Ulrich Eckhardt

Ueli Eckhardt is a Swiss private-equity investor with roughly three decades in mid-market buyouts. He spent about 20 years at Capvis Equity Partners AG, one of Switzerland's leading mid-market PE firms, which he joined in 1996. He was promoted to Partner effective 1 January 2010 (alongside Marc Battenfeld and Eric Trüeb) and went on to serve as Head of the Portfolio Team and a member of the firm's Investment Committee, overseeing value creation across Capvis's holdings. During his Capvis years he sat on the boards of numerous portfolio companies, including VAT, Felss, Visable, ProXES, Thermamax, Xovis, SFC Koenig, Orior, Tobler, nicko tours and ACP.

In February 2022, Eckhardt left Capvis together with fellow partners Eric Trüeb and Philippe Bucher to co-found eevolve, a Zurich-based private-equity firm focused on Swiss and DACH SMEs. Several other Capvis alumni (including former HR head Daniel Huber and investment professional Stefano Robbiani) joined the new firm. eevolve positions itself around operational transformation and people-led value creation — its tagline is "Preserving values. Investing in the future," and its philosophy is summarized as "We strengthen companies by strengthening people." The firm raised a debut fund that reached its €372m hard cap in May 2024 (advised by placement agent Asante Capital), above a €350m target.

On education, Eckhardt holds a lic. oec. publ. (economics degree) from the University of Zurich and an M.Sc. from Stanford University. Before entering private equity he worked on digitalization and consulting projects at Swiss Re and UBS (some aggregator profiles also cite Young & Rubicam). He is a recognized voice on the Swiss PE market, having moderated panels at the SuperInvestor conference and spoken at the Mergermarket M&A Forum Switzerland.

• Control buyouts of DACH SMEs, Switzerland-first: eevolve invests in small- and mid-cap buyout situations across smart industrials, healthcare, and services & software, with a stated emphasis on Swiss SMEs.
• Operational value creation over financial engineering: His core thesis is that returns come from transforming how portfolio companies operate. On Fund I's close he said the result was "proof that our focus on Swiss SMEs is very well aligned with our extensive track record at creating operational value."
• People and organizational dynamics as the real driver: In a Nov 2025 interview he argued that in measuring performance "the data is only half the story. The social and human dynamics inside teams — how people work, decide, and collaborate — play an equally critical role."
• PE as a "mechanism for change": He has argued that private equity's governance model is what makes necessary transformation possible, favoring active, hands-on ownership.
• Founder/family successions and champions: Both at Capvis and eevolve his pattern is backing established mid-market companies and building them into regional or global niche leaders.