William Blair Capital Partners

William Blair Capital Partners (WBCP) was founded in 1982 to serve as the private equity investment arm of William Blair & Company. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the firm was an active investor in leveraged buyout transactions, eventually raising and deploying six funds as part of the investment bank.

In 2004, the senior partners of WBCP completed a spin-out from William Blair & Company to form an independent firm named Chicago Growth Partners. The move was intended to provide the team with access to a more diversified base of institutional investors. While the core team formed Chicago Growth Partners, other remaining partners eventually left in 2006 to found firms such as Seyen Capital and Emerging Market Technology.

The firm focuses on middle-market investments across education, business services, healthcare, and industrial growth sectors. Since its inception as WBCP through its evolution as Chicago Growth Partners, the group has raised approximately $1.8 billion across nine funds. However, in 2014, it was reported that the firm had abandoned efforts to raise its third fund as an independent entity.