We look for businesses with real customers, real talent, and real room to compound.
The criteria below describe the shape of business we work best with. We are pragmatic about edges. If you are close, write to us.
Established cash flow with room to compound.
Big enough for real ops work, small enough to remain hands-on.
Businesses where operating throughput is the lever.
We are based in the Twin Cities. We will travel for the right deal.
10 to 100 employees, established customer base, identifiable management talent.
Control or partnership with independent sponsors. Open to creative structures that serve the business.
What earns our attention
- + Recurring or repeat customer revenue
- + Identifiable operating slack we can take out without firing the team
- + A seller or sponsor who wants the business to be better after the transaction
- + Clean financials, even if they are simple
- + A real reason this business exists and a real reason customers stay
What we will pass on quickly
- — Single-customer concentration above forty percent without a path to fix it
- — B2C home services
- — Brand-only roll-ups with no operating cohesion underneath
- — Distress where the right answer is restructuring, not operations
- — Businesses that have already had three failed sale processes
Bring us deals you would not run yourself.
We respond inside a business day. We will tell you no with a reason, not silence. When we say yes, we move on credible indications inside a week.
Send us a dealA short note, once or twice a month, on what we are seeing in lower-middle-market acquisitions.
We publish a few longer pieces a year and shorter field notes in between. No marketing copy. Sectors, deal patterns, operating tactics, and where AI is and is not earning its keep yet inside lower-middle-market portfolios.
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