Culper Capital Partners’ Adam Cook Named 2026 Dealmaker of the Year
Recognition follows transformative PolyCraft Tech add-on acquisition that cemented Innova Engineered Plastics’ market leadership
Culper Capital Partners, a lower-middle-market private equity firm focused on building category-defining manufacturing platforms, today announced that Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer Adam Cook has been named the 2026 Dealmaker of the Year, presented by Smart Business Network at the Middle-Market M&A Conference held at the New York Athletic Club on June 4, 2026. The award recognizes Cook’s leadership in sourcing, structuring, and executing the acquisition of PolyCraft Tech, a strategic add-on for Culper’s portfolio company Innova Engineered Plastics (innova-plastics.com).
The PolyCraft transaction, which closed in August 2025, delivered the final capability set needed to complete Innova’s vertically integrated manufacturing platform: cast urethane. With PolyCraft fully integrated, Innova is now the only plastic enclosure manufacturer in the industry offering eight in-house manufacturing processes — CNC machining, 3D printing, cast urethane, vacuum thermoforming, pressure thermoforming, reaction injection molding, structural foam, and injection molding. Where most competitors offer only one or two manufacturing modalities and force their tooling to fit the customer, Innova’s engineering team can now take a genuinely bespoke approach — specifying the right process for the right application — and, just as important, the right cost for the customer’s specific volume and mix profile, whether the driver is tolerance, lead time, material performance, or unit economics at the volume that actually ships. The result is a level of design flexibility that has positioned Innova as the partner of choice for OEMs in medical device, aerospace, and robotics end-markets, where engineering rigor and supply-chain certainty are non-negotiable.
Under Culper’s ownership, Innova has executed a disciplined growth-equity playbook: building out a technical sales organization capable of engaging customers at the design phase, standing up a near-shore manufacturing facility in Mexicali to deliver USMCA-compliant cost competitiveness, and executing a focused M&A program. PolyCraft itself has been a standout contributor — the business has grown EBITDA 82% since Culper acquired it in August 2025, the product of operational professionalization, immediate cross-sell traction across Innova’s customer base, and disciplined reinvestment.
“The PolyCraft acquisition was instrumental for Innova,” said Cook. “In close partnership with management, we were able to professionalize the business, unlock immediate cross-selling opportunities across our combined customer base, and reinvest aggressively behind a clear strategic vision. The more durable outcome is a platform that is now structurally advantaged in end-markets we believe will compound for years, with an engineering team that can match the right process to the right volume, mix, and cost profile — from high-volume injection molding programs down to the low-volume, high-mix work where cast urethane is the right answer.”
The recognition reinforces Culper Capital Partners’ reputation as a thoughtful, operationally engaged sponsor in the lower-middle market, with a demonstrated ability to convert sector insight and management partnership into measurable value creation.
About Culper Capital Partners Culper Capital Partners is a middle-market private equity firm investing in solutions-based advanced manufacturing businesses that serve regulated and critical end-markets. The firm partners with management teams to build category leaders through organic growth, operational excellence, and strategic add-on acquisitions.
