Charles Compo

Charles Compo is the founder and Managing Partner of Carriage Hill, Inc., a New York–based M&A advisory firm and merchant bank he established in 2007. The firm specializes in privately negotiated transactions with family- and founder-owned middle-market companies, and has handled more than 100 engagements spanning recapitalizations, growth capital, business sales, acquisition searches, shareholder-liquidity events, and add-on acquisitions. Compo brings roughly three decades of business experience as both a principal and an advisor, with work across debt and equity financings, acquisitions, and corporate restructurings in industries including healthcare, packaging, energy, logistics, and software.

Before founding Carriage Hill, Compo co-founded Iridium Partners, an M&A advisory firm and merchant bank focused on private, middle-market companies. Earlier, he was affiliated with Haley Capital and Acquisition Associates, where he helped entrepreneurs and former executives acquire private businesses, and he has held operating-partner and director roles at companies such as Experience Design, Industrial Products Enterprises, and Alfa Medical. He began his career at Loeb, Rhodes, Hornblower & Company (later acquired by Shearson Lehman/American Express), working in operational roles connected to the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the American Stock Exchange.

On the education side, Compo completed the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and earned an Executive Certificate in Innovation and Strategy from MIT's Sloan School of Management, and he has contributed to MIT's innovation@work blog. Outside of finance, he is a published composer.

Note: while some investor databases (e.g., Foundersuite, RocketReach) tag Compo as an "angel investor" focused on seed rounds, his primary and publicly documented activity is middle-market M&A advisory and merchant/principal investing through Carriage Hill rather than a formal venture/seed portfolio.

• Focuses on privately negotiated transactions with family- and founder-owned middle-market businesses rather than large-cap or purely early-stage venture deals.
• Deal types include majority and minority recapitalizations, growth-capital financings, sales to strategic acquirers, acquisition searches and financing, add-on acquisitions, divestitures, and shareholder-conflict resolution.
• Sector experience concentrated in healthcare, manufacturing/packaging, technology/software, energy & utilities, business services, and distribution/logistics.
• Values founders/owners seeking liquidity, succession, or growth capital while retaining a relationship-driven, "privately negotiated" process — a fit for owners who want discretion over a broad auction.
• Aggregator listings additionally associate him with seed-round angel investing, but no specific seed check-size or thesis statement is publicly documented.