Executive Summary

Avetta’s founders had built a profitable business vetting contractors just as the booming compliance market opened the door to something even bigger. Over the course of a dozen years, Avetta and Norwest worked hand in hand to re-engineer the company’s infrastructure and operations for global scale. Together, we brought in new executive leaders, partners, and investors as the company reached higher levels of industry leadership and innovation. By 2024, Avetta was working with 130,000+ contractors and 1.5+ million workers in 36+ languages around the world — leading to an acquisition by EQT.

John Moreland and Jared Smith didn’t need capital. Their contractor screening company, Avetta (then known as PICS Auditing), was profitable and expanding. They’d bootstrapped the company for nearly a decade, scaling fast to build an impressive roster of clients.

At the same time, the landscape was shifting. Workplace safety regulations were becoming more stringent across sectors, especially in the high-risk industries Avetta served — like oil and gas, construction, mining, and more. The demand for reliable contractor compliance solutions was only growing.

Our team at Norwest saw the same opportunity John and Jared did. We also saw plenty of room to scale. By broadening its focus to supply chain compliance management, the company could capture an even bigger market opportunity — and, more importantly, help protect thousands more workers from serious injuries or worse.

Avetta was well-positioned to lead this evolution. Compliance was already baked into its DNA. Still, it would need new tools, processes, management, and technology to reach even greater heights.

For Norwest, earning John and Jared’s trust was the first step. Bringing on outside capital — and value-add support across business development, M&A, hiring, and more — would require more than a pitch. It would take real partnership.

Earning trust through value-added partnership

Our first call with John and Jared came in late 2012. Norwest Managing Partner Jon Kossow laid out the firm’s thesis around compliance-driven technology. He also shared our “invited guest” philosophy: we show up with deep conviction in the founders’ vision and operate with humility, offering insights, resources, and a network of experts only when it’ll move the needle. We assured them we’d tailor our support to match their management style — and work alongside them to help the company reach its next stage of growth.

John and Jared didn’t jump to say yes. They’d spent years building Avetta from the ground up, and accepting outside capital wasn’t something they took lightly. But after eight years of non-stop execution, the idea of partial liquidity, while gaining a long-term growth partner, was compelling.

“One of the reasons we chose Norwest was because they understood our vision and believed in us,” Jared says. Adds John, “Norwest wanted us to keep doing what made the company great.”

We signed a letter of intent and closed just 35 days later.

Scaling Avetta to a global leader in supply chain safety

In the first year of our partnership, we whiteboarded everything from pricing to process improvement to key executive hires and org chart changes. We developed KPIs to assess the health of the business and a benchmark framework for management to achieve best-in-class performance.

Eventually, John and Jared asked Norwest to take a larger stake in the company, seeking more liquidity and trusting us to steward Avetta’s next chapter. With their support, we transitioned leadership to a seasoned operating executive while they remained active as board members and advisors.

In 2015, we helped Avetta land a highly talented new CEO, John Herr, who’d previously worked with us at another Norwest portfolio company.

While re-engineering the company’s infrastructure for scale, we laid the groundwork for its technological road map. The Norwest team helped Avetta:

• Adopt proven SaaS best practices
• Build key data, reseller, and product partnerships
• Bring industry luminaries onto the company’s advisory board and board of directors

Avetta’s growing momentum and energy drew increasing attention from the private equity community. In 2018, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (WCAS) acquired a majority interest alongside additional reinvestment from Norwest. Avetta’s strategic transformation continued. In 2019, Arshad Matin stepped in as CEO to lead Avetta’s next phase of growth—scaling the platform globally, strengthening the leadership team, and transforming it into a one-stop shop for contractor risk management.

Avetta was now working with over 130,000 contractors and 1.5 million workers in more than 36 languages around the globe — making a real difference in workplace safety worldwide.

In 2024, after 12 years of transformative partnership, EQT acquired Avetta to begin a new era of growth.

As our time together drew to a close, we reflected on our shared achievements. By the time of its sale, Avetta’s contractor count had grown by 6X and its employee count by 10X. Revenue had grown by close to 20x, and earnings by over 100X.

“Avetta has saved hundreds, if not thousands, of contractors from severe workplace accidents or even death,” says Jon Kossow. “We have truly done well while doing good.”