Business Services

SJF Ventures invests in business services companies that are led by industry veterans with unique technology-enhanced strategies to offer preferred outsourcing services.

When providing growth capital, SJF looks for proven business models with multiple competitive advantages that address large target markets. These companies have created attractive value propositions to service customers’ non-core business needs. A few representative segments include waste management, call center services, education services, and fulfillment and distribution services. Technology systems are typically employed as a key component of companies’ innovative offerings.

SJF typically partners with management teams that have deep domain expertise, extensive industry contacts and unique insights into purchaser needs. These entrepreneurs have identified solutions to major industry pain points. Their solutions are both scalable for rapid growth and capital efficient in creating profitable businesses on relatively modest amounts of growth capital. And these entrepreneurs have developed strong relationships with a base of leading customers that provide market validation and highly regarded references to new business prospects.

SJF supports its partners through a roll-up-the-sleeves approach to building businesses. SJF team members assist companies with employee recruitment, connections with industry participants, introductions to banking relationships, assistance with mergers and acquisitions, and board-level business planning.

Examples of successful SJF portfolio companies in business services include:

Ryla is a leading call center solutions provider with proven expertise in customer contact solutions and business process outsourcing. The company has invested in state-of-the art technology platforms which allow for rapid deployment of a broad range of solutions and flexibility to ramp projects rapidly. Through innovative employee engagement programs, Ryla averages less than 30 percent annual turnover in an industry that averages over 75 percent per year. This provides a significant competitive advantage in knowledge-base retention and training cost reductions. Ryla was started by industry veteran Mark Wilson and has grown rapidly from 20 employees at the time of SJF’s initial investment in 2002 to close to 2,500 today. Read more about Ryla in SJF’s Investment Case Study.
Salvage Direct pioneered the salvage industry’s first online auction. Today, the company operates exclusively through a unique web-based business model in providing turnkey salvage vehicle management services and hosting online auctions for the vehicle insurance industry. Salvage Direct has effectively combined advanced technologies, innovative thinking, data collection and strong customer service to generate superior returns and shorter cycle times in an old-line industry. In addition to its core business, Salvage Direct has also developed a high value catastrophic event response team that services major insurance companies’ needs immediately following large natural disasters. The company has profitably scaled its growth with modest equity capital requirements. Read more about Salvage Direct in SJF’s Investment Case Study.