Matthew Norton

Matthew W. Norton is Partner and Head of the Technology & Government team at Madison Dearborn Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm founded in 1992. MDP says it has raised approximately $36 billion and completed more than 160 investments, and its current strategy includes buyout and growth-equity investments in established middle-market and upper-middle-market companies located primarily in the United States.

Norton has been part of the MDP team since 2004, according to AEVEX’s SEC filing. Before MDP, he worked as an investment-banking analyst at Merrill Lynch. He holds both a B.S. and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

At MDP, Norton leads the firm’s Technology & Government sector work. His current board roles listed by MDP include AEVEX Aerospace, Axonis, Carnegie Learning, City Year Chicago, CoVant Technologies II, Revolutional, the Illinois Venture Capital Association, Lightspeed Systems, the National Security Space Association, OMNI, SpiderOak, T2S Solutions, and Unison. MDP also lists former board roles at Aderant, BlueCat Networks, Boise Cascade Company, Boise Inc., Fieldglass, Fleet Complete, Kaufman Hall, LinQuest, LGS Innovations, and NFP.

In September 2024, MDP named Norton one of eight Partners as part of a firmwide leadership transition. The same announcement stated that Norton would continue to lead the Technology & Government investment team.

• MDP’s Technology & Government team invests in software, technology-enabled services, and government technology companies through both majority and minority investments.
• The team explicitly looks for “market-leading companies with attractive growth dynamics” and recurring revenue, operating leverage, high free-cash-flow potential, proprietary technology, strong management, scale advantages, and founder ownership or leadership.
• Norton’s government-technology thesis emphasizes mission-critical defense and intelligence technology. In MDP’s T2S announcement, he said MDP has a long history of partnering with the DoD, Special Operations, and Intelligence Community to improve mission effectiveness through technology.
• The team favors companies where MDP can help scale through organic initiatives, acquisitions, product expansion, balance-sheet work, and access to a sector-specific advisory network.
• This is not a seed-stage angel profile despite the stub data. Norton is a private-equity investor focused on growth equity and buyouts, not typical angel checks.