Growth Catalyst Partners

Communicating a unique private equity proposition

Growth Catalyst Partners (GCP) is a Connecticut and Chicago-based PE firm focused on building transformative middle market companies in high growth sectors. Since 2021, Sheepdog has partnered with four of GCP’s platforms to provide fractional marketing leadership as they were launching and scaling.

After raising three funds, and completing over 115 acquisitions across 15 platforms, GCP decided it was time to better tell their own story and called upon Sheepdog to revamp their website, visual design and business development materials geared at investors and M&A targets.

GCP’s ingoing materials were very “1.0,” in that they had a good foundational brand system, but had long outgrown the minimalistic messaging and marketing assets built quickly by the founders as they were launching.

Sheepdog enlisted Sandau Co. as creative partner. Mark Sandau is a stellar digital designer with the experience to flex across print, collateral and other applications. Plus, Mark is deeply fluent across consumer and B2B categories and executes everything to an exceptionally high standard.

GCP had come a long way since their original materials were created. Working from interviews with the team and recent pitch decks, we synthesized the core qualities of their proprietary investment and operational model, architected a new website structure, and wrote all the copy.

A convention we see across private equity and financial services marketing is the use of stock photography to illustrate overused themes like strength (pillars), perspective (skylines), growth (horizon), partnership (handshakes), etc. We wanted GCP’s team to come across as highly competent, authentic, and relatable, so we set up a photo shoot at their office with the talented Lou Bopp, a commercial photographer skilled at capturing the routine emotions and moments of work in a natural, but dramatic way. (Lou calls it “office sports.”) Sheepdog produced the shoot and chose selects from the thousands of frames Lou shot.

Our revamped approach for GCP features an all-new visual language, with new infographics, type styling, color gradients, and more. Its bright, modern style suggests sophistication and progress, but also the approachability GCP’s team is known for. Applications delivered include the new website, a redeveloped investor deck and PowerPoint template, Word template, business cards, social media skins and a full brand style-guide.