2025 Dealmakers of the Year Honorees
Presented By: Sales Xceleration
Marc Fontaine
Operating Partner
Anvil Capital
Founded in 2001, Anvil Capital is an operationally and entrepreneurially focused private equity firm that invests in small, high potential niche manufacturing and service companies located in the Northeastern United States. In January 2025, Anvil Capital sold its portfolio company Air Temp to PremiStar, a national leader in commercial and industrial HVAC, plumbing, and building automation services. During Anvil Capital’s ownership, Air Temp completed four add-on acquisitions, while revenues increased over 6.5x and EBITDA grew by a factor of 8.5x.
Dr. Nan-Wei Gong
Founder & CEO
FIGUR8 Inc
FIGUR8 is the market leader in measuring musculoskeletal (MSK) health and tracking injury recovery. Through its innovative, FDA-registered bioMotion Assessment Platform and clinical AI note-taking tool, MovementMemo, FIGUR8 empowers payers, providers, and patients with valuable decision-making insights at every stage of the recovery process.
A venture-backed MIT spinoff, FIGUR8 has raised over $43M in venture funding, including a recent ~$28M Series A-1 round led by First Spark Ventures, Phoenix Venture Partners, Convergent Ventures, and DegiTx Partners.
Matthew Guiney
Chief Financial Offer
Flybridge Capital Partners
Founded in 2001, Flybridge Capital Partners is a venture capital firm based in New York, New York, that seeks to invest in information technology and SaaS. It has made numerous investments across the country. It makes highly-considered investments that align with where it believes the world is heading- which is that companies built with AI at their core will outperform. Its founders are ambitious gritty and ready to take on the highs and lows of company-building.
Raj Jalan
CEO
Device42
Freshworks Inc. completed in June of 2024 its acquisition of Device42, a company that provides comprehensive, continuously up-to-date views of assets across an organization’s entire IT infrastructure. The acquisition marks a significant milestone for Freshworks, reinforcing its commitment to empowering IT teams with robust IT Asset Management solutions.
In today’s ever-changing digital world, IT teams play a major role in delivering business value with speed and responsiveness being critical for success. Upon the integration of Freshworks and Device42 solutions, customers will be able to benefit from a unified platform that delivers enhanced ITSM (IT Service Management) and ITAM (IT Asset Management Software) capabilities including advanced asset discovery and application dependency mapping, enabling them to anticipate risks better and resolve incidents faster.
Meghan Joyce
Co-Founder & CEO
Duckbill
Duckbill, a Boston-based maker of an execution engine that gives people a personal assistant combined with AI’s efficiency, raised $33m in seed and Series A funding.
The round was led by Forerunner Ventures, with participation from Greycroft Partners, Inspired Capital, General Catalyst, G9 Ventures, Red Antler, uture Back Ventures by Bain & Company and Offline Ventures. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations, development efforts, and its business reach.
Brett L’Esperance
CEO
Dauntless Air
Dauntless Air operates the largest North American fleet of a specialized, amphibious aerial firefighting airplanes (called the “Fireboss” or the Single Engine Scooper (SES)) that support wildfire response across North America to assist state and federal agencies in their battle against wildfire. Since acquiring the business in 2017, Dauntless Air has grown their fleet from nine Fire Bosses to twenty and dramatically expanded their service geography and customer base. In April, 2024 Dauntless Air significantly expanded its fleet with the acquisition of a competitor’s SESs and refinanced existing debt via a Farm Credit system backed term loan. Prior to his role at Dauntless, Brett worked for Bain Capital Credit.
Chris LeRoy
Managing Director
Kevin McCarthy
Managing Director
Truck 9 Partners
Marty Mazzella
CEO
Ti-SALES
Ti-SALES, a distributor of waterworks and wastewater products throughout New England and New York since 1963, received a significant investment from its management team and Truck 9 Partners.
Ti-SALES said the investment by the management team and Truck 9 Partners will help fuel growth and enhance their ability to service customers and suppliers while keeping ownership of the business within the pre-existing team and the greater Boston area.
Jason Maxwell
CEO
MP: Wired for HR
MP: Wired for HR, a human capital management company focused on transforming the employer-employee relationship and experience acquired APS Workforce Management. This strategic move expands MP’s geographic footprint and the company’s ability to deliver industry-leading HCM, along with white-glove service, and support across the U.S.
Jared Paquette
Chairman
Capstone Holdco LLC
Retail Process Engineering, LLC, a supply chain IT consulting firm, joined forces with Capstone Integrated Solutions LLC, a full-service software and technology services company, on the IT Services Platform created by Conanicut Capital. Both RPE and Capstone have grown up in the retail sector and today provide complementary tech-enabled solutions across a growing list of enterprise-level customers, providing the platform a broader offering of IT services and capabilities.
In July 2024, Capstone Holdco closed on a transaction with RPE, the second of its add-ons for its IT Services Platform, to further execute on its buy-and-build platform strategy.
RPE has decades of experience within supply chain systems such as merchandising, planning, allocation, assortment, and replenishment working with best-in-class retail and wholesale customers on their complex system needs.
Michael Young
CEO
ConnectPay Payroll Services
Payroll service provider ConnectPay is a developer of a payroll processing and payroll tax-filing platform intended to provide payroll and tax compliance services. The company's platform offers an integrated tax service that handles all the payroll tax calculations, payments, and reporting obligations, enabling clients to connect small businesses with professionals who assist them in managing their health benefits, insurance, retirement savings, accounting, and bookkeeping. It has witnessed expections growth, acquiring 37 companies within eight years. Its commitment to developing innovative payment processing solutions and driving significant growth for ConnectPay is incredible.
Manifold
Initially founded as an AI lab in 2016, Manifold is a technology company that builds research infrastructure for biomedical science. It supports research organizations of all sizes—from small teams to world-renowned institutions—enabling next-generation, data-driven discovery.
Leading life sciences R&D organizations use Manifold’s AI-powered Trusted Research Environment (TRE) to make high-value data assets more accessible, streamline analysis, and enable secure collaboration at scale.
The startup, founded by former Kyruus executives, secured $15 million in series A funding to build out partnerships with research organizations. The funding round was led by TQ Ventures. New investors Calibrate Ventures and SK Ventures also participated in the round. The startup also has attracted notable founders and CEOs including healthcare leader Dr. Sachin H. Jain and existing investors including TTCER Partners.
SOCIAL IMPACT INVESTING AWARD
Renee Fry
Co-Founder
Julie Fry
Co-Founder & COO
Gentreo Inc.
Renee and Julie have built Gentreo into a pioneering force in the digital estate planning space, making estate planning accessible, affordable, and easy to navigate for families nationwide. Their leadership and innovation have positioned Gentreo as a game-changer in the industry, bringing technology and financial services together in a way that benefits consumers at all levels.
Beyond their business success, they exemplify what it means to be long-term value creators. Their ability to scale Gentreo, secure key partnerships, raise capital, and drive significant impact in a traditionally slow-moving industry speaks to their vision, perseverance, and execution.