Building essential businesses, the operator's way.
Pacific Aspen Partners is an operator-led investment firm that acquires and builds essential industrial and B2B services businesses. As operators and founders ourselves, we bring time, capital, and hands-on expertise to make them stronger.
Get in Touch NowWhat Makes Pacific Aspen Partners Unique?
The Pacific Aspen Approach
| Pacific Aspen | Private Equity | Strategics | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Process | Transparent, flexible, and tailored to your timeline | Months of bureaucracy and due diligence | Complex approval chains and risk of trade secrets exposed |
| Deal Structure | Structured to your needs: full, partial, or phased cash exit | Restrictive, delayed earn-outs common | limited cash and usually stock that could be subject to market risk |
| Transition | Your business is our #1 priority, and we offer flexibility in management transition | Owners are often required to stay long after closing | Management reshuffled; Consolidation leads to layoffs |
| Culture & Legacy | We step in full-time, unlock the potential of the business, so you focus on what you love | Distant oversight; heavy reporting, little hands-on support | Decisions are centralized; autonomy is lost within a larger bureaucracy |
| Growth Strategy | Long-term growth with capital for acquisitions and reinvestment | Short-term value boosts are often rooted in financial engineering | Leadership change or new acquisition may shift focus away from your core customers and services |
| Holding Period | Patient capital: We plan to operate in the long term | 3-5 year exit cycle is standard; the incentive is to exit early | Varies; dependent on corporate priorities and market swings |
Meet the Founders
Jiening Liu
Co-Founder, Managing Partner
Jiening grew up in Zhejiang, China, a region known for its entrepreneurial spirit. Many of his relatives started businesses in textiles, machinery, and winemaking. This culture of ownership influenced him early. Jiening was the first in his family to study abroad and earned his master's in mechanical engineering from Penn State. He then spent six years at Global Resources International, a mid-sized healthcare product manufacturer, working in engineering, sales, and business unit leadership. During this time, he helped double the company's revenue in six years and set up new manufacturing facilities in Alabama, U.S., and Jiaxing, China. Most recently, Jiening worked in program management leadership at Medtronic and Philips. He led the global launch and expansion of new medical devices, doubled production capacity, and improved margins and efficiency by over 50% through a lean transformation. Jiening earned his MBA from The Wharton School, focusing on marketing and operations. He lives in Jacksonville, Florida, and enjoys spending time on the golf course with Maximus as they learn the game together.
Arian Rahbari
Co-Founder, Managing Partner
Arian is a founder and operator with a track record of building and scaling tech-enabled businesses. He founded and leads an apartment-hotel platform, scaling it across 4 assets and $75M in real estate assets with 20+ employees. The company is profitable, with seven-figure EBITDA. Arian owns the full P&L, go-to-market strategy, fundraising, and cross-functional teams spanning product, operations, and revenue. Prior to this, he founded and sold a venture-backed B2B startup. He holds an MBA from Wharton and a degree in Software Engineering from the University of Waterloo.
Investment Criteria
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