Before they became business partners, John DeLoche and William Nettles led lives defined by discipline, competitiveness, and global perspective. DeLoche, who once served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve Signal Corps, is fluent in Japanese and German and spent years building his career in investment banking and private equity. Nettles brought an operator’s eye to investing, shaped by a decade in fintech—and by his personal drive as a competitive tennis player, even competing for a U.S. Tennis Association national championship in 2017.
Those shared experiences in high-performance environments helped shape the mindset behind Invictus Growth Partners. Launched in 2019, the firm’s name, Invictus – meaning “unconquerable” in Latin – captures the resilient philosophy underpinning its work. Invictus focuses on control-oriented growth investments in the lower middle market, targeting founder-led companies in fintech, cybersecurity, and enterprise cloud software.
With $1.2 billion in assets under management and 11 platform investments to date, Invictus positions itself as the first institutional partner for businesses bootstrapped to $10 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). By leveraging operational expertise and proprietary technology, the firm helps management teams scale from $10 million to $50-100 million ARR, while delivering strong returns for institutional investors that include leading state pensions, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, consultants, endowments, and foundations.
On a Mission
The Invictus story begins with a friendship forged three decades ago at Credit Suisse First Boston. “We both graduated and were in the same analyst training program in investment banking at Credit Suisse,” Nettles recalls. Their careers would intertwine across three organizations over the next 30 years, culminating in the decision to launch Invictus Growth Partners.
“We had known each other for 25 years and grew up together professionally. What set Invictus apart was not just investment strategy but culture.”
– William Nettles, Co-Founder and Managing Partner
That culture was anchored in a mission to empower excellence—among themselves, their companies, and their communities.
Integrity, humility, teamwork, diversity, and relationships became Invictus’s guiding principles. For the co-founders, values were not simply aspirational words but a practical framework for building a firm. Humility meant learning from setbacks and encouraging the best ideas to emerge from team members; teamwork meant avoiding egos and ensuring collective accountability; and diversity was viewed not as a box to check, but as a means to strengthen outcomes by bringing multiple perspectives to the table.
“Great outcomes really stem from great teams with people from different backgrounds working toward a common goal.”
– John DeLoche, Co-Founder & Managing Partner
In the firm’s formative days, Nettles recalls, “John came with his values, I came with mine, and we sort of had a meeting of the minds.” Together, they asked themselves the critical question: What gives us the right to win? Their answer consisted of two parts: a differentiated technology approach through the DIANE platform, and in-depth sector knowledge in fintech, cybersecurity, and B2B SaaS. Staying focused on these verticals—and avoiding “shiny objects”—was a deliberate decision designed to give them an edge in a crowded private equity market.
With conviction in their strategy, the partners took bold action. “Once William and I came up with this strategy, determined we were going to partner together, we announced it,” DeLoche recalls. “The first thing we did was we bought our URL, we did our website, and we announced it. That was basically the Cortez burn-the-boats moment.” For the pair, there was no turning back. Their first hire, Heather Brien, joined as partner and head of operations, signaling the importance of operational infrastructure. “This business is all about people,” says DeLoche. “Even though we’re investing in technology, we’re really people investing in companies, technology companies run by other people.”
DIANE: A Technology Edge
The cornerstone of Invictus’s differentiation is DIANE—the Deal Intelligence Assessment Neural Engine. “DIANE has enabled us—we’ve actually sourced over 80% of the deals we’ve closed,” DeLoche explains. By automating 90% of the manual work tied to deal sourcing, DIANE transformed what was once an arduous process into a scalable, data-driven system. “That was the ‘aha’ moment,” DeLoche recalls. “We said, ‘Hey, we can take Amazon SageMaker and basically replicate what our private equity peers have done with people in software.’ And that’s exactly what we did.”
The first generation of DIANE automated sourcing enabled Invictus to compete with larger firms that relied on outbound analyst teams. The second generation extended DIANE’s power to portfolio companies, transforming it into a machine learning-driven outbound sales engine. “Every company we acquire is a B2B company,” says DeLoche. “We architect for them their own model based on their ICP.” The impact was striking: 90% increases in conversion rates, faster sales cycles, higher contract values, and stronger financial performance.
The third generation evolved into a business development platform that allows portfolio companies to collaborate on customer introductions. This structure enables Invictus companies to operate like channel partners, thereby multiplying growth opportunities while enhancing their sourcing capabilities. “We can introduce literally thousands of new enterprise customers,” he adds. With DIANE, Invictus has created a cycle of sourcing, scaling, and operational improvement.
“We’re investing in companies targeting the same customers—typically the biggest 30,000 enterprises in the world—with non-competing complementary software.”
– John DeLoche, Co-Founder & Managing Partner
Leveraging AI and Professional Networks
The investment in Boost Payment Solutions illustrates how Invictus applies its model. Discovered by DIANE and secured through Nettles’s fintech network, Boost enables enterprises to replace ACH and wire transfers with credit card payments. Buyers gain cash-flow flexibility through extended float and treasury income potential, while suppliers benefit from automated accounts receivable functions that reduce costs. Sitting in the middle, Boost earns transaction fees and, as the only aggregator of buyers and suppliers at scale, holds a distinctive position in the payments space.
At the time of Invictus’s 2021 investment, Boost was led by CEO Dean M. Leavitt, a pioneer in payments, who needed to enhance his c-suite to scale the business. Invictus helped scale the company by working with Boost to recruit five senior executives and embedding DIANE into its go-to-market motion. The CRO and marketing team embraced the platform, which drove greater sales conversion and customer acquisition. “We like to find businesses that aren’t just shooting money out of a cannon,” Nettles explains. Instead, Invictus drives companies toward the “rule of 40 plus,” balancing growth and profitability through disciplined execution.
The firm also advanced Boost’s technology strategy, supporting the hire of a new CTO and facilitating collaboration with Mark Chamness, Invictus’s head of data science. Together, they identified AI use cases to further create efficiency within the organization. Since Invictus’s investment, Boost has grown more than 300%, reached profitability, and now operates as a “rule of 50” business, combining high growth with profitability. With B2B credit card penetration still under 2% in a market measured in the trillions, Boost exemplifies both Invictus’s disciplined investment thesis and its ability to help portfolio companies scale.
Opportunities in the AI Buildout
The defining feature of today’s investment environment, DeLoche emphasizes, is the rise of AI and machine learning. “There are two sides of that disruption,” he notes. “Cost savings and the ability to grow much faster.” For Invictus, which launched as an AI-first private equity firm, this trend only strengthens its advantage. DeLoche likens today’s hyperscale investment in AI compute power to the telecom buildout of the 1990s, when cheap bandwidth unlocked innovation from Salesforce, HubSpot, and Netflix. “It means it’s going to guarantee low-cost compute,” he explains, positioning Invictus’s portfolio companies to benefit as they embed AI into products and systems.
Every Invictus portfolio company is now an “AI-first application product company.” That positioning reflects what DeLoche calls “quite possibly the most disruptive secular trend we’ve seen in technology ever.” With fintech, cybersecurity, and enterprise cloud software as focus sectors, Invictus is investing in companies poised to thrive amid this disruption. In doing so, it is creating a differentiated model that blends AI-enabled sourcing and scaling with hands-on operational support.
Invictus’s long-term vision is grounded in two goals. First, to be a top-decile performing GP partner for its LPs. Second, to be the elite capital source for bootstrapped, capital-efficient businesses seeking value-added partners.
“In 10 years, we want to be known for those two things. For the firm, success is measured not only by strong returns but also by becoming the trusted partner that founders call first when they’re ready to scale.”
– John DeLoche, Co-Founder & Managing Partner
That vision reflects the journey DeLoche and Nettles have taken together—from analyst trainees three decades ago, to co-founders of an “unconquerable” private equity firm. Along the way, they’ve built a platform defined by values, powered by technology, and dedicated to empowering excellence. In an era shaped by AI disruption and opportunity, Invictus Growth Partners is positioning itself—and its portfolio companies—for lasting impact.