How Cascadia Capital Uses PitchBook to Better Serve Its Clients

Cascadia Capital is a middle market investment bank based in Seattle, Washington, serving both private and public growth companies globally. The firm provides businesses and investors with nuanced guidance across a range of industries, including business services, consumer and retail, energy transition and climate tech, food, beverage and agribusiness, healthcare, industrials, robotics, automation and artificial intelligence, and technology. Their expertise is customized to simplify complex issues and help clients achieve growth and liquidity goals.

Key Team Members:

• ​Christian Schiller, Managing Director
• ​Matt Riendeau, Senior Vice President

Like most investment banks, Cascadia Capital helps businesses grow and achieve liquidity. What sets them apart is their focus on long-term client relationships. Cascadia provides each client with tailored advice and deal execution, partnering with entrepreneurs and small business owners for years (or even decades) to ensure they’re maximizing value. This highly personalized approach is supported by their daily use of PitchBook, which helps them find potential investors and buyers, maximize efficiency, gain expertise across verticals, and more.

Find the Right Investors for Clients

When Christian Schiller began working in private equity over two decades ago, there were around 200 firms. Now, that number is close to 4,000 and growing. While more players mean more opportunity, it also brings new challenges. Cascadia takes a customized approach to outreach and deal execution, but the proliferation of dealmakers means keeping track of thousands of firms and funds.

Schiller notes, "How were we going to build customized lists for each client situation? PitchBook was the strategic solution that filled in that gap for us, allowing us to slice, dice and analyze data—and do a ton of work on who we’re approaching."

Matt Riendeau adds, "Instead of contacting 600 potential financial sponsors, we can use PitchBook to target those that have money, that are active and are doing deals, and would be most interested in looking at this asset."

PitchBook not only tracks the entire landscape and provides granular information on investors and strategics, but also shows Cascadia who to contact and when. Looking at hold dates, dry powder, assets under management, targets, check size targets, and financial profiles is crucial for generating the best buyer and investor ideas for clients. By knowing which firms or buyers to exclude, the team avoids pursuing unlikely prospects and saves significant time. This approach maximizes confidentiality and helps achieve optimized valuations.

Gaining Insight and Expertise Across Verticals

Cascadia spends an average of three to seven years with companies, providing information, education, and trusted advice about when and how to raise capital or sell. Every client has a unique and customized experience. The challenge is balancing customization with scalability. As Cascadia grows from a dominant regional investment bank to a national middle market firm, its bankers have become more specialized and more reliant on PitchBook to track trends, activity, companies, and key players in their space.

Schiller explains, "We make sure we have a banker specializing in everything from restaurants to transportation logistics to aerospace ... so they can import that expertise on a vertical basis anywhere across the country."

With clients operating in diverse industries and investors adopting more niche focuses, staying on top of market shifts and developments is essential. Cascadia turns to PitchBook for comprehensive, accurate industry intelligence to develop vertical-specific expertise and better serve clients.

Schiller says, "It’s a tool that really helps us to dive deep into the big, broad world of private equity and cut through the noise."

Navigating a Challenging Landscape

Over the past few decades, the private equity landscape has changed dramatically. Firms like Cascadia must keep tabs on thousands of private equity firms and strategic buyers while gaining in-depth expertise across different verticals. Success requires greater specialization in an increasingly crowded space.

With PitchBook, Cascadia remains ahead of the curve, using data on investors, funds, and market activity to build targeted investor and buyer lists, track macro and micro trends, and more.

Riendeau shares, "Day to day, I’ve always got a PitchBook window up and running."

Schiller adds, "I feel like PitchBook is more than a database. It’s a business partner."