M&A Deal Services
Services & Core Competencies
Fast, Personalized Service
From our initial dialog until the day we pop the champagne and close, our team is with you every single step of the way – never leaving you to make decisions on your own. We believe in controlling each and every aspect of every deal we work on. This ensures that our clients receive the very best valuation and structure when selling their business, but as important, it ensures that our clients always have a team of highly trained advisors with them through each step of the process to answer questions, negotiate terms and be the advocate in the room.
We work fast, we’re aggressive, we push hard – and if a deal begins to fall apart (it happens in M&A), we’ll be in your corner to fix the issue and keep the deal going. This all keeps deal momentum moving toward a quick and efficient close.
Team-Based Approach
ValleyBiggs operates much like a law firm: Our principals stay highly involved with deal intermediaries throughout the process. This ensures our clients get the highest levels of experience, competence and capability from Day 1 through closing, but more importantly, it ensures that our intermediaries are never working in a silo on a deal. It is important to this firm that every client receive the benefit of a full team of highly skilled people working on their deal, not just one person. With a full team by your side, you will be able to better understand best practices at each stage of the deal process, have multiple points of view when making decisions, and never having to wait to get answers.
Consultation & Coaching
We assist business owners in preparing their business for sale. That includes identifying opportunities for value-increasing improvements, the creation of financial models to match market valuation, and ensuring that financials and forward projections are clean and ready for analysis. In addition, we prepare owners to ace initial buyer/seller conversations. There are some clients that we coach for many years before they ultimately go to market – and we would never think to charge them a dime for this help. In our view, the more help we give to our fellow entrepreneurs, the more they are likely to love us and refer us to their friends and family. That long approach is worth far more than retainers and up front fees. For us – we only have one revenue source – closing deals.
Exit Strategy
Every Tech business is different – the timing of bringing one to market can swing a deal by millions. We work with clients to create an exit plan that fits their timeline, and peg a date that maximizes value. This creates an all-important target for goal-oriented owners. In addition to timing, structure is just as critical. Most of the founders we work with have various lifestyle-related needs. And taxes should be discussed and contemplated in detail as well. Everything is taken as a whole and a complete strategy is developed to ensure the timing, the structure and the deal makes good sense for the entrepreneur. Only then is it time to head to market.
Market Value Analysis
The ValleyBiggs team is made up of recognized thought leaders in the valuation space, with 2,000+ transactions under our belt and the world’s largest database of comparables, there is no firm better suited to providing what the market is likely to bear for a business in the Technology, Internet, eCommerce and Digital spaces.
Value Proposition Identification
As serial entrepreneurs in the Tech space, we are uniquely capable of identifying the factors that make a company attractive to buyers. Our team works hand in hand with owners to uncover value propositions and USPs, then highlight them to the market. Additionally, we specialize in helping clients recognize opportunities for improvement before the exit process begins.
Marketing Collateral
Our team takes the lead in creating high-performing deal collateral, like teasers, pitch decks, executive summaries and offering memorandums. With 20+ years of experience creating deal books, we’ve become adept at working with clients to deliver information that engages prospective buyers, but never bores them. Our team of writers and marketing professionals will make you businesses’ value propositions & KPIs shine through.
Vast Buyer Networks
Our network reach is what really makes us stand out. Since we own multiple M&A firms in the Technology & Internet Space, we can reach over 1.2 Million buyers around the globe. This includes membership in organizations where buyers will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to get access to our deals. And of course, after having sold 2,000+ deals in the sector, everybody that is looking for a deal in this space is already following us closely. All of this creates maximum interest and buzz, without ever directing potential buyers to the business being sold before they sign an NDA. This is important because it brings up the demand for a deal, and with more demand, higher multiples. This is why we achieve higher multiples in the sector, by far.
Lender Access
Our lending partners are comfortable with Tech, Internet, eCommerce and Digital deals as large as $2 Billion. We handhold buyers throughout the lending process, controlling their interactions with approval committees and helping to avoid mistakes. This white-glove service vastly increases the likelihood of a successful transaction and is critical to the closing process.
Buyer Qualification
Improperly qualified buyers waste everyone’s time. We go through a rigorous process with each potential buyer that desires to work with us to ensure they have the financial capability to actually close and have the actual sincerity to do a deal. We never present potential buyers to business owners until they are vetted and show their internal requirements and capabilities match our client’s expectations.
Deal Documentation
Our vast set of template documents addresses just about any situation, allowing our clients and buyers to move forward swiftly to avoid overpaying attorneys. Our documentation is specialized to the Tech and Internet world, further reducing legal costs.
Due Diligence
Once a prospective buyer is under contract with our client, we create and manage a full-service data room for secure, speedy sharing of due diligence items. We provide guidance throughout the process to make sure the entire process is smooth and efficient.
Deal Break Management
Many deals have multiple “break points” throughout the process – where one party (or sometimes both) – just say that they can’t agree to something, and it appears we can’t go on. While we do everything we can to avoid getting to this point by controlling every aspect of a deal throughout the process, when this happens, our team of highly trained intermediaries know how to break the barrier and allow everybody to keep moving. In Mergers & Acquisitions, emotions can run high and we understand this – we’ve been there, and our skills in psychology, negotiation and deal-making turn potential endpoints into successful exits. We put out fires and rebuild quickly – every single day bringing everybody back to the table and coming up with solutions where there didn’t seem to be any. This is our value proposition and we’re really good at it.
Attorneys & Tax Specialists
We connect buyers and sellers to attorneys and tax specialists who understand the Tech and Internet world and focus on facilitating closings. Our partners make the road as smooth as possible, handling any legal need that could arise and reducing the amount of tax paid during the sale process.
Business Transition
We facilitate pre-close discussions around what the business should look like after the sale, helping the parties think about the process and putting together a plan. Transition can be stressful, but our expertise allows us to create plans and timelines that keep everyone on the same page.
Get the M&A Services You Deserve
Have questions about our M&A services? Want to find out what your $5m+ business is truly worth? Get in touch today to see how we can help.