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

The annual list recognizes private equity, venture capital, and lending firms with strong track records of supporting founder-led businesses

DENVER, CO, UNITED STATES, October 28, 2026 - Rallyday Partners has been named to Inc.'s 2026 Founder-Friendly Investors list, which recognizes private equity firms, venture capital firms, and lenders with demonstrated track records of supporting founder-led companies. This year's list recognizes Rallyday Partners among 294 firms across the investment landscape.

The prestigious Founder-Friendly Investors list celebrates the investors and firms that work closely with entrepreneurs and remain engaged with the businesses they back. Honorees are recognized for their approach to partnering with founders and supporting their companies through growth and beyond.

"With the current funding environment and rapid changes facing growing companies, founders are looking for more than just capital from their investors. They want true partners who believe in their business, but who are also able to provide the critical advisement and strategic support they need to reach their potential," says Bonny Ghosh, editorial director at Inc. "The 2026 Founder-Friendly Investor awards celebrate those firms - the ones committed to partnership, excellence, and helping founder-led companies grow."

"As founders and operators ourselves, we know how personal it is to choose a partner for a business you've built," said Ryan Heckman, CEO of Rallyday Partners. "We created Rallyday to be the partner we wished we'd had when we were running our own companies. The team at Rallyday and its approach is designed to help founders and their teams thrive as they continue to scale their companies."

In May, Rallyday partnered with Greg Merrell, Co-founder of Simplistic, a Colorado-based agentic commerce consultancy and Shopify Plus Platinum partner, marking the first platform investment in Rallyday's third fund. The partnership reflects Rallyday's approach to backing founder-led businesses with creative, financial, experiential, and human capital, all in service to building the company of their dreams.

That approach takes shape through the Rallyday Accelerator Program (RAP), a six-month immersive program that every portfolio company completes after forming the partnership with Rallyday. Working alongside the leadership team, the program creates blueprints for organizational purpose, strategy, culture and leadership development for all levels of the company. This foundational work establishes the stepping stones to significant personal and organizational growth.

To compile the Founder-Friendly Investors list, Inc. went straight to the source: entrepreneurs who have sold to private equity and venture capital firms. Founders completed questionnaires about their experiences partnering with private equity, venture capital, and debt firms and shared data on how their companies have performed during these partnerships. The resulting list highlights investors that founders identified as strong partners throughout the investment process.

For more information or to view the complete list of honorees, visit https://www.inc.com/founder-friendly-investors.

About Rallyday Partners

Rallyday Partners® is a Denver-based private equity firm that was built by successful entrepreneurs to provide a better way of serving the aspirations of emerging companies and their leaders. Rallyday's purpose is to empower leaders to go even bigger, create the most value for the most people, and share in the experience of a lifetime. Drawing upon its four sources of capital - creative, financial, experiential, and human capital - the firm's 'by founders for founders' approach provides an alternative to traditional private equity. More information regarding Rallyday Partners® is available at rallydaypartners.com.