Investing

in the Irreplaceable.

Willoughby Capital acquires and invests in founder-owned defense businesses whose products are designed into the platforms America depends on — companies protected by qualification, certification, and decades of earned trust.

CONTACT

THE STRATEGY — MISSION CRITICAL

The moat is qualification.

The most durable businesses in American defense are not the primes. They are the small, founder-owned suppliers whose components, processes, and intellectual property are designed into named platforms — qualified over decades, protected by certification and switching costs, and invisible to the market. Once a part is qualified on a fielded program, replacing it costs the government years and millions.

That qualification is the moat. It does not show up on a balance sheet, and it does not compete on price.

The generation that built these companies is reaching the end of its run — most without a succession plan, nearly all without ever speaking to a banker. They will not appear in an auction. The only way in is directly, founder to principal, before a process exists.

100%

FOUNDER-DIRECT ORIGINATION

1,500+

COMPANIES ENGAGED & TRACKED

6

ACTIVE SOURCING CAMPAIGNS

0

AUCTION PROCESSES

WHAT “MISSION CRITICAL” MEANS

The customer cannot easily leave.

Every company we pursue shares one property: the customer cannot easily leave.

Sole-source positions

Qualified Products List status

Patented fielded technology

NADCAP / AS9100 / ITAR credentials

Decades of program tenure

Small companies. Outsized strategic position. Revenue defended by qualification and tenure, not price.

THE CRITERIA

What Willoughby Capital looks for.

  • Ownership

    Founder- or family-owned. U.S.-based operations. First institutional transaction.

  • Scale

    Lower middle market — or strategic intellectual property with fielded-platform lock.

  • Moat

    Sole-source or QPL position, patented technology, program tenure, NADCAP / AS9100 / ITAR qualification.

  • Sectors

    Precision manufacturing, avionics and electronic warfare, naval MRO, counter-UAS, propulsion, interconnect, special processes, cleared government services.

  • Discipline

    Every entry underwritten to verified earnings — documented, at market rents, with concentration priced in.

THE PRINCIPAL

Grant Willoughby

Grant Willoughby is the founder of Willoughby Capital and Willoughby Industrial, working exclusively with founder-owned aerospace and defense businesses in the American lower middle market. He works at the founder level — sourcing, qualifying, underwriting, and managing every relationship personally — and flies his own aircraft nationwide to meet owners where they are: at the plant, on the shop floor, not across a conference table.

FOR FOUNDERS

Every conversation is held in absolute confidence, and nothing about your company is shared with anyone without your written agreement.

CONTACT

WILLOUGHBY CAPITAL

Contact details:
grant@willoughby.capital
310.482.7441
5835 Tulakes Ave., Hangar 5, Suite 4
Bethany, OK 73008