Mike Evans

Mike Evans is a Partner at Hillstar Capital, a Dallas-based private equity firm founded in 2014 that partners with owners and management teams of lower-middle-market companies to accelerate growth organically and through acquisitions. He has been with the firm since its 2014 founding. Hillstar is an SEC-registered investment adviser (CRD 282077) that operates with committed capital and pursues control equity investments and recapitalizations, typically structuring deals so founding operators can monetize part of their equity while retaining meaningful ongoing ownership.

Before Hillstar, Evans was a Partner at Ancor Capital Partners, where he was responsible for investments in food and general manufacturing. There he led investments in — and served on the boards of — FCA Packaging, Liguria Foods, Inc., and Fresh Food Concepts, Inc.

Earlier in his career, from 1986 to 2006, Evans worked at JMK International, a diversified Southwest holding company, where he rose from a part-time accounting intern to President, Co-Managing Director, and board member. In that capacity he was responsible for the overall management of businesses spanning rubber and plastic manufacturing, restaurants, food manufacturing, aviation, wine importing and marketing, real estate development, and farming and ranching.

Evans is a graduate of Texas Christian University, with studies in finance, accounting, and history. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with his wife Allison and their twins, William and Magdalene. (Note: Mike Evans of Hillstar is a distinct person from the GrubHub co-founder and author of the same name — do not conflate the two.)

• Invests as a control-oriented private equity partner, not a seed/angel check-writer — buyouts, recapitalizations, and growth capital in the lower middle market.
• Targets profitable companies with ~$2M–$10M of EBITDA, established market positions, and recurring-revenue characteristics.
• Sector emphasis on industrial technology, vertical enterprise software, and asset-light healthcare services, plus broader business services, consumer, industrial/manufacturing, and healthcare.
• Prefers founder- and family-owned businesses navigating succession or partial liquidity, structuring deals so owners retain an operating role and ongoing ownership rather than being replaced.
• Evans's personal deal history skews toward food and general manufacturing (a legacy of his Ancor Capital and JMK International years).
• Geographic focus on Texas, the Southeast, and Sunbelt markets — regions rich in founder-owned industrial, service, and technology businesses.