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At the 2026 Serial Acquirer Conference, we hosted Frankie Costa–previously CEO of Alpine-backed Orion Group and Helios Services Partners. We’ve already wrote about Evergreen, a ~decade old MSP rollup platform sponsored by Alpine. So we thought we’d delve into a more recent platform: Mosaic Services Partners.
State of Play
Alpine Investors launched Mosaic Service Partners in November 2025, a consolidation platform for the window and door replacement industry.
But it’s not Alpine’s first rodeo in home services. Alpine’s had massive success in:
Apex Service Partners (HVAC/plumbing/electrical, 107 brands, $1.3B revenue, $3.4B continuation fund in 2023); and
Vertex Service Partners (roofing/exterior, $600M+ revenue, 30 acquisitions in 2.5 years).
While it is too early to tell if Mosaic will be just as successful, one thing is for certain: this industry is ripe for consolidation.
If you’re a home services acquirer looking for the next thesis, you are going to want to tune in. Let’s dive in.
First, Industry Overview
The window and door replacement industry is not a complicated industry, but it’s helpful to set the context here:
The Market:
The U.S. window installation contractor industry is a $6.7 billion market in 2025. After a modest decline through 2020–2023 due to COVID and interest rates, it resumed growth and is forecasted to reach $7.4 billion by 2030.
Source: IBIS
Structural Underpinnings:
Demand is structurally underpinned by housing age. The median U.S. owner-occupied home is 42 years old, with 48% of the housing stock built before 1980. Windows carry a 20–30 year replacement cycle, meaning a massive cohort of homes is overdue for replacement regardless of discretionary budgets.
Asset Light-ish:
This is an installation-driven industry, not manufacturing. Contractors source finished windows from manufacturers, bundling product with labor into a single price.
Ticket Size:
Average tickets run $750–$1,500 per window, with a standard 10–12 window project generating $8,000–$15,000 per job.
This is a local service business with embedded product cost. While this isn’t a high organic growth industry, there will be continued demand from overdue replacement cycles and more than enough inorganic growth opportunities.
Case Study: Mosaic Service Partners
Before diving into the investment thesis, let’s quickly touch on the progress Mosaic has made in the last 9 months since launch.
Date | Event | What Happened |
Jul 2025 | Window Experts: Houston | Mosaic's first acquisition closes July 2025 — The Window Experts (f/k/a Houston Window Experts), founded by Jeff Ludy, serving greater Houston. Brand name preserved; Ludy continues local operations. |
Nov 2025 | Platform launch; three partners announced | Alpine formally launches Mosaic Service Partners on November 10, 2025. CEO Josh Feinberg (ex-CSO ABM Industries; BCG MD/Partner 2007–2019; Wharton MBA) leads alongside Head of M&A Brian Willis, CFO Sean Gillick, and SVP Operations Abhinav Ramani — all part of Alpine's talent ecosystem. |
Nov 2025 | Windows on Washington joins | Founded 2005 by Eric and Tara Novotny in Sterling, Virginia. Known for energy-saving solutions and a transparency-first reputation. Novotny name and brand retained. |
Nov 2025 | Weather Tite: Tampa Bay | Founded by Mike Hollander. Bootstrapped from a $7,000 franchise buyout to $19M in revenue. 23rd-largest U.S. remodeler per Qualified Remodeler. Exclusive PGT Diamond status dealer. Hollander cited Mosaic providing "a lasting home for his life's work" — a seller motivation the platform systematically targets. |
2026+ | Active pipeline; national expansion | As of Q1 2026, Mosaic operates across Houston TX, Tampa Bay FL, and the D.C. metro, and is actively acquiring additional regional operators. |
The deliberate choice to preserve local brands isn't accidental. In local services businesses, the trust between the local operator and the homeowner is the business. Often, if the touch points with consumers get corporatized, the business suffers (we will share a cautionary tale at the end).
Investment Thesis
There's definitely a consolidation angle here. Let’s walk through why.
1. Structure Tailwind from Aging Homes
The math is pretty simple: 48% of U.S. homes were built before 1980, windows last 20–30 years, and a lot of those windows haven't been replaced yet. Yes, higher interest rates suppress the discretionary remodel market. But window replacement is often not a luxury–a leaky 40-year-old window doesn't care about the Fed funds rate.
Source: Apollo
2. Fragmentation
This is where it gets interesting.
There are 25,194 window installation businesses in the U.S. as of 2025 (IBISWorld). It’s extremely fragmented across many key stats.
Metric | Stat |
Total U.S. Businesses | 25,194 |
Total Employees | 41,236 |
Average Revenue / Business | ~$266,000 |
Average Employees / Business | ~2 |
3. Pricing Opportunity & Economies of Scale
Window and door product costs have skyrocketed since COVID, but most mom-and-pop operators have been slow to pass those costs along to customers. That's a pricing opportunity for consolidators.
Source: U.S. BLS
On top of that, very small operators buy retail from Lowe's or Home Depot. A platform with consolidated purchasing can go direct to wholesale, cutting material costs meaningfully. That's a structural margin advantage that compounds as the platform scales.
Here's what an illustrative P&L could look like before and after acquisition:
That's roughly a 2x EBITDA from going standalone to platform. Revenue grows, costs compress, and the bottom line expands dramatically. The math works.
4. Multiple Arbitrage
The exit math here is compelling. Looking across comparable home services, there’s a clear multiple arbitrage opportunity:
Source: Peak Business Valuation, The Deal Sheet, KPMG Corporate Finance, Founder’s Advisors
Buy at 4-6x. Build the platform. Exit at 10–15x. That's the arbitrage.
5. Operational Value Add
This might be the most underappreciated part of the thesis. Most operators in this industry run on pen-and-paper quoting, no CRM, manual scheduling, word-of-mouth lead generation, and no real-time P&L visibility. Mosaic explicitly markets technology, sales training, and standardized proposal tools as platform benefits.
Area | Add-Ons | Platform |
Quoting | Pen-and-paper | Standardized tools |
CRM | None | Centralized system |
Scheduling | Manual | Software-enabled |
Marketing | Word-of-mouth | Scaled digital |
Financials | Annual tax prep | Real-time visibility |
While this is a less "recurring services” (i.e., 20-30 year cycles vs. AC breaking every summer), there’s a clear consolidation thesis here.
This article is also sponsored by TechCredit Partners: your trusted debt advisor. It’s 2026: don't DIY debt. Focus on what you’re really good at.
Looking Ahead
it's too early to tell whether Mosaic will be a success. But based on our research, there is a real consolidation and value creation opportunity here.
Execution won't be easy, and history has a warning worth heeding.
The Encompass Cautionary Tale
The 1990s gave us a warning that every home services consolidator should know by heart.
Year | Event | What Happened |
1996 | GroupMAC begins aggressive HVAC roll-up | Group Maintenance America Corp. launches a national roll-up of HVAC contractors. Sellers get paid in stock and cash at inflated valuations. Stock price appreciation keeps seller enthusiasm high. |
2000 | GroupMAC + Building One → Encompass | The two merge to form Encompass Services Corp. — briefly the second-largest electrical/mechanical contractor in the U.S. at $4B+ in revenue. The Encompass logo is imposed on all acquired local units. |
2000–02 | Brand imposition triggers owner exodus | Local operators saw the changes as "meddling by the corporate parent into the business of long-successful, privately run contractors that had been promised autonomy" (Engineering News-Record). Original owners — the revenue-generating human assets — walk and buy their businesses back. |
Nov 2002 | Chapter 11: $1.76B in debts | Encompass files for bankruptcy. Total assets: $1.23B. Total debts: $1.76B. NYSE suspends trading. Stock becomes worthless. |
2003 | Sold back for pennies | Residential division sold to Wellspring Capital for just $40M — a fraction of what was paid. Most units sold back to the original founders. Encompass emerges from bankruptcy as Residential Services Group with $300M in revenue, roughly 10% of its peak. |
The lesson is simple: in local home services, the trusted name on the truck and the people driving it is the product. Strip it away and you destroy the very thing you paid for: the owner's local reputation, installer relationships, and referral network.
Mosaic's brand-preservation model, retaining local names, local leadership, and local identity, is a direct response to the Encompass failure.
I'll be watching this one closely. If you are pursuing a windows and doors roll-up, or have thoughts on what Mosaic is building, respond to this email with your thoughts!
Any topics I should cover next? Share thoughts with [email protected]
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