While Democrats prepared for November’s election, which they lost by a landslide, they began wondering whether it was a good idea for a private firm to control their entire voter database, according to The New York Times.
The multinational private equity firm Apax Partners acquired the parent company of NGP VAN — the Democrat Party’s comprehensive voter database — in 2021 and subsequently placed it under subsidiary Bonterra. Just before that, in 2020, a subsidiary of the Financial Investment Corporation had purchased majority ownership of the infamous Arabella Advisors — which controls the American left’s dark money empire. In doing so, Financial Investment Corporation and Apax Partners gained a chokehold on the Democrat Party.
“They’ve seen the houses that the grifters can buy, and they realize how much money there is in lefty political organizing,” Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at the Capital Research Center, told The Federalist. “This is an enormous industry, a multibillion-dollar-per-year industry. So, of course, private equity is going to come in and try to get a piece of it.”
If these companies hypothetically wanted to secure policies to boost their incomes, Thayer said, they could simply pull the rug out from under Democrats ahead of an election.
“The Democrats are absolutely, completely reliant on that stuff,” Thayer said. “If they wanted to, they could make all kinds of bets on oil companies, and then sabotage the Democrats right before midterms.”
Capturing Left-Wing Infrastructure
“If it’s not in VAN, it doesn’t exist” — or so the saying goes among Democrat operatives, according to The New York Times.
The phrase refers to NGP VAN, which “contains billions of records amounting to nearly every piece of information the party has collected about tens of millions of Americans,” according to the Times. This is used by “[v]irtually every Democratic-aligned campaign or group” to “persuade, organize or mobilize voters.”
Apax is a massive, London-headquartered firm that has directed more than $77 billion in funds. In 2021, it acquired NGP VAN’s parent company EveryAction to “be combined” with Social Solutions and CyberGrants. Apax merged these companies, along with the Network for Good, to launch Bonterra, according to its website.
“A British private equity firm being one of the most powerful forces in American politics — something seems wrong with that,” Thayer said.
Early last year, Democrat officials began to internally question Bonterra’s control over NGP VAN, according to the Times, due to layoffs and slower service. They began discussing their nuclear option — a built-in backdoor to capture the party’s data from NGP VAN and move it to another platform. Democrat officials ultimately decided against this out of fear it would “backfire,” and continued allowing Bonterra to control their comprehensive voting database.
Bonterra refers to itself as “the second-largest social good software company in the world.” Bonterra supports 650,000 nonprofits and more than “38 million donors and volunteers,” according to Apax.
Bonterra oversees NGP VAN’s parent organization, EveryAction, a left-wing “fundraising and engagement” service. Mobilize America (which was used to help organize the recent anti-Tesla and “Hands Off” protests) and Action Kit (which helps leftists “supercharge … online organizing, advocacy and fundraising”) joined Bonterra in 2022 as part of NGP VAN. Bonterra is “trusted by leading organizations” including Pfizer (the manufacturer of a widely used Covid-19 vaccine), the NAACP, and Target, according to its website.
“[Bonterra] owns more than 50 percent of the left’s get-out-the-vote, canvassing, text messaging, and calling infrastructure,” Thayer said. “Conceivably, Elon Musk could just show up and buy it and delete NGP VAN. … They have the nuclear option, so they could probably save NGP VAN, but all the rest of the stuff — he could just get rid of it.”
Apax’s creation of Bonterra “[t]ies closely with Apax’s long-standing focus on ESG [environmental, social, and governance],” according to its website. An Apax representative declined to comment on the record. And while The Federalist reached out multiple times, Bonterra did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
According to OpenSecrets, individuals affiliated with Apax Partners have donated more than $95,200 to the DNC Services Corp., more than $45,000 to ActBlue, and $25,000 to “Democratic municipal officials.”
Daniel O’Keefe was a founder and managing partner of Apax Digital — the “growth equity arm of Apax” — from 2016 to 2023. According to Open Secrets, he has given nearly $200,000 to Democrats since 2018.
Buying a Dark Money Empire
Before Apax acquired NGP VAN, Concentric Equity Partners — a subsidiary of the Chicago-based Financial Investments Corporation — had acquired majority ownership of the enormous, left-wing dark money network Arabella Advisors in 2020.
Jennifer Steans, president and CEO of the Financial Investments Corporation, is listed as the “single beneficial owner” of Arabella Advisors LLC, according to Influence Watch. Steans is also chair of Arabella’s board. American Banker named Steans among the “25 Most Powerful Women In Finance” in 2013, and she has given at least $226,000 to Democrats since the 1990s.
Steans’ company, the Financial Investments Corporation, “manages investment commitments of well over $2 billion,” and its subsidiary Concentric Equity Partners is among the “beneficial owners” of Arabella Advisors Holdings, LLC. Concentric Equity Partners “held a majority stake in Arabella” as of January 2023, according to Georgetown University.
Concentric Equity Partners “invested” in Arabella Advisors five years ago because it is a “well-established firm that provides operational and strategic support to philanthropic clients,” an Arabella Advisors representative told The Federalist.
“Arabella is not a political organization. We do not make grants, accept donations, or engage in advocacy or electoral activity. Instead, we offer professional services to a wide range of clients working on diverse issues across the nonprofit sector,” the representative said, claiming the group does “not engage in political activity.”
The Federalist asked if Concentric Equity Partners still owns a majority stake of Arabella, but did not hear back in time for publication.
Arabella became infamous for channeling billions through nonprofits and “pop-up” groups across America to advance leftist causes. The group has five branches: the New Venture Fund, the Hopewell Fund, the Windward Fund, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, and the North Fund. These branches incubate and support smaller groups, which move funding and organize volunteers to accomplish the aims of their anonymous donors.
In 2020, the New Venture Fund gave $24.8 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which funneled $350 million in “Zuckbucks” from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to boost Democrat turnout in the presidential election. And from 2020 to 2021, the New Venture Fund also gave $675,000 to the other “Zuckbucks” group, the leftist Center for Election Innovation and Research. But Arabella’s influence goes far beyond elections. Its branches have given vast sums to support drug legalization, climate legislation, and abortion across the globe.
The largest donor to the Arabella groups is the Gates Foundation, which gave $456 million between 2008 and 2022, according to the Capital Research Center. The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation gave Arabella-affiliated groups close to $28 million in 2020, and the Rockefeller Foundation gave them a total of $15 million, as The Federalist previously reported. The Wyss Foundation — of the Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who earned the nickname the “new George Soros” — helped start an Arabella project to shape pro-Democrat media coverage.
Arabella fired its CEO and laid off 10 percent of its employees in 2023, as The Washington Free Beacon reported at the time. The same year, Bonterra laid off 350 employees. According to Thayer, Democrats are growing uncertain about private firms’ growing hold on the party.
“They’re worried about this,” Thayer said. “It testifies to how much money there is in lefty politics — how much dark money, how much PAC money, how much nonprofit money.”
Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.
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