Grayson Morris

Grayson Morris is a software investor-operator who co-founded Stables Partners in 2016, serving as Managing Director. Stables Partners is a group of long-term investors and operators focused on acquiring and growing enterprise software companies, targeting software businesses in roughly the $4–15M revenue range, with offices in San Francisco and Newport Beach, California. Rather than making passive minority bets, Morris's model is to acquire companies outright and step into operating leadership to scale them.

The clearest example is Performio, an incentive/sales-compensation management software company that Stables Partners acquired in June 2019. Morris became CEO, and together with fellow Managing Director Luke Teeple relocated the company's headquarters from Melbourne, Australia to Irvine, California to drive North American expansion. Under his leadership Performio reported 110% North American growth in FY2020 — its first full year under new ownership — tripling its US team and adding customers such as Grubhub, News Corp, and Tech Data.

Before Stables Partners, Morris led the acquisition and turnaround of Birdwell Beach Britches, a third-generation, Made-in-USA surf apparel brand in Santa Ana, CA, where as CEO (2014–2016) he shifted the business toward an e-commerce model while preserving its manufacturing quality. He was also the founder of CrazyRaise, a startup later acquired by Stack Sports. Earlier in his career he worked in sales and sales operations at Sunrun, the largest dedicated US residential solar company; in sales at SolarCity; and as an investment associate at Horsley Bridge Partners, a venture capital and private equity fund-of-funds. He began his career as an engineer at Guidant Corporation, designing drug-eluting cardiac stents.

Morris holds an MBA from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University. He brings 15+ years of sales-compensation domain experience across hundreds of customers.

• Invests via control acquisitions/buyouts of established enterprise software companies, then applies hands-on operating leadership — not seed-stage minority checks.
• Targets profitable or product-strong software businesses (roughly $4–15M revenue) with a good reputation and loyal customers that can be scaled operationally and geographically.
• Values product quality, customer focus, and domain expertise: on the Performio deal Morris cited its "excellent reputation and focus on a superior product and high-quality service" and "deep sales comp domain expertise."
• Says yes when he can "apply our strategy and operations experience to build on a solid foundation" — i.e., a strong underlying business that a disciplined operating team can grow (his stated rationale for acquiring Performio).
• Deep affinity for sales performance / incentive-compensation and B2B SaaS, reflecting his own operating specialization.