Vance Street Capital (“Vance Street”), a Los Angeles based private equity firm, today announced that it has partnered with System Seals (the “Company”) to support the business and management team during the next chapter of its growth story. System Seals is a designer and manufacturer of proprietary, high-performance sealing solutions. The acquisition represents Vance Street’s third platform investment out of Vance Street Capital IV L.P. and leverages the firm’s experience in the industrial technology sector.
Founded in 1995, and based in Cleveland, Ohio, System Seals has a long heritage and strong foundation of providing highly-engineered, proprietary sealing solutions for its customers. Through organic investments in the engineering and research teams and expansion of the Company’s international presence, System Seals has built a strong reputation as a valued provider of mission-critical components designed to address its customers’ most critical needs. The Company specializes in sealing solutions with highly challenging design parameters and specifications related to the material, performance or tolerance requirements of systems with a high cost of failure, often driven by compliance or regulatory requirements.
As part of the transaction, Arnold von Engelbrechten, Founder and CEO, will retain a meaningful ownership position and continue to lead the business going forward alongside the rest of the existing management team. “On behalf of the entire System Seals team, we couldn’t be more excited to begin this next chapter with Vance Street,” said Arnold von Engelbrechten, Founder & CEO of System Seals. “This partnership allows us to continue positive momentum in the business, both organically and through M&A. Vance Street brings a complementary, growth-oriented mindset geared toward fine-tuning our product innovation and supporting the management team, which is a perfect fit for our organization.”
“The System Seals team has built a unique, differentiated platform of scale in the sealing market with highly technical engineering capabilities and longstanding customer relationships,” said Nic Janneck, Partner at Vance Street. “Partnering with successful and passionate entrepreneurs is a core focus at Vance Street; we look forward to supporting the Company’s continued growth.”
“With Vance Street’s support and capital, we will work with the System Seals team to enhance the Company’s product development pipeline to further penetrate existing end markets and expand into new ones while also targeting strategic M&A opportunities,” Yousaf Tahir, Principal at Vance Street, added. “Vance Street’s ability to leverage its experience and knowledge in industrial technology, and more specifically engineered sealing solutions, makes System Seals a great fit.”
Cooley LLP acted as legal advisor to Vance Street Capital. EdgePoint Capital Advisors LLC served as financial advisor and Tucker Ellis LLP served as legal advisor to System Seals. Debt financing for the transaction was provided by BMO. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.