Quarterline & Rock is a South Bend investment firm. We buy local businesses and hold them for the long term, and we help local professionals become owners.
Most businesses that change hands are bought to be sold again, often by owners far away. Local Equity works differently.
We don’t sell on a timeline, so a business never has to change hands again because a fund is ending.
The businesses stay owned and run by people who live here, so profits and decisions stay here too.
When a business needs a new leader, we help prepare one from the region.
When a strong team is already running the business, we become its permanent owner. When the owner is also the one running it day to day, we back a local professional to buy it and run it.
More about The Local FundThinking about what comes next for your business? Our guide walks through the options, and we’re glad to talk.
See the guideWant to buy and run a local business? The Owner-Operator Course is eleven weeks, one-on-one, alongside your job.
About the CourseInterested in investing in the region’s businesses? We’d welcome a conversation.
Talk with usWhen their businesses are bought by someone outside the region, ownership, profits and decisions leave with them.
Source: Indiana Business Research Center, Indiana’s “Silver Tsunami”: Revenue at Stake from Aging Businessowners (prepared for the Indiana Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, March 2026).
20+ years in private equity, executive search, and Fortune 500 operations. Board Chair, South Bend–Elkhart Regional Partnership. Vanderbilt and London School of Economics graduate.
LinkedIn15+ years in investment and operational strategy. Co-founder of INVANTI, a venture capital studio and investment firm. Three-time Notre Dame graduate.
LinkedIn15+ years in place-based economic development and institutional capital deployment. Led the $170M LIFT Initiative at the University of Notre Dame. M.Phil, Cambridge; double Domer.
LinkedInExecutive Director, Notre Dame iNDustry Labs. 8 years in venture capital and private equity. Former COO of a global nonprofit. Ph.D., Notre Dame; B.S., Duke.
LinkedInEach issue takes on a specific question about capital and place: how it flows, who captures the value, and what shapes the outcome.
Growth in population, output, and income are the BMI of a local economy: measures of size that say little about composition. Two places can post the same growth and same per capita income while one builds and retains value locally and the other’s equity, earnings, and decisions sit elsewhere.
Read Issue 002Whether you’re an owner weighing what comes next, or someone who wants to see local capital stay local, we’d welcome a conversation.
Start a conversation