Volume isn’t the problem. Intelligence is.
We help buyers identify software businesses that fit their acquisition strategy, build relationships with owners, and assess opportunities before a letter of intent. Healthcare comes first: our six open desks are all in healthcare software.
Discuss acquisition criteriaBuy-side advisory
Three ways in, one desk behind each.
Each runs desk by desk in healthcare software, where Capital Row already knows the acquirers, the owners and the recent deals.
Acquisition search
Targets that fit your thesis, read before you price them and approached in confidence, before a broad process starts.
Acquirer intelligence
Who is buying what in each desk, how often, and where the white space is.
Buy-side diligence
A quality of earnings through independent, licensed certified public accountants, plus the AI and team read on the target.
Financing an acquisition? Discuss acquisition financing
Finding a deal and running it are two jobs. Traditionally, one seat does both.
The advisor who originates a company is usually the one who sells it. That is where the friction starts.
One seat finds the deal and runs it.
While the originator is executing a deal, nobody is finding the next one.
Turn overWhy it breaks
A live deal cannot wait, so execution wins every time and origination stops whenever a deal is running. Firms that split the two jobs hit a second problem: how to reward the origination when an owner takes two or three years to come to market, and who is rewarded for preparing the company in between. So the preparation is done late or not at all, and the findings surface during exclusivity, when they cost the most.
Two seats, one evidence file.
Origination keeps running while a deal is in execution, and preparation starts before the sale.
Turn overWhat changes for you
On a Capital Row desk, origination is its own seat. The advisor who builds the relationship with an owner keeps the credit for it, however long the owner takes to come to market, and preparing the company is its own engagement. Relationships keep building while deals run, and the findings that usually surface in week six of exclusivity are on the record before the name reaches you. You price against them instead of renegotiating after them.
Four acquisition routes. Each reads a target differently.
Holding companies and family offices
No fund clock and no planned exit, so the end market is the whole case. You carry it for as long as you hold.
Read morePrivate equity and sponsor-backed platforms
The fund buys the platform, and the platform buys the add-ons. The return has moved into the add-ons, and the exit buyer will run the end-market work on your customer base.
Read moreStrategic acquirers
You pay the premium. Outside an industry you operate in, the premium is the risk.
Read moreIndependent sponsors and searchers
One company, and nothing to average it against. The evidence on a target, before a letter is priced.
Read moreThe median private equity firm sees fewer than one deal in five of the ones available inside its own stated market.
Where would your firm land?
If you do not know the market count, leave it blank and the benchmark estimates it. Your numbers are not sent anywhere.
What one signed letter costs, and what a dead one wastes: the full deal coverage calculator.
How this was measured: the study took 177 private equity firms. For each one, it listed the deals completed in the industries and sizes that firm says it targets, each with a private equity buyer and a sell-side advisor, and counted how many of those the firm saw. SPS / With Intelligence, Deal Origination Benchmark Report, twelve months to June 30, 2025.
Coverage is not a data problem. It is a time problem.
Roughly what one buy-side team spends to get from a filtered list to a signed letter, on a single vertical.
Mapping, outreach, qualifying. The role costs $135,000 to $253,000 a year in total compensation, and cannot run a process at the same time.
How long before a new hire knows which names are unbuyable and why, rather than adding them to the list again.
The average by buyer type, from a family office to a senior lender.
The vertical already mapped, and the diligence view attached before the name reaches you. Scope agreed in writing.
Compensation range compiled by a sell-side advisory firm from Glassdoor data, August 2024, for a US M&A associate, total compensation. Days under exclusivity from a lower-middle-market deal platform’s study of broken letters of intent, January 2026, averages by buyer type. The ramp figure is an estimate, not a measurement.
See what one deal costs to originateThe deal coverage calculator: your numbers, nothing sent anywhere.
A quarter broke on a finding outside the earnings work.
Seventy-five letters of intent that were signed and then collapsed. Three of the reported reasons, on one scale.
A lower-middle-market deal platform’s published study of broken letters of intent, January 27, 2026: seventy-five broken letters across eight buyer types and eight industries. These are three selected categories on a scale of 0 to 30 percent. They are not the full distribution and are not summed.
Discuss acquisition criteriaOr read the cases: Dead Deal Notes, ten public deals and why each one ended.
What we look for when a software company adds
AI features or embedded payments.
Two revenue lines buyers now ask about. For each, four things we trace in the records before a letter of intent.
How is it paid for, and do customers keep paying for it?
- 01Paid adoption
- 02Customer retention
- 03Cost to deliver
- 04Earnings contribution
Does the payment activity reconcile to revenue?
- 01Payment activity
- 02Reconciled revenue
- 03Delivery economics
- 04Contract exposure
Our updates on your sectors, as they are published.
Acquisition financing. Financing for acquisitions, ownership transitions and growth. See acquisition financing
Two ways to work with us. Criteria on file, or a retained search.
Criteria on file: you hear when an update or an opportunity fits your thesis. A retained search covers one sector at a time, with scope agreed in writing, each opportunity assessed before a letter of intent.
- 1Register once
Tell us what you buy: sector, size and structure.
- 2Kept current
We confirm your criteria with you each quarter.
- 3You hear from us
When we publish an update on your sector, or when an opportunity fits your criteria.
Not ready to register criteria? Follow a sector and we send our notes on it as they are published.
Your acquisition criteria and one clearly defined sector. Scope is agreed in writing before any work begins.
The software businesses in that sector, scored and ranked against criteria and weights you approved. You decide which to pursue.
Built ahead of a process. Nothing about a company reaches you without its owner’s permission.
Each opportunity assessed before a letter of intent, so you are pricing against the findings instead of renegotiating after them.
Put your criteria on file.
See the rest of your market.
Capital Row helps buyers see more of their own market, with the financials traced to source before the letter of intent.
Read by a person.