Reed Gorden

Reed Van Gorden is a Managing Director, Head of Origination, and Investment Committee member at Deerpath Capital Management, a direct lending firm founded in 2007 that focuses on providing cash-flow-based senior debt to lower-middle-market companies. He joined Deerpath in 2015 and has roughly two decades of industry experience. In his role he leads the firm's origination team — the professionals who source new lending opportunities — and helps structure debt financings (first lien senior secured loans, revolvers, stretch senior, and unitranche facilities), frequently in partnership with private equity sponsors.

Before Deerpath, Van Gorden built his career in leveraged finance and private equity. He was a member of Golub Capital's middle market lending team, where he structured financing solutions and underwrote senior credit facilities, and he earlier held roles at Abingworth Management and JP Morgan. This blend of lending and sponsor-side experience underpins his focus on originating and structuring debt for sponsor-backed, lower-middle-market businesses.

He earned an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (2012) and a B.A. from Northwestern University (2006), and holds the CFA designation (reflected in his LinkedIn handle "rvgcfa"). Deerpath, where he is based out of the Chicago area, manages approximately $9 billion in assets and was named a Top Private Credit Firm of 2025 by GrowthCap.

• Provides cash-flow-based senior debt — first lien senior secured loans, revolvers, stretch senior, and unitranche facilities — rather than equity.
• Targets lower middle market companies, typically ~$20M–$250M in revenue and ~$4M–$25M in EBITDA, most often private-equity-sponsored.
• Finances leveraged buyouts, acquisition financing, recapitalizations, debt refinancing, and growth capital.
• On why private credit has grown: *"The biggest reason why this market has grown is that the banks have withdrawn from it,"* noting U.S. banks shrank from roughly 15,000 to 5,000 over four decades.
• On healthcare specifically, he sees opportunity in provider/practice-management consolidation, biopharma outsourcing, healthcare IT, revenue cycle management, and payer services, while flagging reimbursement pressure and regulatory uncertainty as risks; he remains "optimistic" given healthcare's defensive characteristics.
• Defines modern private credit broadly as *"deals that exist outside of the banking landscape,"* spanning direct lending, non-sponsored lending, asset-backed finance, and royalty financing.