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Shoreline Equity Partners Announces Partnership with Career Now Brands
Jacksonville, Florida – October 14, 2021 – Shoreline Equity Partners, LLC (“Shoreline” or the “Firm”), a purpose-driven lower middle market private equity firm, has partnered with Career Now Brands (“Career Now” or the “Company”), a technology-enabled provider of digital solutions to essential employment and education industries with a focus on supplying a recurring candidate funnel of CDL drivers, trade school students, warehouse workers, and other low-retention occupations. Founded in 2010 by Craig Jablonski and Ben Onnie, Career Now leverages its proprietary technology and database to support a diverse and growing customer base of more than 300 for-hire carriers, private carriers, and trade schools across the United States. Career Now’s established reputation and proven model have led to significant inbound interest from carriers since the Company’s inception. Craig and Ben will continue to lead the Company and will maintain a significant ownership position through this next phase of growth.
Peter Franz, Partner at Shoreline, said, “Craig and Ben have built an incredible business that uses technology to streamline the recruitment process and drive down the hiring cost for its customers. Career Now's value proposition is a compelling solution for its carrier customers and is increasingly relevant to companies seeking to enhance internal recruiting operations. We couldn’t be happier to partner with Career Now to support the Company’s continued growth and expand the business model to other verticals.”
Craig Jablonski, CEO & Co-Founder of Career Now, said, “We are excited to partner with the Shoreline team as we look toward the next chapter of the Company’s evolution. We worked closely with our advisors, Lightning Partners, to bring in a best-in-class investment partner that understands our vision, and that’s exactly what we found in Shoreline. We look forward to our partnership with the Shoreline team over the coming years.”
Ben Onnie, COO & Co-Founder of Career Now, said, “We are fortunate to have surrounded ourselves with a great team that has helped bring our service offering to the Transportation and Logistics industry. As we continue to expand our customer base and introduce new offerings, we wanted a partner with experience in doing just that. In all of our discussions with Shoreline, we knew they understood where we are today, but more importantly, where we are looking to go.”
The transaction for Shoreline was led by Peter Franz, Partner & Co-Founder; Ian Garland, Vice President; and Mac McCready, Associate. Madison Capital Funding LLC, Churchill Asset Management, abrdn, and the Career Now management team have co-invested alongside Shoreline. Senior financing for the transaction was provided by Madison Capital Funding LLC, and the junior debt financing was provided by Churchill Asset Management. Lightning Partners served as the exclusive financial advisor to Career Now in the transaction.
About Career Now Brands
Career Now is a technology-enabled provider of digital solutions to essential employment and education industries with a focus on supplying a recurring candidate funnel of CDL drivers, trade school students, warehouse workers, and other low-retention occupations. With over 100 employees, the Company leverages proprietary technology to improve the way companies attract potential candidates and students. For more information, please visit www.careernowbrands.com.
About Shoreline
Shoreline is a lower middle market private equity firm focused on actively partnering with leading management teams. Shoreline follows a total stakeholder model, meaning success should be a “win-win” proposition for shareholders, employees, customers, vendors, and the communities within which the Firm’s companies operate. Shoreline professionals believe in honesty, incentive alignment, and creating bigger, better businesses without relying on financial engineering or cost cutting to generate returns. Investing out of the Firm’s inaugural $300 million fund, Shoreline seeks to lead equity investments of up to $100 million per transaction in support of buyouts, recapitalizations, and corporate divestitures. Targeted businesses have enterprise values ranging from $25 million to $250 million and EBITDA of $3 million to $25 million. The Firm strives to partner with management teams of businesses primarily within the specialized manufacturing, value-added distribution, and business and facility services sectors, among others. For more information, please visit www.shorelineequitypartners.com.
About Lightning Partners
Lightning Partners provides direction and advice to growth technology companies and their Boards of Directors on M&A, capital raising and strategy that drive significant shareholder value. The firm consistently and tenaciously delivers optimum results for entrepreneurs, growth companies and their investors, including industry leading valuations, transaction terms and close rates. For more information, visit www.lightningpartners.com.
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