Ken Marblestone

Ken Marblestone is a Cleveland-area investor and M&A advisor with 30+ years of experience working with family- and entrepreneur-owned businesses on raising capital, buying, and selling companies. He earned an MBA in Finance from Michigan State University (1980–1982). His earlier career was in banking and capital markets: he served as President of Citizens Bank's operations in Ohio and Michigan (the former Charter One franchise under RBS Citizens Financial Group), and was a founding member / part-owner of real estate advisory businesses (variously cited as Channing Realty Advisors and iCap Realty Advisors), where he is credited with growing loan production from roughly $100 million to $300 million in about two years.

In March 2015, Marblestone joined Cascade Partners — a Detroit-founded (2012) lower-middle-market investment bank and private investment firm — as a Managing Director, hired to open and run the firm's new Cleveland office. At Cascade he advised middle-market companies on buy-side and sell-side transactions, recapitalizations, and financings across healthcare, industrials, and business services, and he was associated with a deal recognized as a "National Deal of the Year."

In late 2020 he co-founded Ten:34 Partners with Justin Stark. Ten:34 is a private investment firm making equity (and occasionally debt) investments in healthcare and business-services companies in the lower middle market. The two partners describe more than 60 years of combined investing and advising experience, and Marblestone frames Ten:34 as the culmination of a career spent advising family business owners. He is no longer listed on Cascade Partners' current team page.

Marblestone is active in the Cleveland civic and Jewish community: he has served on the Mt. Sinai Foundation investment committee, as a community fund board director, as co-chair of the Menorah Park annual campaign, on the board of First National Bank (Howell, MI), and on the Finance Committee of the Greater Cleveland Partnership.

• Invests in lower-middle-market healthcare (non-medical-device) and business-services companies, typically family- or entrepreneur-owned and at a transition point (succession, partner buyout, growth capital).
• Target metrics: revenue ~$5–30M, free cash flow ~$1–5M, enterprise value generally under $20M; equity checks historically in the ~$5M–$30M range.
• Provides equity and occasionally debt — growth capital, buyouts, and recapitalizations — to businesses with growth potential that lack institutional capital, operational depth, or a succession plan.
• Maintains a focused portfolio (roughly 3–5 companies) rather than a broad spray-and-pray approach.
• Says yes when he understands the owner's *actual* objective first: he recounts a case where six banks all advised an owner to sell, when what the owner really wanted was a partner buyout — "understanding underlying concerns" before recommending a strategy is central to his approach.
• On deal discipline: *"There are some deals that are not meant to close"* — he assesses whether a failed process ended for valid reasons and pushes owners to move on to new opportunities rather than dwell on a dead deal.