New York-based VSS Capital Partners hired Eric Kim as principal and Sai Parepally as vice president with an eye to leaning on both executives’ experience in the healthcare, IT and financial services sectors.
The pair will work with the current VSS investment team to source new transactions, perform due diligence and support portfolio company management teams.
Kim previously led the cross-functional teams at Optum, a technology-enabled health services business. There he helped identify new product opportunities and manage product development from concept to commercialization. Before that he was vice president at New Leaf Venture Partners, a venture capital firm focused on the healthcare industry.
Parepally brings several years of M&A and corporate finance experience to the team at VSS having previously been an associate at Consonance Capital Partners, where he was involved in sourcing and evaluating new investments in the healthcare sector as well as overseeing operations at portfolio companies. He started his career in investment banking at Lazard and Moelis & Co., where he provided M&A and general corporate advisory services for companies across several verticals, including healthcare, technology, and media.
“We are pleased to welcome Eric and Sai to our team as we continue to reinforce our leadership position in the lower middle market. Eric and Sai are bringing their investing and operational skill sets and vertical industry relationships to VSS,” said Jeffrey Stevenson, managing partner at VSS in a statement. “We look forward to their involvement as we actively source new investment opportunities with businesses that can pursue their next phase of growth with our strategic guidance and flexible capital solutions.”
VSS has been around for over three decades and made investments in 94 portfolio companies with over 400 add-on acquisitions. Currently, the $4 billion firm manages capital across eight funds.
The firm’s strategy is to provide capital for growth financing, recapitalizations, strategic acquisitions and buyouts to lower middle market companies and management teams with the goal of building companies organically as well as through a focused add-on acquisition program. VSS makes investments across the capital structure and invests in situations requiring non-control or control equity, mezzanine securities and structure equity securities.
