Surge Closes Amuze Products and Bar Partners Merger

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Surge Private Equity LLC (“Surge”) announces its investment in Bar Partners, Inc. (“Bar Partners”), a premier vending and amusement company for bars, nightclubs, movie theaters, and other entertainment venues. Bar Partners will merge with Surge’s existing portfolio company, Amuze Products LLC (“Amuze”). The transaction, valued at around $50MM, closed with debt financing provided by Woodforest National Bank and BakerHostetler acting as lead counsel.

The combined entity will service 1,500+ customers across all 50 states and provide 80+ SKUs for end customers. The founders of Bar Partners; Darren Delp, Stephen Lahti, and David Lahti, will retain equity in the consolidated entity and continue to operate the business alongside Amuze founders Phillip Brothers and Shawn Wiser.

Surge’s Founding Partner, Tom Beauchamp, commented on the transaction, “Amuze and Bar Partners have tremendous opportunity to become one of the largest vending operators in the country due to the highly fragmented market. This merger combines the talented operators and resources while also creating product line and end market diversification. With revenues already 28% higher than pre-covid levels and a large backlog of machine placements, the future looks promising.”

About Amuze and Bar Partners

For almost a decade, Amuze has developed proprietary, customized, electronic massage chairs and hurricane simulators featuring in-house live telemetry monitoring and maintenance services primarily for trampoline parks, amusement parks, and truck stops. Bar Partners operates the same model but for other games such as basketball hoops, photobooths, claw machines, Skee-ball, etc. with a heavier presence in bars. Amuze and Bar Partners provide their clients with a hassle and investment-free way to keep their patrons engaged while generating additional revenue from otherwise unused space.

About Surge Private Equity LLC

Surge Private Equity is a Dallas-based private equity firm that typically seeks majority investments in growing businesses with $2-8MM of EBITDA. Together with its lending partners, Surge provides entrepreneurs with liquidity and investors with higher yields and greater accessibility through lower investment minimums. Surge primarily invests in companies where the seller will remain in an ongoing capacity.

About Woodforest National Bank

Woodforest National Bank is a leading privately owned bank that has provided excellent customer service since 1980. Woodforest offers a wide variety of services to their customers and has extensive experience in lending with over $5 billion in loans on their balance sheet. The bank offers loans such as lines of credit and term loans to commercial customers.