Tarte
Capital
For 25 years, we have purchased or been part of an investment group that purchased over 20 companies across multiple industries, including travel services, B2B marketing, light fabrication, and F&B.
We have since exited those businesses for a combined value exceeding $750M and are now seeking new opportunities.
Investment Criteria
Although our focus is "industry agnostic," our ideal acquisition candidates share certain common features. Below are some characteristics we value:
- A strong, respectful company culture
- EBITDA in the $2M-$5M range
- Operating leverage
- The ability to scale
- Reasonable capital expenditure requirements
- Opportunity to add value by leveraging our strengths in FP&A, Sales, Marketing and building corporate cultures
- Industries with identifiable tailwinds consistent with long term trends
- Platform companies that can support organic growth and bolt-on acquisitions
- Industries that typically don't attract elite management or financial talent
- Industries with a low risk of being negatively impacted by emerging technologies
Location
Given our focus on corporate culture, we are generally not believers in businesses built primarily around remote-work. That said, we value businesses where ownership is not chained to a specific geography.
Structure
While we remain flexible to each unique investment situation, below is our preferred acquisition structure:
- We generally acquire 100% of a company but will partner with existing management where beneficial.
- We typically do not require debt financing as a contingency to close.
Current & Former Investments
We've built a diverse portfolio across a broad range of industries including travel, marketing, hospitality, and energy. Explore our current ventures and the successful legacy of our exited positions, which have collectively generated over $750M in value.
Genergy
In 2025, Tarte Family Office partnered with the Gristina family to acquire and operate Genergy. Genergy is a premier energy management firm specializing in advanced electrical submetering, real-time monitoring, and utility billing services. The Company helps blue-chip property managers recover utility costs, ensure regulatory compliance, and meet sustainability goals. The Company’s primary operations are in the greater New York City area and South Florida.
TPD Design House
In 2026, The Tarte Family Office acquired TPD Design House, a world-class design agency. Their core strengths are innovative brand identities, gorgeous web design, and moment-defining stationery and packaging. TPD has a strong presence in the high-end weddings and events industry with a worldwide network of relationships with top event planners, venues and event contractors.
Sparks Marketing, LLC
In 2001, The Tarte Family Office was part of an acquisition group that acquired Sparks Exhibits. At the time of the acquisition, Sparks was a financially troubled, orphaned public company that manufactured trade show exhibits. Over the next twenty years, we transformed the business from its trade show manufacturing roots into a full-scale experiential marketing agency built around a broad service offering including strategy, creative, fabrication, and event execution. During this transformation, we took the company private, paid off $30M in debt, completed two dividend recapitalizations, weathered the Financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis, executed four strategic acquisitions, and ultimately sold the business in 2023 for over $600 million. At the time of the sale, Sparks was the preeminent experiential marketing agency in the industry with $500M in revenue, over 750 full time employees, and offices in Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Indiana, Paris and Shanghai.
Schulson Collective
The Tarte Family Office has an investment stake in the Schulson Collective which owns and operates several of Philadelphia’s most successful restaurants, including Double Knot, Sampan, Alpen Rose, and Pearl & Mary’s. The Collective has recently expanded its footprint beyond Philadelphia with new openings of Double Knot in Miami, Delray Beach, and New York City.
Medidata Solutions
In 2000, Medidata was a start up company with ten employees and a vision to revolutionize the clinical trial data collection process through automation. At the time, the industry standard for data collection was paper- and fax-based, making it ripe for a digital solution. Seeing the potential of Medidata’s automated software based model, the Tarte Family Office was one of the company’s seed investors. In 2009, Medidata went public at a valuation exceeding $300M and was ultimately acquired by Dassault in 2019 for an enterprise value of $5.8B. (Sad disclaimer; we sold prior to the Dassault purchase.)
Travel One
In 1988, Scott Tarte and his partner, Jeff Harrow, acquired a controlling interest in a mom-and-pop retail travel agency, “Cherry Hill Travel,” which they later renamed “Travel One.” The business had 25 employees and an enterprise value of less than $2M. When the business was sold to American Express in 1998 for in excess of $100M, it was the sixth largest travel management company in the United States, with 1,400 employees and $900M in sales. While the majority of Travel One’s growth was organic, it executed a dozen small agency acquisitions, primarily to expand its geographic footprint and serve a growing list of national and international corporate clients. The business was built around a corporate culture obsessed with both its customers and its employees. American Express acquired Travel One in 1998 and used the platform to launch Amex One, a $3B corporate travel division focused on the middle market.
Our Values
Building a positive corporate culture has been integral to the success of every company we actively manage. That culture is embodied in the ten principles below:
-
Do the
Right Thing -
Question
Everything -
Embrace
Change -
Details
Matter -
Challenges
Provide
Opportunities -
Think
Unconventionally -
Be a Service
Legend -
Exhibit Kindness
& Respect -
Be Proud but
Never Satisfied -
Work Should
be Fun
Our Family
Tarte Capital has an amazing team who we are proud to work with every day. The office is a family affair and is headed by Scott and Evan Tarte. Learn more about our backgrounds in our bios below:
Scott Tarte
Scott earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from Fordham. He spent over 20 years as the owner and CEO of Sparks, more than 10 years as the owner and COO of Travel One, served as the Managing Director of the early-stage venture fund Gabriel Investments, had a short stint as CEO of Medidata and has served on various Boards. Scott is a serial entrepreneur who enjoys creating a strategic vision and assembling talented management teams. Scott has been married to his wife, Karen, for over 35 years and has three grown children: Evan, James and Kaitlin. He currently partners with Evan to manage the Tarte Family Office.
Evan Tarte
Evan earned his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, his M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge, and his law degree from Harvard Law School, where he was the John M. Olin Fellow of Empirical Law & Finance. Evan has nearly a decade of investment experience with middle market companies. Prior to joining Tarte Family Office, he was an investment professional at EagleTree Capital (~$6B AUM), where he focused on the business services and consumer sectors. Notable transactions include Corsair Gaming’s (NASDAQ: CRSR) acquisition of Drop and the acquisition and management of Integreon. Prior to EagleTree, Evan was COO of Fair360, a lower middle market company (~$8M EBITDA) in the human capital data space. Evan began his career at Lazard, where he focused on M&A and restructuring mandates.