What 199 growth moves at 69 investor-backed companies show
I keep a file of investor-backed companies and the growth moves they make: a new country, a new channel, a new category, an acquisition. This month every move in it was checked against a public source and given a date. The file now holds 69 companies and 199 moves. Here is what it shows, and what it cannot show.
116 of 199 moves are confirmed
I count a move as confirmed when a dated public source shows it has happened, is under way or has been announced. That is 116 of 199.
The other 83 are less solid. 21 exist only as an aim on a company or investor page, with no date and no step taken. 24 are partly supported. 32 are my own hypotheses about a next move, and nothing public supports them yet. Six went the other way.
Countries are promised. Channels are opened.
64 moves involve a new country. 21 are done or under way. 26 are still a promise: 16 announced and 10 stated as an aim.
53 moves change the channel: own stores, a retail listing, a marketplace, B2B. 28 are done or under way and 14 are still a promise.
My reading is that a channel move can start with one retailer and one launch date. A country needs people, stock and a local entity, so it stays on the slide for longer.
When a move goes the other way, it is usually a country
Six moves went against the plan on file. In three, a foreign market was closed, is no longer named by the company, or is running at a loss. In one, the company bought out its distributors and went direct. One venue closed and one brand was dropped.
Four of the six involve a new country. That fits something I see often: sales travel before the economics do.
The first two years carry the action
Where the investor arrived in 2025 or 2026, about seven in ten moves are confirmed. Where the investor arrived in 2022 or earlier, it is about four in ten, and more than half of the undated aims sit there.
That is not a criticism of long holds. Some of those companies have simply done what they set out to do. But a growth thesis that has not produced a dated step by year three is worth a second look.
What public sources cannot show
32 moves are about organisation: who runs the new market, what gets built centrally, what stays local. Nine are done or under way on public evidence. Eleven have no public evidence at all, the highest share of any kind of move.
Whether a company has the people and the structure to carry a move is the part you cannot read from outside. It takes the organisation chart, the P&L by market and a few conversations. That is the work an Expansion Review does.
How to read this
These are companies I track because their growth moves interest me. They are not a market sample. The counts describe this file and say nothing certain about private equity as a whole.
The research is outside-in and AI-assisted, and it uses public sources only. Most of the companies are live, so I do not publish them by name. Five moves that have fully played out are in the growth-move library, and the full counts are on the database page.