In this episode, Hall welcomes George Ferris, Founder and Managing Member at Bilgola Capital LLC.

Bilgola Capital invests in small dynamic companies with fundamentally strong business models that are led by ambitious and professional management teams. Bilgola provides long-term patient capital and seeks to build companies with sustainable enterprise value. 

Bilgola Capital invests in two types of companies: 

Early-stage, hyper-growth technology companies generally burning cash with large addressable markets (typically SaaS companies); and

Growing companies generating EBITDA of between $1-4 million and enterprise values less than $20 million.

George has been running Bilgola Capital for almost a decade now and works closely with management teams to help them accelerate growth and build profitability.

Prior to founding Bilgola, George had a career in finance as a CFO of a large global energy company, in private equity, and in investment banking. He was the CFO of Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy (“LDHE”), a global company with over 500 employees, where he led the execution of several highly successful multi-billion dollar financing transactions and strategic M&A transactions.

George was also the Managing Director at Allied Capital in Washington, DC, where he was responsible for originating, executing, and managing a portfolio of investments in the business services, healthcare services, and consumer products sectors; he led approximately $650 million of investments in subordinated debt and equity securities and served on the boards of six companies.

Prior to that, George was an Investment banker with Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Macquarie Bank (Australia), where he managed transactions for companies in a variety of industries including marketing services, advertising, information services, metals and mining with approximately $13 billion of M&A transactions and over $7 billion of debt and equity financing transactions.

George is currently an Adjunct Professor of Finance at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. His academic background includes an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) from the University of New South Wales (Australia).

George discusses his investment thesis, and some of the challenges his startups face. He also shares with Hall what he thinks are good opportunities to pursue.

You can visit Bilgola Capital at www.bilgolacapital.com, and via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/bilgolacapital/about.  

George can be contacted via email at ferris@bilgolacapital.com, and via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/george-ferris. 

For a full transcript, click here.

Music courtesy of Bensound.

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Disclaimer:
Hall T Martin is the director of Investor Connect, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to the education of investors for early-stage funding. All opinions expressed by Hall and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Investor Connect. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for the basis of investment decisions.