David Kocen

Ari David Kocen is a founding partner and Managing Partner of Bluehenge Capital Partners, a lower-middle-market private equity and private-credit firm headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He earned a BBA in International Business with a concentration in finance from the University of Texas at Austin, completed formal credit training in 1995, and began his career in the Industrial & Services lending group at First National Bank of Commerce in New Orleans (later acquired by Bank One), where his portfolio focused on small-to-mid-sized manufacturers, distributors and publishing businesses.

Kocen joined Stonehenge Capital Company — Bluehenge's predecessor firm — in 1998. From 2001 to 2015 he managed Stonehenge's New York office and directed the firm's Northeast regional investment strategy, building the relationships and industrial/consumer investment focus that carried over to Bluehenge. Over roughly 25 years the team reports having deployed on the order of $350 million across ~46 investments.

Today Kocen co-leads Bluehenge alongside managing partners Nemo Viso and Albert Alexander III. The firm invests both debt and equity in lower-middle-market companies and distributes its SBIC product through more than 45 community and mid-sized banks nationwide. In October 2023 Bluehenge closed its oversubscribed Bluehenge Capital SBIC II, LP at $234 million in total commitments.

Beyond the firm, Kocen is a founding board member and past President of UVANY (an Upstate New York-focused private equity industry group) and serves as Chair of the SBIC Council within the Small Business Investor Alliance (SBIA), a role he continues to hold on the SBIA's 2025–2026 Board of Governors.

• Invests in established, profitable lower-middle-market companies, not startups — using a flexible mix of debt and equity ("creative capital solutions for middle-market businesses").
• Check sizes up to ~$20 million per company, through an SBA-licensed SBIC structure that provides long-term, "patient" capital.
• Sector concentration in manufacturing, industrial and energy services, distribution/logistics, and consumer products — reflecting Kocen's credit and industrial-lending background.
• Backs "high-quality teams at high-quality businesses in the lower middle-market" — his own framing of the target profile.
• Emphasizes relationship-driven, bank-referred deal flow: Kocen highlighted raising "nearly two-thirds of our new fund from existing investors while adding 13 new banks to our relationship base," underscoring how central the bank network is to sourcing.