The industries that will never buy AI from a foundational model will get it anyway. It arrives inside the software they already run on. Capital Row sits at the intersection of that market with the founders who build those systems of record on one side, and the buyers adding AI and embedding payments on top of them on the other.
We are the intelligence layer in between, and we know both sides of the deal before either one is ready to talk.
Three buyers to a desk. When the third seat is taken,
the desk closes.
Software Equity Group, 2026 Annual SaaS Report and 1Q26 buyer trends · Axial software holding company directory, September 2026 · Industry count, IDC Industry Taxonomy and Worldwide ICT Spending Guide · Seat cap is Capital Row policy
Where you sit changes the conversation, and what the work is allowed to produce.
Find what a buyer’s team would find, while the record can still change and before anyone has leverage over the answer.
Coverage of one desk, maintained and delivered on a cycle. Three seats, and when the third is taken the desk closes.
You sit on both sides. Your client, your engagement, our record. Non-attest only, and we take no fee in any direction on attested work.
The price is set twice. Once before the letter of intent is signed, on what everybody believes. And again during due diligence, on what can actually be proved. We move the evidence in front of the first number, so there is only one.
Retention tied to the billing system, the recurring revenue schedule tied to the ledger and the bank, concentration, founder dependency and ownership of the codebase.
Found after the letter of intent, the same four findings are leverage rather than diligence items, and the leverage has already changed hands. Whatever a buyer’s team would find, you want to be holding it first.
One hire cannot map a market, and every buyer is chasing the same short list of clean, transactable companies. Coverage puts you in front of qualified targets sooner, with the evidence already run and the end-market read attached.
Sixty-one per cent of broken letters died on evidence that arrived after the price was set, and every one cost a buyer four months and a diligence budget. A price set on evidence closes. A price set on assertion gets retraded, and a retrade is a coin flip.
Axial, Dead Deal Report, January 2026. Seventy-five broken letters of intent across eight firm types and eight industries
Retention, net retention, churn, recurring share, margin, concentration, founder dependency, sales efficiency and evidence quality. Every competent adviser runs those nine, and every one of them is winnable with time.
Every desk carries the same three seats, filled for that vertical and never from a general panel. An accountant who has examined recurring-revenue businesses in that end market, so the revenue-quality read is not generic. Counsel who has worked on software contracts and that vertical’s regulator, so change-of-control exposure is found before a buyer’s lawyer finds it. An operator who has run a company there, so we know whether the software is load-bearing or merely installed.
The principal carries the end-market read and every buyer conversation. The bench carries the vertical. Neither is outsourced to the other.
The seat informs what the conversation is about, and what the work is permitted to produce. Everything you send is confidential and is never shared, circulated or sold. Read by a person, usually the same day.
Please do not send financial documents, PHI or confidential information here. Sensitive information moves through a controlled workspace, under a signed engagement letter.
Or write to the desk directly at team@thecapitalrow.com