Dynamic Core Capital Elevates Three to Partner as Deal Flow Climbs

Dynamic Core Capital Partners, a lower mid-market private equity firm focused on residential and business services, announced Wednesday the promotion of three investment professionals to Partner — a move that signals both internal growth and rising deal velocity in its core sectors.

Matthew Driscoll, Allyson Savas, and Luke Schoonover will join the firm's partnership effective immediately. All three have been with Dynamic Core since its 2021 founding and have collectively worked on more than a dozen platform acquisitions and add-on transactions across the firm's portfolio.

The promotions come as lower mid-market PE firms face a shifting landscape: deal volume in the sub-$100 million EBITDA range has held steadier than larger transactions, but competition for quality assets in residential services — HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing — has intensified as national consolidators and regional roll-up strategies proliferate.

Dynamic Core, which targets companies generating $3 million to $15 million in EBITDA, has closed eight platform investments since inception, with a concentration in fragmented, owner-operator-heavy industries. The firm's strategy hinges on partnering with founders and management teams to professionalize operations, expand geographically, and execute programmatic M&A.

Matthew Driscoll, previously Vice President, joined Dynamic Core in 2021 after stints at Blue Heron Capital and Raymond James. He's led diligence and execution on several of the firm's residential services platforms, including recent deals in the pest control and landscaping verticals.

Allyson Savas, also elevated from Vice President, came to Dynamic Core from PwC's Transaction Services practice. She's focused primarily on operational due diligence and post-close value creation, working closely with portfolio company CFOs to build financial infrastructure and reporting systems that support add-on acquisitions.

Luke Schoonover, who joined as an Associate and rose to Vice President before this promotion, previously worked at Harris Williams in the firm's industrials and services group. He's sourced and executed deals across both residential and business services, with a particular focus on technology-enabled service companies.

The firm didn't disclose whether the promotions came with expanded fund deployment authority or shifts in sector coverage. It also didn't comment on whether additional hiring is planned to backfill the roles vacated by the promotions.

While mega-cap and upper mid-market deal volume has cooled over the past 18 months — dragged down by valuation gaps, financing costs, and LP caution — the lower mid-market has proven more resilient. According to PitchBook, U.S. deal count in the sub-$100 million enterprise value range fell just 12% year-over-year in 2025, compared to a 31% drop in deals above $500 million.

Residential services, in particular, remains one of the most active sub-sectors. The category attracted more than $8 billion in PE investment in 2025, spread across 140+ platform and add-on deals, per Raymond James data. Much of that activity concentrated in HVAC, plumbing, and electrical — categories where aging housing stock, recurring revenue models, and local market fragmentation create natural roll-up opportunities.

But the playbook is crowded. Firms like OMERS, Gridiron Capital, and Blue Wolf Capital have all executed multi-billion-dollar residential services roll-ups in recent years, and the surge of capital chasing the same founder-led businesses has compressed multiples and pushed sellers to expect premiums that didn't exist five years ago.

Source: PitchBook, Raymond James Residential Services M&A Report 2025

For firms like Dynamic Core, the math increasingly depends on add-on velocity. A typical lower mid-market platform might complete 8-12 bolt-on acquisitions over a three-to-five-year hold period, often at lower multiples than the initial platform, generating returns through EBITDA growth and margin expansion rather than multiple arbitrage.

Partner-level promotions at a firm this young — Dynamic Core is just five years old — suggest one of two things: either deal flow has accelerated to the point where senior bandwidth was stretched, or the firm is preparing to raise its next fund and wants to signal bench strength to LPs.

Dynamic Core closed its debut fund, Dynamic Core Capital Partners Fund I, in 2022 at $175 million, per SEC filings. The firm hasn't publicly announced a successor vehicle, but the typical fundraising cycle for a lower mid-market firm would put Fund II in the market sometime in 2026 or early 2027.

Promoting three VPs to Partner simultaneously is unusual — most firms stagger elevations or promote one at a time to preserve hierarchy. The move suggests Dynamic Core either sees all three as critical to the next fund's execution or faced retention risk if it didn't move quickly.

It's also worth noting what the firm didn't announce: new hires, expanded sector coverage, or international ambitions. The promotions feel internal and operational, not strategic. That's consistent with a firm that's still building its first set of portfolio exits and proving the model works.

Dynamic Core's portfolio currently includes eight active platform companies across residential services, business services, and niche industrial categories. None have exited yet, which means the firm's track record is still theoretical from an LP's perspective.

The promotion cycle at Dynamic Core reflects broader talent dynamics in the lower mid-market. As mega-cap and growth equity firms have pulled back hiring, experienced VPs and principals have increasingly gravitated toward smaller platforms where partnership timelines are shorter and carry percentages are more accessible.

At the same time, retention has become harder. Independent sponsors, search funds, and entrepreneur-in-residence programs have created alternative pathways for investment professionals to own deal economics without grinding through the traditional associate-to-partner ladder.

Dynamic Core's continued focus on residential services puts it in direct competition with a long list of well-capitalized platforms. Clockwork Home Services, Wrench Group, and Authority Brands have collectively completed more than 200 add-on acquisitions in the past three years, often outbidding smaller funds for regional players.

The risk for newer entrants like Dynamic Core is overpaying for platforms in categories where the best assets are already consolidated. Pest control, for instance, has seen median purchase multiples climb above 10x EBITDA — historically high for a sector that was trading at 7-8x just five years ago.

At the same time, the fragmentation thesis still holds in many geographies. There are an estimated 120,000+ HVAC, plumbing, and electrical businesses in the U.S., and the top 50 players control less than 15% of total market share. For firms willing to source off-market and move quickly, deals are still available — just not at the multiples investors underwrote in 2019.

The next 12-18 months will clarify whether these promotions were a response to current deal flow or a prelude to fundraising. If Dynamic Core announces a second fund in the next few quarters, the Partner elevations will look prescient. If the firm goes quiet, it could signal that portfolio work — not new deals — is consuming bandwidth.

Either way, the firm's ability to deliver exits will matter more than promotions. Lower mid-market PE is littered with firms that raised strong debut funds, made solid investments, but failed to generate the 2.5-3.0x net MOICs that LPs expect. Dynamic Core's first batch of realizations — whenever they come — will define whether the firm becomes a durable franchise or a one-fund story.

Source: PitchBook, firm press releases, SEC filings

For now, the promotions are a vote of confidence — in the three individuals, in the firm's deal pipeline, and in the thesis that lower mid-market services still offer alpha even as the sector matures. Whether that confidence translates to outperformance will depend on execution in a market where everyone is running the same playbook.

Dynamic Core's trajectory raises a broader question facing the entire lower mid-market segment: as platforms scale and capital pools deepen, is there still room for sub-$200 million funds to generate venture-like returns, or has the category become a slow-growth game of incremental value creation?

The data is mixed. According to Cambridge Associates, lower mid-market buyout funds (<$500M) have outperformed larger peers over the past decade on a net IRR basis, but much of that outperformance came from exits into a frothy 2020-2021 M&A market. With strategic buyers pulling back and sponsor-to-sponsor deals now requiring higher leverage or equity checks, the exit environment has tightened.

Firms like Dynamic Core will need to prove they can still generate liquidity without riding a macro tailwind. That means operational gains, not financial engineering. It means add-ons that actually integrate. It means exiting into a market that no longer pays 12x for residential services businesses just because they're recurring revenue.

The promotions announced this week won't answer those questions. But they do suggest the firm is betting on continuity, not a pivot — and that the three newly minted Partners believe the strategy still works.

Dynamic Core Capital Partners was founded in 2021 by a team that previously worked together at a larger PE platform. The firm's strategy centers on acquiring founder-owned businesses in fragmented industries, typically in the $10 million to $50 million enterprise value range, and building them through a combination of organic growth, margin improvement, and strategic M&A.

The firm operates out of a single office and manages capital exclusively for institutional LPs, including endowments, family offices, and fund-of-funds. It does not manage separate accounts or co-investment vehicles, per its ADV filing.

Dynamic Core's portfolio companies span residential services (HVAC, plumbing, pest control, landscaping), business services (staffing, facilities management), and niche industrial categories. The firm has not disclosed revenue or EBITDA figures for its portfolio, and none of its investments have been publicly reported as exits. Additional details on the firm's investment strategy and performance are available through its SEC filings.

The firm's website lists eight active portfolio companies but does not identify them by name, a common practice among lower mid-market funds to preserve competitive positioning and avoid unsolicited inbound from brokers and other PE firms.