The founder named his own price to the first buyer who asked. A competitive process reopened the bidding and closed it at $40M to $45M, all cash.
Request a Confidential ValuationTwo buyers approached the founder's lending-infrastructure business within months of each other, a bank-technology strategic and a private equity platform, and he handled both himself. When the strategic asked what number would close a deal, he said $32M, because it sounded ambitious and he had nothing to compare it against. The buyer agreed within a week. He had set his own ceiling, against a corporate development team that prices companies like his for a living, with no NDA, no data room, and no second bid in writing.
We paused both conversations without burning either party and spent four weeks on positioning, reframing the company from lending software to embedded infrastructure with contracted distribution, supported by three years of cohort data and precedent transactions. We then mapped fifty-three qualified buyers and reopened bidding as a structured, competitive process. Both original buyers re-entered alongside nine others under NDA.
The founder never quoted a number again. Price discovery ran through staged bids on fixed deadlines. The strategic that had cheerfully accepted $32M signed at $40M to $45M, all cash, after a competing platform bid forced it to defend an asset it had assumed was already won. The first number was never rejected by the market. It was simply never tested until a process tested it.
The first number spoken in an unbanked conversation usually comes from the seller, and it is usually low. It is never rejected by the market; it is simply never tested until a process tests it.
Details that could identify the company have been altered or withheld. Transaction details are representative of engagements of this type. Quotes are representative. References available to qualified parties under non-disclosure agreement.
Request a confidential, no-obligation read on where your business would price today and which buyers are active in your market. Every inquiry is strictly confidential.
©2026 Windsor Drake
