Celebrating two milestones on our journey to transform the private capital markets

I’ve always been inspired by what I call America’s “original” entrepreneurs – owners and operators of private, middle market companies who built their companies over decades and across generations. These entrepreneurs are somewhat skeptical of the “hyper-growth unicorn stories” and tend to focus on tempered, profitable growth trajectories. Rarely, in the news, these entrepreneurs and their teams form the backbone of the U.S. economy, the most important and largest economy in the world.

While Axial aspires to be a champion and resource for all of the world’s entrepreneurs, it is this “original entrepreneur” category that Axial uniquely seeks to serve. It is with great pleasure that today, approximately six years since our founding moment, we announce two milestones. A few weeks ago, we closed a $14M growth equity investment in Axial from Edison Partners, an investment firm that partners with companies focused on creating important, enduring, and valuable businesses. They are great partners, and we are excited to work together with them.

The CEO membership on Axial is a source of significant inspiration to us, so it is with great pride that we announce the second milestone: earlier this quarter, the 5,000th CEO member joined the Axial network. With over 30 CEOs joining Axial weekly now, our CEO members, our investment banking members, and our capital partner members, are each starting to benefit from the significance of this growing CEO community on Axial.       

Below are a few words on why we raised another round of financing. We believe that to properly serve entrepreneurs in America and the world over, private capital markets must evolve and advance in two key ways: they must become “networked” to themselves and to the entrepreneurs they serve, and the capital market participants themselves must become easily researchable and accessible.

The growth capital we have raised lets us invest heavily in these two key areas. The benefits to our members include radically better deal outcomes and radically more productive business connections.

Of course, to take make the private capital markets in this direction, we continue to look for great people, people who believe in what we’re doing and who have worked hard to develop a rare combination of intellectual curiosity, humility and tenacity. If you’re out there reading this blog post, we are looking for you. Introduce yourself to us and come join us on this journey.

I am blessed to have the opportunity to build this company with an incredible team, a devoted and cool-headed group of great long-term investors, and a customer base that has been rooting for us since day 1.  Thank you all — let’s keep going.  

Peter