Sarasota startup capital firm co-founder helps raise $100M for clients

As a finance student at Florida State University, Alexander Ronzino had what may seem to be a fairytale college career — he founded a marketing startup as a sophomore and, within a year, the company was acquired.

“I thought, this is the path for me,” he says. “Then I started working on my next company, kind of with the delusion that it would be as easy as the first one.” 

Photo by Mark Wemple

He was in a sense delusional — it wasn’t as easy. But the payoff with the current entity he founded, Rework Capital, has made the highs and lows worth it.

When he left another company he had helped launch, Coalition Recovery, during the pandemic, Ronzino thought it was a good time to take a break. He and his wife had had their first daughter, and he wasn’t sure what was next. But it took only a few weeks of daily walks and listening to Audible to realize that he needed to work. So he joined a networking group, where he met Hugh Sawyer, a long-time executive who had started a financial planning company that was then sold to American Express. 

At lunch with Sawyer came the lightbulb moment — they could co-found a company together. From there, Rework Capital was born, with two dual purposes: early-stage venture capital and a portfolio of services businesses that include a consulting firm, leadership consulting and a tax firm. Sawyer also became a key mentor for Ronzino. 

“The idea of the company in a nutshell is that we can surround a founder or a growing company, help them to scale and then ultimately help them to exit,” Ronzino says.

Founded in 2023, Ronzino and Sawyer have grown the company from one client to more than 300. Last year, Rework raised $102 million for its clients, made six investments, and closed $72 million in transactions. That includes facilitating an acquisition for one client with Yeti in a deal last fall, when the $2 billion cooler and tumbler company bought Charlotte County-based Helimix for $38 million. (Rework represented Helimix.)

Sawyer, Ronzino says, has taught him to see how seeing “people before processes” over the long-term can lead to better outcomes and deals. Counsel like that also fosters an ability to bridge the granular with visionary thinking at the firm, Ronzino says, which helps make Rework stand out. 

“Everybody on the team has a background that enables them to be able to get their hands dirty, do the dirty work, get things done,” Ronzino says, ”but also look and see, What’s the big picture? Where are we taking the company?”