Our Story
01
Entrepreneurs First. We start our platform companies from the ground-up to carefully architect them the way our research and experience guide us.
02
Sophisticate the Unsophisticated. We enable our companies with data, technology, and AI to bring a level of insight, sophistication, and organic growth not before found in service companies.
03
Operational Experts. We don’t just passively invest in companies - we take the businesses we start and institute a people and process mentality, which brings sophistication to the businesses.
04
Invest for Growth. Leverage an organic growth model but enhance it with strategic acquisitions where they make sense after garnering a deep understanding of the competitive landscape.
Our History
Founded in 2021 by Managing Partner and CEO, Kade Thomas, Emory Oak Partners is a private equity firm unlike any other. We aren’t just great investors - we are entrepreneurs, operators, and technologists. Emory Oak Partners has a dedicated team comprised of diverse skill sets rooted in entrepreneurship, operations, data, technology, and investments.
For Kade, the vision dates back to 13 years old when he started his first service company, Lawn Pros, in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas. In fact, the name “Emory Oak Partners” is derived from the Emory Oak tree Kade planted for his first Lawn Pros client. Kade left DFW and headed down to Austin to attend The University of Texas at Austin in the McCombs School of Business. Kade sold Lawn Pros his sophomore year at UT, after which he began working full-time at a fund while completing his studies. Kade graduated with degrees in Business Honors as part of the Canfield Business Honors Program and Finance with a minor in Marketing.
Post-graduation, Kade knew entrepreneurship was at his core, so he went out and acquired an outdoor commercial construction and landscape business in Dripping Springs via a partnered search fund. Kade and team grew this business, WLE, from about $2mm to almost $30mm in just three years before exiting in 2020 to public strategic NYSE: BV (BrightView).
Kade's vast experience in service companies from Lawn Pros to WLE and seven companies in between was the springboard for Kade founding Emory Oak Partners - he saw a clear opportunity to approach private equity in a new way with entrepreneurship at the core, hands-on operations built on people on process as a central pillar, and leveraging data and technology to enable these companies. "Sophisticating the unsophisticated" has been a central theme to Kade's career, and it is what Emory Oak Partners's strategies are built upon.
Having started or acquired more than nine different service businesses, Kade’s vision for Emory Oak Partners is clear
Our Previous Experience
Thomas launched his first service company at the age of 13, Lawn Pros. Lawn Pros started as a neighborhood lawn
mowing business in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, but grew into an enterprise that Kade sold his sophomore year at The University of Texas at Austin.
After working in small-cap public equities, self-storage portfolio operations, and private and public credit, Thomas purchased a small $2mm outdoor construction and maintenance business in Austin, Texas via a partnered search fund. Thomas and his team renamed the business to Water | Land | Environment (“WLE”). Kade grew the business from $2mm to almost $30mm in just three years, selling it to NYSE: BV (BrightView).
Thomas has served as investor-owner-operator of many B2B and B2C service companies that resulted in an average of 52% IRR and 6.2x MOIC for investors, including businesses in home cleaning, customer apparel delivery, plumbing, sprinkler maintenance, and lawn care.