General Atlantic invests in Flint Group

General Atlantic made a growth equity investment in Flint Group on 18 August 2023, alongside the existing shareholders, among them Skylight Capital. Founder and chairman Collin Hathaway and chief executive Trevor Flannigan continued to lead the business, and Alan Ferber, an adviser to General Atlantic who had previously run Jackson Hewitt and the residential division of ADT, joined the board. Founded in 2019, Flint Group operates residential service businesses installing and repairing heating and air conditioning systems, plumbing and electrical wiring in private homes. It then comprised seven companies across five markets: Seattle, Portland, Houston, Boston and Denver. The businesses it acquires keep their own names. A household calling about a failed furnace chooses a firm it recognises, and that recognition accumulates over decades of local trading, so replacing it with a national brand would discard what makes the business worth buying. American residential services remain divided among thousands of independent operators, many owned by their founders and reaching retirement without a successor, which supplies the acquisition opportunities and explains why several investors have assembled platforms of this kind over the same period. General Atlantic’s capital was directed at entering further markets, acquiring additional businesses and developing the training, recruitment and systems supporting them. The firm sold its majority holding to Permira in November 2026, by which time the platform comprised twenty brands across fifteen states. Jefferies advised Flint Group and Skylight Capital, with Dorsey & Whitney as legal counsel, while William Blair advised General Atlantic, with Paul Weiss as counsel.