A recent McKinsey report puts the stakes of the Great Ownership Transition in stark terms. By 2035, roughly 6 million small and medium-size businesses will face ownership transitions as baby boomers retire. More than 1 million are viable candidates for sale or employee ownership, representing up to $5 trillion in enterprise value. Most will not go to employees — not because the opportunity isn’t there, but because the ownership transition market remains fragmented and undersupported. The chance to build broad-based wealth for working people gets bypassed in the process.
It doesn’t have to be that way. The capital exists. The policy environment is shifting. A growing number of sophisticated investors are paying attention to employee ownership as a private markets strategy with competitive financial returns and compelling social outcomes.
A first generation of EO funds has proven the model. Now the field needs more of them. But capital and interest, on their own, are not enough. Employee ownership is a two-sided market, and the supply side — the investment platforms that originate, structure and close EO transactions — needs help to keep pace with demand. That is the structural gap the Employee Ownership Fund Accelerator is designed to close.
From $1 billion to $10 billion
Ownership Capital Lab’s EO Capital Roadmap — developed with more than 150 investors and field leaders — sets out a clear ambition: $1.5 billion mobilized in the near term, $10 billion by 2040, $100 billion and beyond over the long horizon, with the potential for these targets to be beat with key policy levers unlocking significantly more capital.
Reaching these targets requires progress across multiple fronts simultaneously. One critical piece is building the supply side. Investors who want exposure to employee ownership need platforms that are investment-ready for their type of capital — whether that’s a family office seeking risk-adjusted private credit returns or a foundation deploying catalytic capital into underserved markets. Without enough of those platforms, investor interest has nowhere to go — and the whole marketplace stays stuck.
Ownership Capital Lab has invested in building the investor side through the EO Investors’ Circle, the EO Capital Roadmap Roadshow and direct LP education. The Accelerator is the complementary investment in the platform side. The two are designed to connect: Participants gain visibility with investors Ownership Capital Lab has spent years cultivating, while investors gain access to a curated pipeline of emerging platforms.
Why EO platforms need dedicated support
Employee ownership as an investment strategy is maturing. There is now a recognizable landscape: private credit and mezzanine funds delivering competitive risk-adjusted returns, CDFIs and nonprofit funds raising catalytic capital, and emerging innovations like holding companies, independent sponsor platforms and evergreen vehicles. What looked like a niche a decade ago has become a credible, still-emerging investment arena.
But field-level momentum doesn’t automatically translate into success for individual managers. In our experience working across this ecosystem — with Alison leading Ownership Capital Lab’s work to mobilize capital into employee ownership and Michael supporting emerging fund managers through Catalyze’s Fund Fellowship — we see the same constraints repeatedly. They include limited access to aligned investors, operational complexity that can divert manager attention from deal-making, and a challenge that EO shares with other specialized fields: Doing this work well requires expertise that goes beyond the financial.
Just as solar financing requires strong solar implementation, EO investing requires fluency in culture change, worker governance and ownership transition. Without support on both dimensions — the fund side and the EO implementation side — the field risks growing in volume without maintaining its integrity of impact.
What has been missing is dedicated infrastructure built specifically for EO investment platforms, rather than adapted from generic emerging manager programs.
The Employee Ownership Fund Accelerator
The Employee Ownership Fund Accelerator is a tuition-free, nine-month program co-designed by Ownership Capital Lab and Catalyze for EO capital entrepreneurs — fund managers, holding companies, independent sponsors and managers of other capital vehicles — actively building platforms to finance broad-based employee ownership. Because the EO capital market is not at a cookie-cutter stage of development, personalized one-on-one engagement is central to the design.
Catalyze’s Fund Fellowship has supported first-time fund managers across venture capital, private equity and private credit, with fellows citing access to tactical knowledge, LP and service provider introductions and pitch refinement as transformative. The EO Fund Accelerator applies that proven model to a sector with its own distinct dynamics — one where managers must simultaneously educate investors on an emerging strategy, structure specialized transactions and demonstrate impact rigor that conventional LP frameworks weren’t built to evaluate.
The inaugural 2026–2027 cohort of eight to 10 platforms will receive peer learning sessions, customized one-on-one strategic support, investor visibility through Ownership Capital Lab’s EO Investors’ Circle and EO Fund Spotlight series, and operational tools built specifically for EO strategies.
Building capacity ahead of policy breakthroughs
The case for field infrastructure becomes more urgent when you consider what a significant policy win could mean. Legislation like the American Ownership and Resiliency Act — and state-level policy breakthroughs like the Illinois Employee Ownership Development Fund — have the potential to unlock substantial new capital flows. But policy only creates opportunity. Capturing it requires plumbing already in place: platforms with the operational readiness to absorb new deal flow, LP networks to move capital quickly, and EO implementation knowledge to ensure transitions actually work for workers.
The Accelerator is one piece of that infrastructure. And infrastructure is repurposable. The cohort model, the investor network connections and the operational frameworks built through this program are assets that can be directed toward policy implementation as the landscape evolves.
Who should apply
The program is for US-focused platforms in early-stage fund or investment platform formation that are actively raising outside capital to invest in or finance broad-based employee ownership. We use the term “capital entrepreneurs:” Independent sponsor models, evergreen funds and holding companies are all potential fits. The non-negotiable is a platform structured for multiple, repeating transactions that center worker wealth creation.
Applications are open through July 19 and take 15 to 30 minutes. A live Q&A on June 24 is available for those who want to learn more first.
The field is building momentum. The next generation of managers who will help define it are planning, raising and building right now. This program is built for them.
Alison Lingane is the founder and CEO of Ownership Capital Lab. Michael Belles is the co-founder and director of program and partnerships of Catalyze.
Disclosure: Ownership Capital Lab and Catalyze are co-designers and co-operators of the Employee Ownership Fund Accelerator.
Guest posts on ImpactAlpha represent the opinions of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of ImpactAlpha.
