid-sized businesses. Such companies are typically underserved by the traditional private equity and venture capital communities, falling beneath the size requirements of most private equity firms, but lacking the high risk premiums often sought by venture capitalists. Westward’s focus on precisely these types of opportunities creates a strong alignment of interest with management, particularly on issues such as capital efficiency and pace of growth. Rather than taking the typical “portfolio” approach, relying on only a few investments to be successful, we work extremely hard to ensure that each of our investments is successful over time. With respect to liquidity, our model affords us the flexibility to be patient, applying an appropriate duration to each investment. And because our investing experience has been focused on the smaller end of the middle market, we have the appropriate relationships for addressing the specific needs of small to mid-sized businesses.

Westward strives to be the best possible partner to management, sharing the common objective of building great businesses. In our approach to investing, we apply an entrepreneurial mindset, growth orientation, and long-term time horizon. In structuring our transactions, we give careful attention to management’s equity participation, and where appropriate, afford entrepreneurs and other shareholders the opportunity for near-term liquidity. Once an investment is made, we are committed to making it successful, but mindful to limit our direct involvement to board-level concerns, so as not to interfere with the day-to-day operations of the business. In all of our dealings, we strive to uphold our reputation for fairness and integrity.