- Edison Partners has promoted Kelly Ford Buckley to General Partner. Now Edison Partners has 6 General Partners.
Edison Partners has promoted Kelly Ford Buckley to General Partner. This promotion recognizes Ford’s contributions to building the firm’s differentiated approach to growth-stage investing, value creation, and track record with enterprise software and fintech companies.
“Kelly has brought a number of critical firsts to Edison Partners. She was our first operating partner. She brought the Edison Edge operating platform to life and ushered in our uniquely integrated approach to growth-stage investing—where operators and investors work as one team to deliver more than capital to our portfolio companies. She established our Center of Excellence for Sales & Marketing, and is also the creator of the Edison Growth Index, a proprietary study on the key characteristics of fast-growing technology companies,” said Christopher Sugden, Managing Partner at Edison Partners.
Ford joined Edison in 2014 after spending 20 years working at high-growth B2B software companies. As a partner, Ford pioneered the Edison Edge operating platform — which is a catalyst for the firm’s team-based approach that brings both investing and operating expertise to every investment.
Ford worked with over 55 portfolio companies. And she served on the boards of 7 companies and completed 3 successful exits. Currently, she is on the board of directors for Blue Medora, ExecVision, Kinetiq, and Suuchi. And other active investments include Bento for Business, Emplify, LawnStarter, and Terminus. And Ford led Edison’s recent exit of New Jersey-based accounts receivables automation provider Billtrust for an 11X return and remains an independent board member for the fintech company. Going forward, Ford will focus on fintech investing where Edison is already an industry leader.
“I am lucky to be surrounded by a diverse team of successful investors, tenacious entrepreneurs and leadership teams, and highly supportive Limited Partners. It’s a privilege and an exciting time to do what we do,” explained Ford. “The year ahead presents immense opportunity for the private capital and fintech industries. Growth equity is taking center stage and receiving its due as an asset class. Fintech businesses are maturing as both critical ingredients and platforms. I am thankful to our team at Edison for this recognition and look forward to further advancing our growth equity platform to harness these market opportunities.”
With the promotion of Ford, Edison Partners now has 6 General Partners, including Sugden, Michael Kopelman, Lenard Marcus, Tom Vander Schaaff, and Ryan Ziegler.
Edison’s active portfolio has created aggregated market value surpassing $10 billion. Based in Princeton, NJ, Edison Partners manages over $1.6 billion in assets throughout the eastern United States.
