Annual roundup highlights the private equity, venture capital, and debt firms with the best track records of success backing entrepreneurs
LOS ANGELES, CA (October 28, 2025) – Inc. today announced its seventh annual Founder-Friendly Investors list, honoring the private equity, venture capital, and debt firms with the best track records of success backing entrepreneurs.
The final list recognizes 248 firms that remain actively involved with the businesses they invest in, and that have earned the trust of the entrepreneurs they support to help drive growth.
“Since LightBay’s inception, empowering our founders and management teams and facilitating transformational growth has been at the heart of our mission,” said Nav Rahemtulla and Adam Stein, LightBay Partners and Co-Founders. “We are honored to be recognized as one of Inc.’s Founder-Friendly Investors. This recognition underscores our team’s continued commitment to delivering on that objective, and we look forward to partnering with more innovative entrepreneurs.”
To compile the list, Inc. went straight to the source: entrepreneurs who have sold to private equity and venture capital firms. Founders filled out a questionnaire about their experiences partnering with private equity, venture capital, and debt firms and shared data on how their portfolio companies have grown during these partnerships.
To see the complete list, go to: https://www.inc.com/founder-friendly-investors/2025
Introduced in 2019, the Founder-Friendly Investors list quickly established itself as one of Inc.’s most resourceful franchises. It has become a go-to guide for entrepreneurs who want to grow their companies while retaining an ownership stake.
About LightBay Capital
LightBay Capital is a Los Angeles-based growth-focused private equity firm that applies a flexible capital approach to middle-market investing. Primarily focused on the healthcare, consumer, and business services industries, LightBay invests across the capital structure and in all market environments to help accelerate the growth of high-quality companies. For more information, please visit www.lightbay.com. To discuss investment opportunities, please contact David Leeney at dleeney@lightbay.com.
About Inc.
The world’s most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community they need to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit www.inc.com.