There have been several major private equity plays on K Street this summer.
Insiders say the party’s just getting started.
Last Friday, Shamrock Capital purchased Penta Group from another private equity firm, infusing a degree of confidence in these deals, which have been popping up along K Street in earnest over the past five years.
“If the comparison was New Year’s Eve, and a good party on New Year’s Eve, it’s probably 8 p.m. and you’ve got a good amount of people that are showing up, but the real party’s not starting for an hour or two,” Brendan Curran, a managing director at Clearsight Advisors, which advised Penn Quarter Partners on the finances of a deal announced in June with Webster Equity Partners, told NOTUS.
Private equity firms’ early acquisitions have focused on strategic communications and public affairs firms. But advisers on both sides of these deals observe a growing interest in — and comfort with — investments in lobbying shops like Monument Advocacy, which made its first acquisition last month since the firm secured an investment from Everlane Equity Partners last fall.
“I would say, I entertain a conversation about it once a week,” Ken Spain, CEO of Narrative Strategies, which announced its own deal last February with the private equity firm Clarion, told NOTUS of private equity investment. “I literally had one yesterday.”
Private equity has permeated the far reaches of the global economy, from energy to real estate to journalism to bowling alleys. President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order that would greatly expand opportunities for Americans to invest their retirement savings in “alternative assets” including private equity. It’s not possible to capture the scope of interest in this kind of investment on K Street based on publicly available information, but it’s clear interest is growing.
“It’s a matter of time till everyone gets a little more comfortable” investing in lobbying firms, said Amir Akhavan, co-founder and managing director of the investment bank BrightTower, which advised Shamrock, Narrative Strategies and Avoq, formerly Subject Matter, during their respective dealmaking processes. “The market is a growth market, and it’s an interesting one.”
The industry has been “historically underbanked from a private equity standpoint,” client relationships are “relatively sticky,” retainers offer a “very predictable cash flow” to underwrite debt and there is a lot of “fragmentation” in the industry, meaning there are a lot of opportunities to grow and make acquisitions, Akhavan said.
“It creates a perfect storm for private equity to come in,” Akhavan said.
Private equity has its own political interests in getting involved in K Street, from securing coveted 401(k) investments or blocking and tackling bipartisan efforts to kill the industry’s favorite tax break. The private equity and investment industry made record contributions to federal candidates and committees during the 2024 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks the flow of money in politics.
The industry has collectively spent more than $11.4 million on federal lobbying through the first six months of 2025, putting it on track to spend more than any previous year, according to OpenSecrets data. And that doesn’t even include spending on public affairs or strategic communications services not captured by traditional lobbying transparency regulations.
Between attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion and companies and institutions perceived as “woke,” leaders describe real demand for their services beyond traditional lobbying.
“Public affairs is definitely focused on D.C., policy, politics, that type of stuff. And to the extent that that has … kind of intruded more and more into every other facet of everything, there’s need to navigate that,” Matt McDonald, CEO of Penta, told NOTUS.
Several policy shops have soared to new heights following investment from private equity.
“It’s early days, and I think that the partnerships that you’ve seen are really smart and well thought out and are proving out to be good for the companies that did it and good for their clients,” said John Murray, CEO of Monument Advocacy.
“But who knows how many of those make sense,” Murray added. “In a year, are there 20 more of these? Are there two more of these? That’s kind of what I’m curious about. Does it accelerate? Does it stay the same? And I don’t really know the answer to that. But it’s a bigger undertaking and harder than I think some people think it looks, and so that may limit the total number of folks who decide to do this kind of transaction. But maybe not.”
Monument, which has netted more than $7.4 million in federal lobbying revenue in the first half of 2025, last month added Horizon Government Affairs. Horizon specializes in health care policy consulting and received $910,000 in federal lobbying revenue through the same period, representing health clients including McKesson, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America and IQVIA.
“We have one of the largest premier healthcare, government relations, public policy and public affairs shops in D.C. now as a result of that acquisition,” Murray told NOTUS. He said the firm is now looking to scale up on the public affairs side.
Neither Shamrock nor Everlane responded to interview requests from NOTUS. Laura Held, partner and member of Shamrock’s executive committee, said in a press release that Penta offers “trusted, data-driven counsel to C-suite executives facing complex decisions that impact their brand performance, stakeholder reputation and stock price” and that “the stakes have never been higher.”
K Street leaders say private capital allows them to execute business strategies they might not have been able to otherwise.
“The world we live in is more complicated. The services we need to provide clients, if you want to grow, need to be bigger. And private equity provides both capital and expertise if you want to expand your business,” Steve Elmendorf, co-founder and managing partner at Avoq, told NOTUS.
But striking a deal means the firm has to relinquish some decision-making power.
“It will change the way you do business, ” Elmendorf said.
It hasn’t been smooth sailing for everyone. Purple Strategies, a brand reputation and public affairs firm, has slashed staff since announcing a “strategic investment” from a private equity firm amid “rapid growth” three years ago. Purple laid off 18 employees, or around 10% of its staff, in February, according to Politico, and announced another round of layoffs in May.
Neither Steve McMahon, Purple’s co-founder and CEO, nor Kristen Morgante, managing partner and COO, responded to requests for comment.
Murray’s biggest piece of advice for firms looking to jump into the market: Make sure you like the banker you decide to work with.
“You spend a lot of time with these people, so fit is really important,” Murray said. “You gotta spend more time with them than your family there for a while.”
McDonald encouraged firms considering deals to ask themselves one question: What are you trying to do?
“You have to have a view on what you’re trying to accomplish,” McDonald said. “The challenge that I’ve seen and that people have is they do a deal because they think that’s what you do in business. You have to start with the goal of what you’re trying to accomplish, and then work your way backwards from there.”
McDonald was part of the team at what was then Hamilton Place Strategies, a lobbying firm that sold a majority stake to Falfurrias Capital Partners in June 2021. Hamilton Place Strategies rebranded as Penta with several other firms in 2022, led by McDonald, who said the company has focused on data and technology acquisitions to turbocharge the early data products that set Hamilton Place Strategies apart in the first place.
Deal terms are often not disclosed, but funds have a median holding period of six years, meaning there’s a likely cliff coming for many of these initial deals. The successful transition from Falfurrias to Shamrock was seen as a green flag for the future of many deals struck in the wake of Hamilton Place Strategies’ sale in 2021, but the reality remains to be seen.
Curran said the key to continued success would be the ability to continue to grow.
“If these businesses find ways to grow, they are always going to find new, excited investors who want to really pump fresh blood into the equation,” Curran said.
Curran had one bold prediction at the end of his call with NOTUS for the next wave of investment in professional services: law firms.
“It’s going to start slow, but once they see that there’s real capital interest here, I think more law firms will become interested,” Curran said. “And I think what’s really interesting is that if you look at the biggest lobbying firms on the planet, they’re actually the law firms.”