A. Jason Brauer

A. Jason Brauer is an experienced investor and operator with a career spanning military service, management consulting, private equity, and entrepreneurial leadership. He graduated from the MICDS preparatory school (Class of 1994) and earned his B.A. from Colgate University in 1998. He later attended Harvard Business School. Following college, Brauer served as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps from 1999 to 2003, an experience that shaped his disciplined leadership approach.

After his military service, Brauer joined Bain & Company as an Associate Consultant, where he conducted strategic due diligence for private equity firms and managed client relationships for Fortune 1000 companies. He then moved to Morgenthaler Partners, a middle-market private equity firm managing $2.9 billion in assets, where he worked in the Leveraged Buyout Group. In 2008, he joined Kamylon Capital as a Principal, where his primary responsibilities included evaluation and execution of new investment opportunities. During his tenure at Kamylon, he led the development and standardization of several of the firm's investment evaluation tools and procedures and played a lead role in originating, evaluating, and closing platform investments.

In 2015, Brauer founded Confluent Holdings, LLC, a St. Louis-based holding company that acquires and builds businesses across the United States. Confluent takes an indefinite investment horizon, focusing on preserving the legacy of acquired businesses while facilitating stable, long-term growth. Under his leadership, Confluent has completed over 25 acquisitions across 40+ locations, employing 950+ associates and serving 14,000+ customers. He also serves as an Advisory Board Member of the FOCUS Marines Foundation and has been involved with the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.

Brauer's investment philosophy centers on long-term value creation and stewardship of small-to-midsize businesses, often family-owned or entrepreneur-controlled. Key elements of his thesis include:

• Indefinite hold periods: Unlike traditional private equity, Brauer does not acquire businesses to quickly resell them. He invests to preserve their legacy and heritage while enabling sustainable growth.
• Target profile: Businesses generating up to $50 million in annual revenue and a minimum of $1 million in annual earnings. Ideal targets are market leaders with stable revenue, diverse customer bases, sustainable growth potential, low employee turnover, and minimal capital intensity.
• Transaction types: Buyouts, family succession, corporate carve-outs, recapitalizations, and restructurings.
• Sector focus: Manufacturing and service industries, with a particular concentration in the die-cutting and industrial products space.
• Seed-stage angel investing: In addition to his private equity activity, Brauer has been noted as an angel investor participating in seed-round investments.