Frontier raises $115M, beats target

Frontier Capital, a Charlotte, N.C.-based private equity firm providing growth funding to business services companies, announced last week that it closed its second fund with $115 million in committed capital.

Limited partners include Lockheed Martin Corporation Master Retirement Trust, Alpheus Group, Parish Capital, Duke Endowment, Brooke Private Equity Advisors, Little Hawk Capital Management, Pittco Management and Keystone Private Equity. The firm also announced that LPs include the firm’s operating partners and former portfolio company CEOs.

Frontier Fund II exceeds the firm’s $100 million target, and is more than 2.5 times larger than its $45 million debut fund. The firm invests from $5 million to $10 million in companies with between $5 million and $30 million of revenue and which are located in the Southeast, South and Mid-Atlantic regions

Frontier has already invested in two companies from the new fund. Ryla Teleservices, a Kennesaw, Ga.-based provider of call center services, raised $6.5 million from Frontier. The firm also invested an undisclosed amount in Conclusive Marketing, a Franklin, Tenn.-based direct marketing company.

The firm has had a handful of exits from its first fund, which launched in 1999. Among the most recent was Digital Envoy, a developer of IP and geolocation technology for media and Internet applications. The company was acquired in July by Landmark Communications, a privately held diversified media company, for an undisclosed sum. Frontier, Crossbow Ventures and Cordova Ventures, among other investors, had invested more than $11 million in the company, according to Thomson Financial (publisher of PE Week). Another exit came from Accipiter Solutions, a developer of online ad management services, which was bought for more than $30 million in November by Atlas, the technology business unit of aQuantive.