NEW YORK, March 11 — Independent Sponsor News (“ISN”) today announced its official launch as a dedicated media and data platform built exclusively for the U.S. Independent Sponsor ecosystem. Established by a group of industry stakeholders, including Access Holdings, an alternative asset manager located in New York and Baltimore with deep roots in the Independent Sponsor model, ISN fills a long-standing gap as a centralized, real-time source of market intelligence for Independent Sponsors, capital providers, advisors, and service providers, serving some of the most active investors in American small and mid-sized businesses.
The Independent Sponsor segment has undergone a remarkable transformation. What began as a niche ‘fundless sponsor’ model has evolved into a material and mainstream element of lower-to-middle market private equity and broader private markets. Independent Sponsors now represent approximately 27% of all closed deals on the Axial platform alone, the largest share of any single buyer category. According to data from Houlihan Lokey, the global direct equity market has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 52.8% since 2019. Citrin Cooperman’s 2025 Independent Sponsor Report found that 74% of Independent Sponsors expect competition in the sector to increase further in 2026. These are strong signals that the segment is entering its institutional prime.
Despite this growth and economic significance, the Independent Sponsor ecosystem has remained largely data scarce, with a lack of consistent, real-time data for deal flow, capital formation, LP trends, or sector development. An annual calendar of U.S. industry conferences like McGuireWoods’ draws thousands of attendees and generates significant deal activity but provides only a point-in-time snapshot of a market that moves daily.
ISN forms the connective tissue between media and data, purpose-built for the way Independent Sponsors source deals, capital, and advisors.
Mark Kollar, Partner at Prosek Partners, commented on the launch of ISN: “The evolution of niche asset classes and market segments are increasingly creating the need for highly specialized data and media platforms to help ensure that the proper depth and breadth of coverage exists to move the Independent Sponsor sector forward. I am delighted to be a part of ISN’s advisory committee and launch and look forward to helping support its growth.”
ISN was conceived by Access Holdings, and is Chaired by Sam Tidswell-Norrish, who joined Access in 2025 as a Partner following a decade as part of the founding team at private equity firm Motive Partners, the investment firm whose funds invested in With Intelligence until its recent sale to S&P Global, and where he also had an operational leadership role as EVP & CMO at portfolio company Dun & Bradstreet. Beyond private markets, Tidswell-Norrish has been involved in the formation of several niche new media platforms serving various segments, including entrepreneurs and Chiefs of Staff.
“The Independent Sponsor market is increasingly sophisticated and operationally intensive, but information asymmetry is acute,” says Sam Tidswell-Norrish, Chair of ISN, and Partner at Access Holdings. “As this stakeholder group grows and contributes to significant deal volume, we want to bring news, data and institutional-grade partners to support the industry in its evolution, delivering the media and intelligence platform this ecosystem cannot operate without.”
ISN operates as a standalone, self-funded business, editorially and financially independent from its strategic partners. The selective strategic partners underpinning the launch of ISN include Access Holdings (investment partner), BluWave (value creation partner) and Capitala Group (investment partner).
ISN’s Advisory Board includes Ed Stubbings (Founder of the Global Emerging Manager Institute), Kevin McAllister (Founder & Managing Partner of Access Holdings), Mark Kollar (Partner at Prosek Partners), and Maxwell Greenstein (Founder & CEO of GP Stakes News).
“Before we raised an institutional fund, we navigated the Independent Sponsor journey without a map,” says Kevin McAllister, Founder & Managing Partner of Access Holdings. “There was no consistent source of data, research, or insight, and no network you could easily connect with. We built Access despite that environment, and we saw firsthand how much harder that process was than it needed to be. ISN is the resource I wish we had then.”
ISN’s strategic partners have been selected based on deep operating expertise across legal, advisory, capital provision, public relations, and communications, value creation, tax & audit, and data & analytics.
ISN launches this week across its website, newsletter, and LinkedIn, with near-term plans to have coverage spanning deal and capital raising activity, original proprietary research, and ecosystem intelligence. The platform’s roadmap extends well beyond news aggregation: a real-time market intelligence layer and research marketplace are already in development, alongside a planned annual recognition program to celebrate Independent Sponsors’ contribution to North American business and economic growth.
A well-informed Independent Sponsor market is one that allocates capital more efficiently and produces the kind of durable, employment-generating growth that reaches well beyond the deal table. The lower and middle market is the backbone of the economy and ISN is here to strengthen it and the standard against which it intends to be measured.
