Summit Partners Named to Inc.’s 2026 List of Founder-Friendly Investors

Summit Partners is honored to be named to Inc.’s 2026 List of Founder-Friendly Investors. The annual list recognizes private equity, venture capital and debt firms that entrepreneurs identify as strong partners, based on direct feedback from founders who have worked with those firms.

Managing Director Michael Medici was also named one of Inc.’s inaugural Founder Champions. This new recognition, as described by Inc., honors investment professionals with a track record of supporting founder-led companies and building meaningful, lasting partnerships. A member of Summit Partners' Technology Team since 2005, Michael has spent more than two decades partnering with founders and executives leading high-growth technology companies. His experience spans the technology landscape across both the application layer — e-commerce enablement, marketing automation, industrial technology and supply chain — and the infrastructure that supports it, including DevOps and, more recently, AI compute through Summit Partners' 2026 investment in founder-led Runpod.

Since 1984, Summit Partners has had the privilege of collaborating with hundreds of executives and management teams. The firm seeks to invest in category-leading companies in technology, healthcare & life sciences and other growth sectors, offering dedicated resources to support profitable growth.

Founders and executive teams across the Summit Partners portfolio have access on-demand support from our Peak Performance Group, a purpose-built team with expertise across operations, M&A, human capital, capital markets, and AI, technology and data science. Within the group, Summit’s dedicated AI, Technology and Data Science professionals work alongside portfolio companies to support building data infrastructure, developing AI strategy and implementing the organizational shifts involved in deploying AI-driven solutions, topics covered in depth at the firm’s 2026 AI executive events held in Boston and London.

We are grateful to the founders and executives who have chosen Summit as a partner, and we look forward to supporting the next generation of category-leading growth companies.

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Inc.’s 2026 Founder-Friendly Investors list and Founder Champions recognition reflect Inc.’s opinion, not that of Summit Partners. The firm list is based on Inc.’s evaluation of information Summit provided and questionnaires completed by founders of Summit portfolio companies, covering January 2021 through May 2026. Founder Champions is based on Inc.’s evaluation of nominee information Summit provided. Summit submitted nominations for both recognitions and paid a fee in connection with its submissions. There can be no assurance that other providers would reach the same conclusion. References to specific portfolio companies are intended to illustrate Summit's investment experience, are not a recommendation or an indication of past performance, and are not necessarily representative of all investments made by Summit Partners. Full selection methodology and honoree list can be found at www.inc.com/founder-friendly-investors.‍