Steve Gord

Steve Gord is a Partner and co-founder of Hidden River Strategic Capital, a Radnor, Pennsylvania-based investment firm focused on structured junior capital for owner-operated lower middle-market companies. Hidden River was launched by Gord, Todd Morrissey, and Kevin Condon and closed its inaugural fund, Hidden River Strategic Capital I, LP, at $245 million in June 2023.

Before Hidden River, Gord was a co-founder and General Partner of Boathouse Capital. Boathouse announced its first fund in June 2009, formed by Ken Jones, Bill Dyer, Steve Gord, and Chong Moua as a middle-market mezzanine debt fund licensed as an SBIC. At Boathouse, Gord worked on debt and equity investments in later-stage businesses, including management-led buyouts, acquisitions, recapitalizations, and business expansion financings.

Earlier in his career, Gord worked at American Capital Strategies, Robertson Stephens, Compass Partners, and Furman Selz. A 2024 Private Equity Fast Pitch episode profile states that he spent five years at BDC American Capital Strategies investing in junior capital transactions, worked in the consumer investment banking group at Robertson Stephens, worked in M&A and private equity practices at Compass Partners, and worked in investment banking at Furman Selz.

Gord earned a BA in economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Hidden River’s team page describes him as having more than 25 years of experience investing in lower middle-market companies.

• Hidden River’s stated strategy is structured capital for small businesses: “a customized, hybrid alternative to restrictive debt and/or dilutive equity.”
• Gord described the market gap this way in Hidden River’s fund announcement: “Private lower middle market businesses tend to face a funding void between the often rigid investment approaches of traditional credit funds and the overly dilutive, controlling approaches of growth equity and buyout funds.”
• Hidden River invests non-control debt and equity, including junior debt and preferred equity, into owner-operators that will continue to own and run their companies.
• Typical use cases include expansion capital, acquisition financing, debt refinancing, shareholder liquidity, growth initiatives, add-on acquisitions, and recapitalizations.
• The firm looks for U.S.-based positive-cash-flow businesses with $10M+ revenue and $2M+ EBITDA, plus strong margins and durable, capital-efficient models.
• The firm is not narrowly sector-specific; its repeated language is a preference for “unique, repeatable and durable business models.”