Q&A with Deanna Brown of Hudson Lewis Group

There are 33 million U.S. small businesses generating roughly $14 trillion in revenue, yet fewer than one in ten use AI, and traditional capital sources all turn them away - too small for private equity, not a "unicorn" for venture capital, and too intangible to collateralize for a bank. These are profitable, proven, founder-led companies sitting in a structural capital gap. Hudson Lewis Group is the venture fund built to fill it, providing control capital, AI capability, and a built-in exit to capture value the market was never built to see.

Three moves. We enter at 1-2x revenue - below mid-market buyout comps - by acquiring control of profitable operators with a succession need. We assist in a standardized AI operating playbook across sales, support, marketing, finance, and operations, driving 50 -70% efficiency gains that expand both margin and capacity. Finally, we bundle 2-3 businesses within a sector and create a premium exit to mid-market private equity at 6-12x EBITDA - the multiple they already pay for AI-enabled operators. Fund I targets a 2.4x net MOIC and a ~26% net IRR.

Hudson Lewis Group is structured as a venture fund but its strategy resembles neither classic venture nor classic buyout. Search funds buy a single business and run it operator-led, with no AI thesis and no bundling, so no multiple compression is captured. Large PE rollups acquire $5M+ EBITDA platforms after the transformation has already happened; they're our exit buyer, not our competition. Hudson Lewis Group sits deliberately between them: smaller, disciplined control entries, a repeatable AI playbook that manufactures margin expansion, and a sector-bundling strategy engineered from day one to create that premium platform exit.