KKR has agreed to acquire A1 Garage Door Service, a Phoenix, Arizona-based residential garage door repair and replacement company, for around $2 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter. The company, founded in 2007 and now operating in around 20 states, was built by founder and CEO Tommy Mello into one of the largest residential garage door service providers in the United States.
News of the deal was first reported by The Lufkin Daily News, whose report was written by Abigail Summerville, reporting from New York. Both KKR and Cortec Group, which provided growth capital to A1 in 2022, declined to comment on the transaction, and A1 Garage Door Service could not be reached for comment, according to the same account.
Cortec Group Fund VII completed a growth recapitalization of A1 in December 2022, partnering with Mello, who retained a substantial ownership stake and continued running day-to-day operations, according to a statement from Cortec Group. In the years since, A1's growth has been striking: annual revenue climbed from $74 million in 2021 to more than $200 million, while its workforce expanded past 700 employees across 19 states, according to details attributed to Mello's company biography.
A Roll-Up Built on Small Acquisitions
Much of that expansion came through acquisition. A1 has built its footprint by targeting independent garage door operators generating more than $1.5 million in annual revenue and focused on direct-to-consumer residential repair and replacement work, per the company's own description of its acquisition strategy. That approach mirrors a broader private-equity playbook now sweeping fragmented home service trades, where residential services companies tend to have steady cash flows and high values precisely because the markets they operate in are so scattered.
Private equity firms have been on an acquisition spree across residential services more broadly, and the garage door trade specifically has drawn intense competition. In April 2026, middle-market firm Oak Hill Capital acquired Guild Garage Group, a platform founded in 2024 that had aggregated nearly 30 garage door businesses generating $300 million in revenue, for more than $800 million. Valuations for scaled private equity platforms in the garage door and overhead access trade reached historic highs of 12x to 16x EBITDA in 2026, driven by non-discretionary repair demand and target EBITDA margins of 18% to 22%, according to industry data compiled by CT Acquisitions.
KKR's Expanding Home Services Portfolio
The A1 deal would extend KKR's already deep footprint in residential services. KKR entered the sector in 2021 by acquiring Neighborly, a provider and franchiser of home service brands spanning plumbing, pest control, restoration, electrical, cleaning, HVAC and home inspection services. By 2025, Neighborly had grown to generate $4.6 billion in systemwide sales across 28 global brands and 5,500 franchises, according to figures published by the company.
KKR also invested significantly in Groundworks, a foundation repair and water management platform, in 2023 — a deal in which Cortec Group remained a major shareholder, giving the two firms a pre-existing dealmaking relationship ahead of the A1 negotiations. KKR now holds investments in both Neighborly and Groundworks. Notably, Groundworks distributed a $31 million employee dividend to nearly 5,000 workers earlier this year through an Employee Ownership Program launched following KKR's 2023 investment, according to a Business Wire release — a model that raises the open question of whether a similar structure could eventually extend to A1's workforce.
From $50,000 in Debt to a Multibillion-Dollar Deal
Institutional money has poured into home services broadly: roughly 400 private equity firms held stakes in home service or franchised brands by 2025, accounting for 12.4% of active U.S. franchise brands, according to research from ZoomInvestors. A1's own trajectory fits that pattern, but its origin story stands out. Mello launched the company in Phoenix in 2007 while $50,000 in debt, eventually building it into North America's largest independent garage door service provider and later authoring the business guide Home Service Millionaire, according to his company biography.
Whether Mello will remain in the CEO seat once the KKR deal closes, and whether A1's workforce will see anything resembling Groundworks' employee ownership dividend, remain open questions that neither company has addressed publicly. For now, the roughly $2 billion price tag stands as one more marker of how far private equity's appetite for the garage door trade has grown in just a few years.
