PE Firms in LA

🏢 Bain Capital

Bain Capital has investments in Domino’s Pizza Japan, Skylark, York Holdings, Fogo de Chão, Sizzling Platter, Gail’s and Retail Zoo.

🏢 Blackrock

BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, overseeing roughly $12.5 trillion in assets under management.

🏢 Blackstone

🏢 Breakwater Management

2024: Breakwater Management acquires One Table Restaurant Brands (which owns Tocaya and Tender Greens). According to this 2024 [Restaurant Business article](https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/tender-greens-tocaya-are-sold-their-lender): Harald Herrmann remains at the helm of One Table Restaurant Brands, which now includes 22 units of Tender Greens and nine units of Tocaya. Some restaurants were shuttered during the bankruptcy process."

🏢 CIM Group

CIM is a real estate and infrastructure owner, operator, lender and developer founded in 1994.

🏢 Gladstone Capital

"Gladstone Capital partners with management teams, entrepreneurs and private equity sponsors to provide financing solutions for lower middle market companies nationwide." 2022: “completed a debt investment in support of Enlightened Hospitality Investments and KarpReilly, LLC's investment in Salt & Straw, LLC.”

🏢 Golden Gate Capital

Golden Gate Capital is an American private equity firm based in San Francisco. It was founded in 2000 by former investment professionals from private equity firm Bain Capital and its affiliate, Bain & Company, led by former BC partner David Dominik. The company makes investments in a number of select industries, including technology, financial services, retail and industrial, through leveraged buyout transactions, as well as significant minority purchases and growth capital investments. 2011: California Pizza Kitchen 2014: Red Lobster 2017: Bob Evans

🏢 Groundforce Capital

If you have any information about Groundforce Captial, send us a tip!

🏢 Inspire Brands

Parent: Roark Capital

2018: Inspire Brands founded by Neal Aronson and Paul J. Brown as " a private, franchise-focused holding company that would acquire established restaurant brands and run them together under one operational roof — sharing supply chain, technology, data, and corporate infrastructure." 2018: Buffalo Wild Wings, SONIC Drive-In 2019: Jimmy John's, Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins (Dunkin' Brands group) As of 2026, Inspire Brands operates more than 33,300 restaurants across its six brands worldwide, employs over 650,000 people, and generates $33.4 billion in annual revenue. It is one of the largest restaurant companies on the planet — and Arby’s is its founding and defining brand.

🏢 JAB Holding Company

JAB Holding Company specializes in investing in consumer brands, particularly coffee and restaurant chains. The firm owns several well-known companies in the food and beverage sector.

🏢 KarpReilly

A Connecticut-based investment group that funds Homestate, Kismet, Salt & Straw, and the now-closed Sprinkles. [From Karp Reilly]:(https://www.karpreilly.com/philosophy/) "Our investment philosophy reflects the companies we work with: ambitious, innovative, growth-focused. These are more than just buzzwords – unlike most other investment firms, where the general partners put up 1 or 2% of the firm’s invested capital, a substantial amount of our capital is from our general partners investing their own money. That’s how much we believe in the companies we partner with. KarpReilly seeks to invest $10 to $25 million in each of our partner companies, with the goal of providing additional capital to such company as it begins to scale. We believe that this approach makes us an ideal investor for emerging brands that have embarked on a path of serious/sustainable growth and are looking for a long-term capital partner."

🏢 Levine Leichtman Capital Partners

Founded in Los Angeles in 1984 by Co‑Founders Arthur E. Levine and Lauren B. Leichtman, LLCP is a "middle market" private equity firm that deals in U.S. and European Structured Private Equity investing. They also own Wetzel's Pretzels.

🏢 Neman Capital

An investment group that backs Quat, Loquate, and Kumquat. They are also the owner developer of Quat's Silverlake location. Tip from [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/FoodLosAngeles/comments/1wmsbh0/list_of_pebacked_la_restaurants/): "the investment group neman capital is the private equity backer of loquat/quat. neman is also the owner/developer of the quat building, along with that entire section of sunset in silver lake. if you're not familiar with the area, it's recently been overhauled into a bunch of modernist concrete buildings. they're branding it as "sunset row", i guess positioning it as a variant of sunset junction/sunset strip. neman also invests in other local LA food/bev businesses, like go get em tiger and jumbo time wines. these businesses aren't classified as private equity on their website, just "strategic investments", so neman ostensibly has less of a say over the shape of these businesses than the private equity ones."

🏢 Rid

A Connecticut-based investment group that funds Homestate, Kismet, Salt & Straw, and the now-closed Sprinkles.

🏢 Roark Capital Group

An Atlanta-based private equity firm, which predominantly invests in consumer-facing companies in the restaurant and retail spheres.

🏢 SBE Entertainment Group

A lifestyle hospitality company that develops, manages, and operates hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs globally. Sam Nazarian is the founder, chairman, and CEO.

🏢 TPG

TPG is an alternative asset management company that was founded in 1992 and today has a portfolio of investments in over 280 businesses and $109 billion in assets under management. [Description on Forex.] (https://www.forex.com/en/market-analysis/latest-research/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-tpg-ipo/)