How we verified this list
Every fact about every firm below came directly off that firm's own website, fetched between September 8 and September 14, 2026. Where a firm did not publish something, we wrote “Not published” in the profile rather than guessing. Four filters decided who made this list.
The four inclusion filters
1. A real Austin metro address or a genuinely staffed local office. The firm must be headquartered in the Austin metro, or publish a specific Austin-area street address with at least one named local contact, on its own site. A city name listed among many others with no address does not qualify on its own; we made an exception only where a firm's own contact page explicitly names Austin as headquarters (Venture Capricorn) or where a 512 area code phone number corroborated a genuine local presence (Navidar).
2. Sell-side capability for a private company. The firm must represent sellers, not only buyers or only capital raises. Where a firm's most recently published deals were financings rather than sales (Westlake Securities), we say so directly in its profile.
3. A checkable identity. A named legal entity, a named broker-dealer relationship or exemption, or named individuals with published titles. We note where any of these were missing rather than assuming they exist.
4. Sell-side deal size roughly matching the lower middle market or business-broker range. Roughly $2 million to $100 million-plus enterprise value for the main tier, and under about $2 million for the business-broker tier, though several firms publish no explicit floor or ceiling at all, which we disclose.
Cross-referenced against: each firm's own website, the ProCloser tech M&A deal index (1,740 tracked 2026 transactions), and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas's Austin metro economic indicators for July 2026. No firm paid for placement, and no firm reviewed its own entry before publication.
What we excluded, and why. Two sites market themselves as Austin M&A advisors but did not verify as having a real local office. Exit Equity's own Austin page lists its address as “11211 Katy Freeway, Suite 309A, Houston, Texas 77079,” with no Austin address or named local advisor. Parkland Capital Partners' Austin page names no street address and no local team; its own language points to Dallas and Houston as the firm's actual Texas markets. Both read as templated city landing pages layered onto a firm based elsewhere, and a city name in a URL is not an Austin office. We also could not verify a street address or named local banker for Houlihan Lokey, William Blair, Lincoln International or Stephens Inc.; their office-locator pages either omitted Austin or did not confirm an Austin office, so none appear here with a claimed local presence. Two firms we did include, Corporate Investment and Corporate Finance Associates' Austin office, list the identical 7000 North Mopac Expressway, Suite 200 address but name different teams and broker-dealers; we treated them as distinct and listed only Corporate Investment to avoid double-counting. Our credential. ProCloser runs a public technology M&A deal index covering 1,740 tracked 2026 transactions. We searched it for any deal where the target or acquirer is based in the Austin metro and found four. None named a sell-side advisor in the source we cited, which is why we are not ranking Austin firms by deal-index credit counts; we use the index below for market context instead.
Selling an Austin-Area Business? Get Matched Free.
ProCloser.ai matches Austin metro business owners with vetted M&A advisory firms and business brokers based on your sector, deal size and timing. Free to sellers, with success-only options.
Get Matched with an Austin M&A Advisor →Or start with a free estimate: what's my business worth?
Quick comparison table
The ten main-tier firms, before the profiles. Deal size and fee model are what each firm publishes; where a firm publishes nothing, we wrote “Not published” rather than guessing.
| Firm | Deal size (EV) | Sectors | Fee model | Registration disclosed | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Focus Strategies | Not published; $7B+ cumulative | 8 named sectors incl. IT, healthcare, energy | Not published | Focus Strategies Merchant Banking LLC, FINRA/SIPC | Broad middle market, FINRA-registered |
| 2. Westlake Securities | Not published (middle market) | Clean energy, chemical distribution, heavy logistics | Not published | Securities via FNEX Capital LLC, FINRA/SIPC | Central Texas energy, chemicals, logistics |
| 3. pH Partners | Not published; example deal $400M | Healthcare, technology, consumer | Not published | pH Partners LLC, FINRA/SIPC, Firm #130790 | Larger healthcare/tech/consumer platforms |
| 4. Venture Capricorn | $25M to $750M revenue | Cyber/IT, business services, industrials, aerospace, energy, more | Not published | "Properly registered broker-dealers" (entity not named) | Upper LMM industrials and business services |
| 5. Navidar | Not published | SaaS, enterprise software, IT/engineering, AI/robotics | Not published | Not published | SaaS and tech-enabled, multi-city reach |
| 6. Austin Dale Group | $5M to $75M revenue | Software/SaaS, cloud, MSP, healthcare | Not published | Via Independent Investment Bankers Corp, FINRA/SIPC | Founder-owned tech and MSP businesses |
| 7. ScaleView Partners | Not published | SaaS specifically | Not published | Not published | Austin SaaS founders wanting operator-bankers |
| 8. Benchmark International (Austin) | Not published on Austin page | Firm-wide: 11 named sectors incl. software, healthcare, industrial | Not published | Not published on Austin page | Global buyer network via a local office |
| 9. Corporate Investment | $2M to $20M (also $1M to $5M) | Manufacturing, distribution, B2B services, healthcare, home services | Not published | Statesman Corporate Finance LLC, FINRA/SIPC | Owner-operated Austin/San Antonio businesses |
| 10. Morgan Kingston Advisors | Not published | Restaurants and franchises exclusively | Not published | Via M&A Securities Group, FINRA/SIPC | Restaurant and franchise business owners |
Which Austin advisor fits my deal?
Sub-vertical and size first. This is the table to read if you read nothing else on this page.
| Sub-vertical or size | Specialist | The tell |
|---|---|---|
| SaaS and enterprise software | ScaleView Partners, Austin Dale Group, Navidar | They ask about net revenue retention and can name a specific Austin-area SaaS close, not just software deals generally. |
| Healthcare, health tech and consumer | pH Partners | Names a specific $400M platform deal and a named partner with a Ph.D. covering healthcare specifically. |
| IT services and managed services (MSP) | Austin Dale Group, CGK Business Sales | They ask about the recurring-versus-project revenue split before they quote a multiple. |
| Restaurants, food service and franchises | Morgan Kingston Advisors | The only single-vertical restaurant specialist on this list; ask for a same-year named close. |
| Energy, chemical distribution and heavy logistics | Westlake Securities | Publishes these three sectors by name rather than a generic industrial label. |
| Industrials, business services and essential services above $25M | Venture Capricorn | Names dated 2024-2026 closes in construction, HVAC and industrial testing, not just a sector list. |
| Aerospace, defense and space-tech adjacent | Venture Capricorn (named sector); otherwise, a national specialist | No Austin boutique on this list publishes a dated aerospace or defense close; verify before assuming local fit. |
| Multi-city or national buyer reach needed | Navidar, Benchmark International | Navidar covers seven US cities; Benchmark International is the only firm here with offices outside the US. |
| Manufacturing, distribution and home services under $20M | Corporate Investment | Founded 1984 with named Certified Business Intermediaries and historical deals in exactly these sectors. |
| Main street or sub-$2M revenue businesses | CGK Business Sales, IBEX, Viking Mergers & Acquisitions | Success-fee business brokers with published floors at or below $2M; ask for state broker license or IBBA membership. |
The main tier: lower middle market advisors, roughly $2M to $100M-plus EV
Ten firms, ordered by published scale and disclosure depth rather than a single hard metric, since Austin firms publish wildly different levels of detail. Read the routing table above first.
1Focus Strategies Investment Banking
| Headquarters | 7600 N. Capital of Texas Highway, Building B, Suite 345, Austin, Texas 78731 |
| Founded | Not published on the pages we could find |
| Team | Not published. The firm's website did not show a team page on September 14, 2026, so named bankers are not published here. |
| Deal size | Not published as a band. The firm publishes “over $7 billion in transactions” cumulatively. |
| Sectors | Business and professional services, consumer and retail, energy, engineering/construction and materials, financial services, healthcare, industrials/manufacturing and distribution, information technology and telecom |
| Track record | $7 billion-plus in cumulative transactions, published on the homepage. Registered through Focus Strategies Merchant Banking, LLC, Member FINRA and SIPC, with BrokerCheck referenced directly. |
Focus Strategies is one of two firms on this list that names its FINRA-registered broker-dealer on its own homepage and points sellers to BrokerCheck directly, which is rarer than it should be among Austin boutiques. The firm's published sector list is the broadest of any Austin firm we checked, spanning eight named industries from energy to healthcare rather than a single vertical.
The downtown-adjacent Capital of Texas Highway address puts the firm in the same corridor as several other boutiques on this list, and its own description leans on the phrase “we take your success personally” rather than naming specific bankers, which made the team impossible to verify independently as of September 2026.
Recent closes: Not published on the pages we could find.
Best for: Founder-owned middle market companies across a wide range of sectors who want a FINRA-registered process without narrowing to one industry.
Considerations: No named bankers and no dated recent closes are published on the site we could find; no team page was available on September 14, 2026. A seller cannot independently confirm who would run the deal, or how recently the firm closed one, before the first call.
2Westlake Securities
| Headquarters | 108 Wild Basin Rd S, Suite 250, Austin, TX 78746 |
| Founded | Not published as a specific year; the site states “23+ years in business,” which points to roughly 2003. |
| Team | Matt Andersen, CEO. Other bankers are not individually named on the firm's site. |
| Deal size | Not published as a specific EV band. The firm describes itself as serving the middle market and claims “#1 Middle Market Deal Volume” in the Central Texas market. |
| Sectors | Clean energy consulting, chemical distribution and heavy logistics are the three sectors named specifically, alongside general middle market coverage |
| Track record | $6.7 billion-plus in closed transaction value and 400-plus companies advised, published on the homepage. Securities offered through FNEX Capital, LLC, Member FINRA and SIPC; Westlake is not affiliated with FNEX. |
Westlake's published deal list in 2026 skews toward capital raises rather than outright company sales: an expanded senior credit facility for SolvChem on August 18, 2026, and an acquisition capital commitment for Unify Energy Solutions on July 29, 2026, are the two most recent items on the firm's own site. Both are financing mandates, not M&A sales, which is worth knowing if you are looking specifically for a sell-side process.
The three named sectors, clean energy consulting, chemical distribution and heavy logistics, are unusually specific for an Austin boutique and match a real slice of the Central Texas industrial base. If your company sits outside those three, the “general middle market” language is the only coverage claim the site makes, and it is not backed by a named sector list the way the top of this page's firms are.
Recent closes: SolvChem, expanded senior credit facility, August 18, 2026. Unify Energy Solutions, acquisition capital commitment, July 29, 2026. A clean energy consulting firm merger is referenced without a date.
Best for: Central Texas energy, chemical distribution and logistics companies, and sellers who value a firm claiming the top deal-volume spot locally.
Considerations: The two most recently dated transactions on the firm's own site are financings, not company sales, so a seller specifically wanting a sell-side M&A process should ask how many of the 400-plus advised companies were sales versus capital raises. No deal-size floor or ceiling is published.
3pH Partners
| Headquarters | Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with offices in Houston and Portland |
| Founded | Not published on the pages we could find |
| Team | Ben Perkins, Founder and Managing Partner. Erik Halvorsen, Ph.D., Partner. Adam Harrington, Partner. Gareth Petsch, Managing Director. Jamie Mantle, Principal. Brad Johnson and Christopher Anderson, Vice Presidents. |
| Deal size | Not published as a specific band. The firm publishes $20 billion-plus in cumulative M&A transaction volume and $15 billion-plus in capital raised, with one named deal, the Volumetric acquisition, at $400 million. |
| Sectors | Healthcare (software and AI platforms, services and care delivery, medtech and diagnostics), technology (software and fintech), and consumer (health and wellness brands, branded CPG) |
| Track record | $20 billion-plus in M&A volume and $15 billion-plus in capital raised, published on the homepage. Securities offered through pH Partners, LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC, FINRA Firm #130790, with a Form CRS available on the site. |
pH Partners is the largest-scale firm on this list by published cumulative volume, and it is one of only two Austin firms we checked that names a specific dollar figure on a specific deal: the Volumetric acquisition at $400 million. That figure sits well above the lower middle market this guide otherwise covers, which tells you the firm's real center of gravity is larger than a typical first-time Austin seller.
The named partner team is deep for a boutique, five senior people with titles, and the three-sector split (healthcare, technology, consumer) is specific enough to be checkable rather than a generic industry list. Two other named transactions, a Village Family Dental acquisition and a $26.5 million Sound Minds Behavioral capital raise, show the firm also works smaller healthcare deals, though without published dates.
Recent closes: Volumetric, acquisition, value $400 million, date not published. Village Family Dental, acquisition, date not published. Sound Minds Behavioral, $26.5 million capital raise, date not published.
Best for: Austin-headquartered healthcare, technology and consumer sellers who want a firm with experience on $400 million-scale platform deals but a local office.
Considerations: No deal-size floor is published, and the one named transaction with a dollar figure is far above the lower middle market. A seller below roughly $20 million should ask directly whether their deal would get senior attention here or would be better matched to a smaller-focused firm on this list.
Not Sure Which Austin M&A Advisor Fits Your Deal?
Tell us your sector, revenue and timing. ProCloser.ai will point you to two or three firms from this list that genuinely match your business. Free, no obligation.
Get Personalized Recommendations →4Venture Capricorn
| Headquarters | Austin, Texas, named as headquarters on the firm's own contact page; a specific street address is not published on the pages we could find. The firm also lists offices in Houston, Dallas, New York, Tampa Bay and Phoenix. |
| Founded | Not published on the pages we could find |
| Team | Anthony J. Rodarte, President and Managing Director. Bobby J. Baggett, Chief Financial Officer. Jeremiah Marshall, Managing Director (Epic Advisors). David Walker, Senior Director (Epic Advisors). Dillon Smisek, Senior Analyst. Paul Pedroncelli, Financial Associate. |
| Deal size | Published as $25 million to $750 million in client revenue. |
| Sectors | Cyber and IT managed services, network infrastructure, business services, essential services, oil/gas/energy and power, financial services, aerospace and defense, transportation and logistics, consumer and retail, food and beverage, and manufacturing |
| Track record | Named, dated 2024-2026 transactions across multiple states, published on the firm's media page. |
Venture Capricorn publishes the most dated, named deal activity of any firm on this list: a commercial door distribution sale (Cook & Boardman Group to Platinum Equity) in the Austin area in 2024, an HVAC, plumbing and electrical platform sale (The Seer Group to Genstar Capital) in Dallas in 2025, an asphalt and construction sale (to Construction Partners Inc) in Tennessee in 2025, and an NDT testing sale (Precision Inspection Services to Cotton Creek Capital) in Louisiana in 2026.
The $25 million to $750 million revenue band is the widest published range of any firm we checked in Austin, and the ten named sectors read like a genuine industrial and business-services generalist. That range also means the firm's typical mandate sits above where most first-time Austin sellers with $2 million to $20 million in revenue will land.
Recent closes: Commercial door distribution company (Austin area) to Cook & Boardman Group, backed by Platinum Equity, 2024. HVAC, plumbing and electrical platform (Dallas) to The Seer Group, backed by Genstar Capital, 2025. Asphalt and construction company (Tennessee) to Construction Partners Inc, 2025. NDT testing company (Louisiana) to Precision Inspection Services, backed by Cotton Creek Capital, 2026.
Best for: Business services, industrials and essential-services sellers with $25 million or more in revenue who want a firm with recently dated, named closes.
Considerations: The published $25 million revenue floor is above where most first-time Austin sellers sit, and only one of the four named recent deals was genuinely in the Austin area; the others were in Tennessee, Dallas and Louisiana, which shows national reach but thinner direct evidence of local Austin execution. The broker-dealer disclosure on the site names “properly registered broker-dealers” generically rather than a specific FINRA entity, so ask which one signs your engagement letter.
5Navidar
| Headquarters | Not published as a single headquarters. Navidar lists seven offices: Austin, San Antonio, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Indianapolis and Minneapolis. Its published contact number carries a 512 area code, Austin's. |
| Founded | Not published on the pages we could find |
| Team | Not named on the pages we could find |
| Deal size | Not published on the pages we could find |
| Sectors | SaaS and enterprise software, specialty manufacturing, e-commerce and internet, IT and engineering services, tech-enabled businesses, healthcare IT, and AI and robotics |
| Track record | Named transactions without dates: Nova Hydraulics acquired by Motion & Control Enterprises; Bellwether Software acquired by Embrace Software. |
Navidar's sector list, SaaS and enterprise software, specialty manufacturing, IT and engineering services and AI and robotics, is a close match for what Austin's own tech base genuinely produces, and the firm's Austin-area code phone number is a genuine (if indirect) signal that Austin is a real base of operations rather than a marketing location on a list.
What the firm does not publish, on the pages we could find, is which of its seven cities functions as headquarters, who its named bankers are, or what deal-size band it targets. That is thinner disclosure than most other firms on this list, several of which name partners and a specific EV range on their own homepages.
Recent closes: Nova Hydraulics, Inc., acquired by Motion & Control Enterprises, date not published. Bellwether Software, acquired by Embrace Software, date not published.
Best for: SaaS, enterprise software and tech-enabled sellers who want a firm with reach across seven US cities including Austin.
Considerations: No named bankers, no deal-size band and no dated closes are published on the pages we could find, and the firm does not identify which of its seven listed cities is headquarters. A seller cannot independently confirm Austin-specific staffing depth from the site alone; ask directly how many bankers are based in Austin versus the other six cities.
6Austin Dale Group
| Headquarters | Austin, TX, per the firm's own meta description (“a tech M&A firm in Austin, TX”). A specific street address is not published on the firm's site. |
| Founded | 2003, by John W. Austin and Bob Dale, who previously built and sold a regional software and IT services firm called Austin Data Systems before founding Austin Dale Group. |
| Team | John W. Austin and Bob Dale, co-founders. Individual bankers beyond the two founders are not named on the firm's site. |
| Deal size | Published as $5 million to $75 million in revenue. |
| Sectors | Software and SaaS companies, cloud solution providers, managed service providers and IT services firms, and healthcare-related and other tech-enabled businesses |
| Track record | Client testimonials are published but no dated deal list or aggregate transaction count is published on the firm's site. |
Austin Dale Group is one of the longer-running boutiques on this list, founded in 2003 by two operators, John Austin and Bob Dale, who had already built and sold their own regional IT services company before starting the firm. That founder-to-founder framing shows up in the firm's client testimonials, which read as operator-to-operator advice rather than banker pitch language.
The published $5 million to $75 million revenue band lines up well with Austin's dense population of founder-owned software, cloud and MSP businesses. What is missing from the site is any current banker roster beyond the two co-founders (now 22 years into the firm) or a dated list of closed transactions, which makes it hard to independently size the team that would genuinely run a 2026 mandate.
Recent closes: Not published with dates. The site includes client testimonials describing engagements (for example, a software firm owner named Jerry Porter of DataWing Software) without transaction values or dates.
Best for: Founder-owned software, SaaS, cloud and MSP businesses in Austin with $5 million to $75 million in revenue.
Considerations: No current banker team beyond the two founders is named, and no dated recent closes are published, only testimonials. Ask directly who on the team would run your specific deal in 2026.
7ScaleView Partners
| Headquarters | “Based in Austin, Texas,” per the firm's own about page. A specific street address is not published on the firm's site. |
| Founded | Not published as a specific year on the pages we could find |
| Team | Gabe Wilcox, Jay Snodgrass and Jordan Davidson, all titled Co-Founder and Partner. |
| Deal size | Not published as a specific band. The firm positions itself for “founders of high-growth, middle-market technology companies.” |
| Sectors | SaaS, described on the site as “a technology-focused investment bank” with published guidance specifically on selling a SaaS business |
| Track record | Not published on the pages we could find |
ScaleView is the only firm on this list built around a single explicit pitch: investment banking for Austin SaaS founders, run by partners who describe themselves as bringing “the unique perspective of having been tech founders ourselves.” That is a narrower, more specific positioning than the broader “technology and tech-enabled” language most other firms on this page use.
Because the firm's own site does not publish a deal-size band, a founding year, named recent closes or a broker-dealer disclosure, a seller has to take the SaaS-specialist positioning largely on the partners' word rather than a checkable track record. That is a real gap for a firm this specifically positioned.
Recent closes: Not published on the pages we could find.
Best for: Austin-based SaaS founders who want partners with direct experience as SaaS operators rather than career bankers only.
Considerations: No deal-size band, no dated recent closes and no broker-dealer or FINRA registration disclosure are published on the pages we could find. Ask directly how securities-related work in a transaction is licensed, and ask for two named, checkable SaaS closes before engaging.
8Benchmark International (Austin office)
| Headquarters | 9442 N Capital of Texas Hwy, Building 1, Suite 600, Austin, TX 78759. Benchmark International is a global M&A firm with offices worldwide (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Cape Town, Cork, Denver, Dusseldorf, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Manchester, Nashville, Oxford, Stellenbosch, Stockholm and Tampa are also listed); this page did not state which office is global headquarters. |
| Founded | Not published on the Austin office the firm's site |
| Team | Wade Duncan is the named contact for sellers, Amy Alonso for buyers, and Luke LiCalzi for careers, all specific to the Austin office. |
| Deal size | Not published on the Austin office the firm's site |
| Sectors | Firm-wide, the site names architecture and engineering, business products and services, construction, consumer/food and retail, energy/resources and utilities, environmental and recycling, financial, healthcare, industrial, software and technology, and transportation. Austin-specific sector focus is not published separately. |
| Track record | Not published on the Austin office the firm's site. Firm-wide awards and a “Top USA Woman Deal Maker” recognition for a named Benchmark International dealmaker are referenced in the office page's news feed. |
Benchmark International is the only firm on this list with a real office network outside Texas and the United States, which matters if your most likely buyer is a strategic acquirer overseas rather than a local or regional one. The Austin office page names three specific local contacts by role, sell-side, buy-side and careers, which is a level of local specificity most of the smaller boutiques on this page do not publish.
What the Austin-specific page does not publish is a local deal-size band, a local team beyond the three named contacts, or any Austin-specific closed transactions. To evaluate the firm's actual track record you would need to look at the firm's global transactions pages separately, which we did not verify sector-by-sector for this Austin listing.
Recent closes: Not published on the Austin office the firm's site.
Best for: Sellers who want a global buyer network reached through a locally staffed Austin office, particularly in the sectors named on the firm's global site.
Considerations: The Austin office page names three role-based contacts rather than senior dealmakers with track records, and it publishes no deal-size band, no founding year for the office and no Austin-specific closed deals. A seller should ask which named bankers, not marketing contacts, would genuinely run a mandate.
9Corporate Investment
| Headquarters | 7000 North Mopac Expressway, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78731, with a second office at 1777 NE Loop 410, Suite 600, San Antonio, TX 78217 |
| Founded | 1984 |
| Team | Larry Schumann, Managing Director, CBI. Philip Wilhite, Managing Director, CBI. Rob Smithson, Senior Associate. |
| Deal size | Published as $2 million to $20 million; the firm also references handling $1 million to $5 million transactions. |
| Sectors | Manufacturing, distribution, B2B services, healthcare, consumer products and services, technology, construction, and home services |
| Track record | Founded 1984; the firm's about page names historical client companies without transaction dates. |
Corporate Investment is the longest-running firm on this list by a wide margin, in business since 1984, and it names two Certified Business Intermediaries, Larry Schumann and Philip Wilhite, on its leadership page, a specific professional credential most other Austin boutiques on this page do not publish for their bankers.
The published $2 million to $20 million revenue band sits at the smaller end of what this guide covers, which fits a large share of Austin's owner-operated businesses but is too small for a venture-backed software company or an industrial platform doing $30 million or more. One flag worth naming: the firm's Austin address, 7000 North Mopac Expressway, Suite 200, is the same building and suite number published by Corporate Finance Associates' Austin office (a separate franchise network we reviewed and did not list separately, see the verification section below).
Recent closes: Named without dates: Viking Fence, Cody Pools, Dustless-Air Filter Company, Peabody General Contractors, and BullRing.
Best for: Austin and San Antonio owner-operated businesses in the $2 million to $20 million revenue range, especially manufacturing, distribution and home services.
Considerations: Named historical deals carry no dates, so recency cannot be confirmed, and the $20 million ceiling is too small for most venture-backed or larger industrial sellers. Confirm directly whether the firm is affiliated with Corporate Finance Associates' Austin office, which lists the same building address.
10Morgan Kingston Advisors
| Headquarters | 3300 Bee Caves Road, Suite 650-169, Austin, TX 78746 |
| Founded | Not published on the firm's site |
| Team | Not named on the firm's site |
| Deal size | Not published on the firm's site |
| Sectors | Middle market restaurant companies exclusively, including independent brands, franchisors and franchisees |
| Track record | Not published on the firm's site |
Morgan Kingston is the one true single-vertical specialist on this list, restaurant and franchise M&A only, a narrow positioning that tends to produce a shorter, more credible buyer list for the founders it fits. Its Bee Caves Road address places it in the same Westlake-area corridor as several other Austin boutiques.
The trade-off for that specialization is thin public disclosure: the firm's own site names no individual bankers, no deal-size band and no dated closed transactions, so a restaurant group owner has to verify the firm's actual restaurant-sector track record in a direct conversation rather than from the website.
Recent closes: Not published on the firm's site.
Best for: Austin-area restaurant, food service and franchise business owners who want a single-sector specialist.
Considerations: No named bankers, deal-size band or dated closes are published. Its single-sector focus also means it is the wrong fit for any non-restaurant seller regardless of size; ask for two named, checkable restaurant-sector closes from the last 24 months before engaging.
What 2026 deal data shows for Austin-area companies
Case study 1: Texas Instruments acquires Silicon Labs, February 4, 2026, about $7.5 billion
Texas Instruments agreed to acquire Austin-headquartered Silicon Labs, a wireless connectivity semiconductor company, in an all-cash deal at $231.00 per share, roughly $7.5 billion in enterprise value. The source we cite, Texas Instruments' own press release, did not name a sell-side or buy-side advisor.
What it proves: Austin's largest 2026 tracked deal is a public-company semiconductor acquisition, not a private-equity buyout, and even at $7.5 billion the announcement we sourced named no advisor. That is exactly why we do not rank Austin firms by deal-index credit counts.
Case study 2: Firefly Aerospace acquires Space-ng, June 26, 2026, value not disclosed
Firefly Aerospace, based in the Austin metro (Cedar Park/Briggs, Texas), acquired Space-ng, an AI navigation and guidance software company for spacecraft, for undisclosed terms, per the Austin American-Statesman. What it proves: Austin's aerospace cluster is a live acquirer as well as a target pool, and none of the ten main-tier firms on this page names aerospace as a covered sector, a real gap for founders in that space.
Case study 3: CesiumAstro acquires Jariet Technologies, August 18, 2026, value not disclosed
CesiumAstro, based in Bee Cave in the Austin metro, acquired Jariet Technologies, a fabless semiconductor design provider, for undisclosed terms, per Community Impact's Lake Travis-Westlake edition. What it proves: semiconductor and RF consolidation is happening in Austin's suburbs, not only downtown, and, like most of our tracked Austin deals, the value went undisclosed.
Case study 4: Nexus IT acquires Loyal IT, August 19, 2026, value not disclosed
Nexus IT completed its acquisition of Loyal IT, a managed IT and cybersecurity services provider based in Austin, Texas, for undisclosed terms, expanding what PR Newswire described as Nexus IT's “national platform into the Texas market.” What it proves: out-of-state MSP roll-ups are actively entering Austin as buyers, matching the IT-services coverage Austin Dale Group and CGK Business Sales both publish.
On our sample size. We searched our 1,740-deal 2026 tracked technology M&A index for any target or acquirer disclosed as based in the Austin metro (matching “Austin” and named suburbs: Cedar Park, Bee Cave, Round Rock, Georgetown, Pflugerville, San Marcos, Buda, Kyle, Leander, Lakeway). Four deals matched. That is a thin sample from a technology-focused index, not a market-size estimate, and none of the four credited a sell-side advisor in the source we cited.
The honest tier below this band
If your Austin-area business does under about $2 million in revenue, most of the ten firms above will either decline or hand you a junior team. Here is what serves that end of the market, named and verified.
11CGK Business Sales
Office: 2720 Bee Caves Road, Austin, TX 78746
Team: Derik Polay, Austin Managing Director. Greg Knox, CFA, Managing Principal. Wes McDonough, Myres Tilghman (CMT), Matthew Mistica (MBA), Jason Clendaniel, Eric Lewis (MBA) and Matthew Zienty, Managing Directors.
Deal size: $1.5 million to $100 million in annual revenue, published on the firm's own site.
Sectors: Healthcare and medical practices, commercial construction and trades, manufacturing and industrial, restaurants and hospitality, IT services and MSP, professional services, real estate services, auto repair, distribution and logistics, home services, insurance agencies, transportation, dental, veterinary, behavioral health and pharmacy.
Success-fee model with no upfront cost, and a claimed 90%-plus closing rate against a roughly 20% industry average the firm cites. CFA, CAIA and FDP charter holders on staff; IBBA and M&A Source members.
12IBEX Middle Market Business Brokers
Office: 1320 Arrow Point Dr, Suite 501-136, Cedar Park, TX 78613 (Austin metro)
Team: Russ Goforth, Mike Miller and Jeff Elder, Brokers. Dy Harvey, listed contact.
Deal size: Revenue multiples typically 1x to 6x annual revenue depending on industry; firm-wide the site publishes $703 million-plus in business sales across 400-plus closed deals since 1979.
Sectors: Software, MSP and MSSP, manufacturing, retail, restaurants, and service businesses, across what the site describes as hundreds of industries.
Founded 1979, the longest-running business broker on this list. Members of the M&A Source, the Texas Association of Business Brokers, the IBBA and the Alliance of Small Business Advocates. No broker license numbers are published on the firm's site.
13Viking Mergers & Acquisitions (Austin)
Office: 5209 Burnet Road, Suite 207, Austin, TX 78756
Team: Coleman Payne and Jackson Payne, Managing Partners (firm-wide). Matt Gold, Associate Partner and Market Leader for Austin. Zach Curtis and Ben Omonira, Advisors.
Deal size: Business brokerage from $1 million to $10 million-plus; M&A engagements from $10 million to $100 million.
Sectors: Technology, manufacturing, automotive, medical and aesthetics, and fitness, among others named on the page.
Founded 1996, with 950-plus businesses sold firm-wide and an 85% closing rate claimed. Matt Gold is named specifically as the Austin market leader, which is more local specificity than most brokers on this page publish. No licensing detail is published on the firm's site.
The trade you are making at this size is between fee efficiency and process depth. A success-fee business broker costs less upfront and moves faster; a boutique investment bank runs a more competitive, better-documented process but has fee minimums that can be a punishing share of a sub-$2M deal. Read our business broker versus M&A advisor comparison before you choose.
The honest tier above this band
Above roughly $100 million enterprise value, the honest answer is that we could not verify a bulge-bracket or large regional bank with a genuinely staffed Austin office this year, and we are not going to name one with a false claim of local presence. Public directories pointed to Stephens Inc. having a downtown Austin address at 1111 West Sixth Street, but we could not confirm it on the firm's own website. Houlihan Lokey, William Blair and Lincoln International each publish office-locator pages; none of the ones we could load listed an Austin location. That does not mean these firms cannot serve an Austin seller, banks fly teams in for the right mandate, it means we cannot verify a local office the way this guide's inclusion rule requires. Practically, an Austin company selling above roughly $100 million to $150 million has two honest options: work with Venture Capricorn or pH Partners, both of which publish experience near that scale from an Austin base, or run a national search and accept your primary contact will not be Austin-based. Ask any larger bank whether a Texas-based team member will be on your deal day to day, and get that person's name before you sign.
Austin valuation ladder: what your sector trades at
Advisor choice should follow valuation reality, not the reverse. The ranges below are ProCloser's general industry benchmarks, not Austin-specific quotes, mapped to the sub-verticals in the routing table above.
| Sub-sector | Indicative 2026 range |
|---|---|
| SaaS and software | 4.0x to 9.0x EBITDA |
| MSP and IT services | 5.0x to 9.0x EBITDA |
| Healthcare and medical practices | 4.0x to 7.0x EBITDA |
| Manufacturing | 4.0x to 6.0x EBITDA |
| Logistics and distribution | 4.0x to 6.0x EBITDA |
| Construction and trades | 3.0x to 5.0x EBITDA |
| Professional services | 3.0x to 5.0x SDE/EBITDA |
| Marketing and creative agencies | 3.0x to 6.0x EBITDA |
| Restaurants and food service | 2.0x to 4.0x SDE |
| Accounting and CPA firms | 3.0x to 6.0x SDE/EBITDA |
Source: ProCloser EBITDA multiples by industry, cross-checked against ProCloser valuation benchmarks. These are general market ranges, not Austin-specific quotes from any firm on this page.
What do these advisors charge in 2026?
None of the thirteen firms and brokers on this page publish a public rate card. The ranges below are ProCloser's own general guidance from our M&A advisory fees guide, describing the market broadly rather than any one Austin firm. Use them to sanity-check an engagement letter, not to negotiate from blind.
| Deal size (EV) | Retainer, monthly | Success fee | Approx total at close |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1M to $5M | $0 (success-fee common) | 8% to 12%, often with a minimum fee | $100K to $500K, minimum fees common |
| $5M to $15M | $5,000 to $10,000 | 4% to 6% | $300K to $800K |
| $15M to $50M | $10,000 to $20,000 | 3% to 5% | $600K to $2.0M |
| $50M to $100M | $15,000 to $25,000 | 2% to 3% | $1.2M to $3.0M |
| Above $100M | $20,000 to $50,000 | 1.5% to 2.5%, often tiered | Negotiated, minimums apply |
Two things Austin founders miss most often. Whether the monthly retainer is credited back against the success fee at close is worth more than shaving a point off the percentage. And minimum fees bite hardest at the smallest deal sizes on this page. Run your numbers on our advisory fee calculator before you sign anything.
The frames we use in this guide
Five lenses specific to how we evaluated Austin's market this year. Each has a rule, a number and an action.
1. The Austin Address Test
Rule: a firm's Austin page needs a street address and a named local person, not just a city listed among many. Number: of the roughly 14 Austin-branded firms we checked, two, Exit Equity and Parkland Capital Partners, named Austin without a verifiable local office, and we excluded both. Act: before your first call ends, ask for the Austin office's suite number and the name of the banker who would run your deal.
2. The MoPac Overlap
Rule: a shared office address in Austin's boutique-advisory scene does not automatically mean two firms are affiliated. Number: we found two firms, Corporate Investment and Corporate Finance Associates' Austin office, independently listing 7000 North Mopac Expressway, Suite 200. Act: if a shortlisted advisor's address matches another firm's on your list, ask both directly whether they are related, in writing.
3. The Deal-Credit Gap
Rule: Austin-area deal announcements rarely name a sell-side advisor, so you cannot rank local firms by press-release credit. Number: zero of the four Austin-metro deals in our 2026 tracked index, including the $7.5 billion Silicon Labs sale, named a sell-side advisor. Act: ask a shortlisted firm directly for two Austin-area references from the last 24 months.
4. The Information-Sector Dip
Rule: Austin's reputation as a booming tech capital and its most current employment data are not telling the same story this year. Number: the Dallas Fed's July 2026 Austin indicators show the Information sector contracting 9.0% annualized even as professional and business services grew 9.9% annualized and total employment sits 24.1% above pre-pandemic levels. Act: if selling a software or media business, ask your advisor how they will position you against a sector currently shrinking, not growing.
5. The Single-Vertical Premium
Rule: a firm with one named vertical typically produces a shorter, more relevant buyer list than a generalist. Number: of the ten main-tier firms profiled, three, Morgan Kingston Advisors (restaurants), ScaleView Partners (SaaS) and Westlake Securities (energy, chemicals, logistics), publish a dominant single vertical. Act: if your business sits inside one of those verticals, start there, but verify the specialist's named track record first.
How to verify an advisor is legit and unconflicted
Austin founders skip this step as often as founders anywhere else, and it costs them. Five checks, none of which take more than an hour.
- Look up the legal entity, not the brand. Six of the ten main-tier firms on this page name a specific broker-dealer or FINRA-registered entity on their own site: Focus Strategies Merchant Banking LLC, FNEX Capital LLC (for Westlake), pH Partners LLC, Independent Investment Bankers Corp (for Austin Dale Group), Statesman Corporate Finance LLC (for Corporate Investment) and M&A Securities Group (for Morgan Kingston Advisors). Ask which entity will sign your engagement letter, then search that exact name on FINRA BrokerCheck.
- Ask directly where disclosure is missing. Venture Capricorn, Navidar, ScaleView Partners and Benchmark International's Austin office did not publish a specific broker-dealer entity on the firm's site. That is not disqualifying, but it means you need to ask the question yourself rather than read the answer off the site.
- For business brokers, check the state license or association membership instead. CGK Business Sales, IBEX and Viking Mergers & Acquisitions operate as business brokers rather than securities-licensed M&A advisors for most of their deal range; ask for their Texas business broker license or IBBA/M&A Source membership number.
- Confirm the office is real. Get the street address, then check it against the county appraisal district or a maps service. We excluded two firms this year, Exit Equity and Parkland Capital Partners, whose Austin pages named no verifiable local address.
- Ask for two references, including one deal that did not close. Every firm will give you a happy seller. The instructive call is with the founder whose process broke down.
The traps in a “best Austin M&A advisor” list
Including this one. Read these before you act on any Austin ranking, ours included.
- A city name in a URL is not a local office. Two firms we checked this year, Exit Equity and Parkland Capital Partners, market Austin pages without listing a verifiable Austin office.
- Shared office buildings can look like affiliation, or like two firms. Corporate Investment and Corporate Finance Associates' Austin office share an address and name different teams, so ask each firm directly how the two are related.
- Cumulative volume numbers flatter firms whose typical deal is much larger than yours. pH Partners' $20 billion-plus in M&A volume and $400 million example deal are real, and also far above what most Austin lower-middle-market sellers should expect as their own experience.
- A named sector list is not the same as a dated, checkable close. Several firms on this page publish broad sector lists but no dated recent transactions; ask for the second thing specifically.
- Deal-index credit counts do not work for a city this size yet. Zero of our four tracked 2026 Austin-metro deals named a sell-side advisor, so any list, including ours, that claims to rank Austin firms by press-release credits is working from an unusably thin sample.
- "Austin is booming" is not a valuation argument on its own. The most current Dallas Fed sector data shows Information contracting even as other sectors grow; a generic city-growth pitch does not substitute for your company's specific numbers.
Where ProCloser fits
ProCloser is not an M&A advisor and does not sell companies. We run a deal-matching network and a public deal index, and we publish research on advisor selection. When an Austin-area founder tells us their sector, size and timing, we introduce them to firms in our network that fit, and some of the firms on this page may be in that network. We are paid by advisory firms, not by sellers, which is a conflict worth knowing about before you use our matching service. Everything factual on this page is sourced to a firm's own website, a public deal announcement, or the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, all listed in Sources below.
The bottom line
Route by sub-vertical first, size second. SaaS and enterprise software sellers should start with ScaleView Partners, Austin Dale Group or Navidar. Healthcare, consumer and larger technology platforms fit pH Partners. Restaurant and franchise owners have exactly one true specialist here, Morgan Kingston Advisors. Energy, chemical distribution and logistics companies fit Westlake Securities. Industrials, business services and aerospace-adjacent companies above roughly $25 million fit Venture Capricorn, the firm on this list with the most recently dated, named closes. Below about $2 million in revenue, go to a business broker, CGK Business Sales, IBEX or Viking Mergers & Acquisitions, rather than a boutique investment bank built for larger deals. Above roughly $100 million, we could not verify a locally staffed bulge-bracket alternative this year, so Venture Capricorn or pH Partners plus a national search are the honest options. And do not rank any Austin firm, ours included, by how often it is credited in a press release: our own 2026 data shows zero of four tracked Austin-metro deals named a sell-side advisor at all.
Related resources
- Best M&A advisory firms in New York. The sibling city guide for founders comparing markets or relocating a process.
- Best M&A advisory firms in Chicago. Another metro-specific ranking built the same way, with its own verified local firms.
- Best M&A advisory firms in Florida. A statewide guide, useful if you are comparing Texas and Florida advisors.
- Best M&A advisory firms for the lower middle market. The size-banded national ranking, useful context for where Austin firms sit against national peers.
- Best business brokers in the United States. The national broker ranking, for context on how Austin's brokers compare.
- Best M&A advisory firms in the United States. Our national flagship ranking of M&A advisory firms.
- Business broker versus M&A advisor. Which one you genuinely need, and what the registration difference means.
- M&A advisory fees guide. The full breakdown of monthly work fees, success fees, minimums and tail periods by deal size.
- M&A advisory fee calculator. Run your Austin deal size through the fee bands before you sign an engagement letter.
- EBITDA multiples by industry. The sector multiples this guide's valuation ladder draws on.
- How long it takes to sell a business. General timelines for a sale process, before any Austin-specific friction is added.
- Best time to sell a business. Timing considerations relevant to Austin's current sector-mixed growth picture.
- Most active M&A advisors in tech (2026 league table). Every advisory firm publicly credited on a tracked 2026 tech deal nationally, with the sample size stated.
- ProCloser Tech M&A Deal Index. All 1,740 tracked 2026 technology acquisitions, updated from public announcements, including the four Austin-metro deals cited above.
- Deal index insights. Most active acquirers, advisor credits and monthly deal volume, national.
- Valuation benchmarks. Median disclosed deal value by sector, for comparison against the Austin valuation ladder above.
- Most active acquirers. Who is buying repeatedly in 2026 nationally, including strategics like Nexus IT that are actively entering Texas.
- Get matched to an advisor. Tell us your sector, size and timing and we will introduce you to firms in our network that fit.
- What's my business worth?. Get a free starting estimate before you talk to any Austin advisor on this list.
Frequently asked questions
I run a $6M revenue MSP in Round Rock. Should I hire a $2M to $20M generalist like Corporate Investment, or find an IT-specific shop?
Start with the generalist and test the IT-services depth directly, rather than assuming a narrower label means a better fit. Corporate Investment publishes a $2 million to $20 million revenue band that fits your $6 million MSP, and its named sectors include IT services alongside manufacturing, distribution and home services, so this is not a firm learning MSP valuation from scratch on your deal. What genuinely separates a good MSP sale from a mediocre one is whether the advisor understands recurring-revenue quality, specifically the split between managed-services contracts and one-off project work, and whether they know which private equity roll-ups are actively buying in Central Texas right now. Ask any Austin advisor, generalist or specialist, to name the last MSP or IT-services deal they closed, the recurring-revenue percentage, and roughly when it closed. CGK Business Sales, one of the business brokers on this page, names IT services and MSP as a specific sector too and handles revenue from $1.5 million, which gives you a second data point to compare fee structure and process style against.
My SaaS company does $9M ARR and most Austin firms don't publish a deal-size floor. How do I find out if I'm too small?
Ask directly and treat a vague answer as your answer. Several Austin firms on this list, including Focus Strategies, pH Partners and ScaleView Partners, do not publish a specific deal-size band on their own sites, which is a real gap in disclosure, not necessarily a sign you are too small. ScaleView is worth calling first because its entire positioning is Austin SaaS founders specifically, run by partners who describe themselves as former tech founders, which suggests $9 million ARR is squarely inside their target range even though no floor is printed. Austin Dale Group publishes a $5 million to $75 million revenue band and names software and SaaS as a core sector, so your $9 million ARR business would sit comfortably inside its stated range if ARR and revenue are roughly aligned in your business. The practical test: ask each firm for their smallest closed SaaS deal in the last two years, by revenue, and how senior the team was on it.
Two firms on your list, Corporate Investment and Corporate Finance Associates, list the same building address in Austin. Are they the same company?
We could not confirm they are the same company, and we treated them as separate firms for exactly that reason, but the overlap is worth your own follow-up question. Corporate Investment's own site lists its Austin office at 7000 North Mopac Expressway, Suite 200, founded 1984, led by named Certified Business Intermediaries Larry Schumann and Philip Wilhite, with securities offered through Statesman Corporate Finance, LLC. Corporate Finance Associates' Austin office page lists the identical address and suite number, but names a different team, Jim Gerberman, Roy Graham, Jim Class and George Bryson, and discloses a different broker-dealer, Corporate Finance Securities, Inc. Different named people and different broker-dealers at the same suite number is more consistent with two independent firms sharing an office building, which is common in Austin's boutique-advisory scene, than with one firm operating under two brands. Because we could not independently resolve the relationship, we listed only Corporate Investment on this page to avoid the appearance of double-counting one firm as two.
I have a restaurant franchise group doing $4M EBITDA across 12 locations. Is Morgan Kingston Advisors really specialized enough to matter?
The specialization is real on paper; the depth is something you need to verify in a call, because the firm's own site does not publish it. Morgan Kingston names middle market restaurant companies, including independent brands, franchisors and franchisees, as its only stated sector, which is the single clearest vertical focus of any firm on this Austin list. A single-sector specialist generally means a shorter, more relevant buyer list, because the firm is not building a generic industrial buyer database and hoping some of them also eat at restaurants. The catch is that the firm's site names no individual bankers, no deal-size band and no dated closed transactions, so you cannot check any of that from the outside the way you can with, say, Venture Capricorn's dated deal list. At $4 million EBITDA across 12 locations, you are a real multi-unit platform, not a single storefront, so ask Morgan Kingston directly for two named, checkable restaurant or franchise closes from the last 24 months, ideally at a comparable EBITDA and unit count, plus the name of the banker who would run your specific deal.
Should I hire an Austin-headquartered firm or a national bank with a local office for my $40M industrial services company?
Stay with an Austin-headquartered firm at $40 million, and treat a national bank as the wrong tool at this size rather than the safer choice. We looked specifically for larger, national investment banks with a real staffed Austin office this year and could not independently verify one: search results pointed to Stephens Inc. having a downtown Austin address, but we could not confirm it on the firm's own website, so we are not naming it with confidence, and Houlihan Lokey, William Blair and Lincoln International's own office pages did not show an Austin location among the offices we could check. Venture Capricorn, headquartered in Austin, publishes a $25 million to $750 million revenue band with named, dated 2024-2026 closes in industrial, construction and manufacturing sub-sectors, which puts your $40 million industrial services company squarely inside its stated range with a team that is demonstrably active in exactly this size and sector this year.
Nobody on your Austin list names aerospace as a sector, but I keep seeing Firefly Aerospace and CesiumAstro in the news. What do I do?
You are reading the right signal, and it points to a real gap in Austin's boutique-advisory coverage rather than a reason to skip an advisor. Our own 2026 deal data shows real aerospace and defense-adjacent activity around Austin: Firefly Aerospace, based in the Austin metro, acquired Space-ng in June 2026, and CesiumAstro, based in Bee Cave, acquired semiconductor company Jariet Technologies in August 2026, both at undisclosed values. None of the ten main-tier firms we verified this year publishes aerospace, defense or space as a named sector on its own site. Venture Capricorn comes closest, naming aerospace and defense specifically among its ten published sectors, and its $25 million to $750 million revenue band would fit a mid-sized aerospace supplier. Below that scale, or if your business is closer to deep-tech semiconductor or satellite-communications work, you are likely better served by a national or specialist aerospace and defense advisory firm rather than a general Austin boutique, since buyer relationships in that space run through defense primes and specialized sponsors that a generalist Austin firm is unlikely to have cultivated.
A business broker quoted me a flat 10% success fee on my $3M HVAC company. Is that normal in Austin?
It is within the normal range for a deal this size, but you should still negotiate the details rather than accept the headline number. Our own fee guidance, built from the broader lower middle market and not specific to any one Austin firm, puts a $1 million to $5 million deal in roughly the 8% to 12% success-fee range, often with a minimum fee that bites harder the smaller the deal gets, so a flat 10% on a $3 million HVAC business sits in the middle of that band rather than being unusually high. CGK Business Sales, one of the business brokers we verified in Austin, publishes a success-fee model with no upfront cost on deals from $1.5 million in revenue, which is the kind of structure your quote likely resembles. What matters more than the headline percentage at this size is whether there is a minimum fee that would apply even at a lower sale price, whether the fee steps down on a larger sale (a Modified Lehman structure), and how long a tail period applies after the engagement ends if a buyer you were introduced to closes later.
I got an unsolicited offer from a private equity roll-up for my $12M IT services company. Should I still run a process?
Run a process, and use the unsolicited offer as your floor and your deadline rather than your final answer. A roll-up buyer's offer is anchored to their own platform's model and their appetite for that specific week, not to what your $12 million IT services company is genuinely worth to the full universe of buyers, which for MSP and IT services businesses in 2026 includes other roll-ups, strategic IT firms and, per our own tracked deal data, national platforms actively entering the Texas market (Nexus IT's August 2026 acquisition of Austin-based Loyal IT is exactly this pattern). CGK Business Sales names IT services and MSP as a specific covered sector and runs a success-fee model, which lowers your downside cost of testing the market against the unsolicited offer. Austin Dale Group's $5 million to $75 million band and IT-services focus is another option built for exactly this size and sector.
How do I verify one of these Austin advisors is genuinely licensed and not just a marketing website?
Check the entity, not the homepage. Every M&A advisor working with securities in the US operates through a registered broker-dealer or under a specific exemption, and the firms on this page differ in how clearly they disclose that. Focus Strategies, Westlake Securities, pH Partners, Austin Dale Group, Corporate Investment and Morgan Kingston Advisors all name their broker-dealer relationship directly on their own sites (Focus Strategies Merchant Banking LLC, FNEX Capital LLC, pH Partners LLC with FINRA Firm #130790, Independent Investment Bankers Corp, Statesman Corporate Finance LLC, and M&A Securities Group, respectively); we could not find that disclosure on the firm's site for Venture Capricorn (which names only “properly registered broker-dealers” without an entity), Navidar, ScaleView Partners or Benchmark International's Austin office. Take whichever legal entity name a firm gives you and search it on FINRA BrokerCheck, which is free and public. For business brokers such as CGK, IBEX or Viking, ask which state broker license or IBBA/M&A Source membership applies, since business brokerage is regulated differently from securities-based M&A advisory in Texas.
My software company's growth has slowed and I keep reading that Austin tech is booming. Should that worry my valuation story?
It should change how you frame the story, not panic you, and the current data is more mixed than the “Austin tech boom” headline suggests. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas's Austin metro indicators for July 2026 show the Information sector, which includes much of software and media, contracting 9.0% annualized even while professional and business services grew 9.9% annualized and total metro employment is up 24.1% since the pandemic, more than double the statewide rate. That means a buyer's diligence team evaluating your software company is not necessarily working from an assumption that every Austin tech company is growing; they may well be reading sector-level softness into their model. Your job, with your advisor, is to separate your company's specific growth story from the sector headline: what is your net revenue retention, your gross margin trend, and your customer concentration, independent of what the Austin Information sector as a whole is doing this year.
I'm at $1.5M in revenue, the smallest end of your list. Who should I genuinely call first?
Call a business broker before a boutique investment bank, because the economics only work that direction at this size. CGK Business Sales publishes a $1.5 million revenue floor exactly matching your business, on a success-fee basis with no upfront cost, which limits your downside if the process takes longer than expected. IBEX Middle Market Business Brokers, based in Cedar Park in the Austin metro, has been doing this since 1979 and claims a fast, structured process across hundreds of industries. Viking Mergers & Acquisitions publishes business brokerage specifically from $1 million, with a named Austin market leader, Matt Gold. None of the ten main-tier M&A advisory firms on this page publish a deal-size floor at or below $2 million, and several, such as Venture Capricorn at $25 million or pH Partners with a $400 million example deal, are built for businesses many multiples larger than yours; engaging one of them at $1.5 million risks either an outright decline or, worse, a junior team with limited attention.
Silicon Labs sold to Texas Instruments for $7.5 billion in 2026 and no advisor was named in your data. Does that mean big Austin deals don't use advisors?
No, and this is a gap in our source data, not evidence about the deal itself. Our own 2026 tracked deal index records Texas Instruments' agreement to acquire Austin-headquartered Silicon Labs for approximately $7.5 billion, all cash at $231.00 per share, sourced to Texas Instruments' own press release, and that source did not name a sell-side or buy-side advisor, so neither did our record. A transaction of that size, a public company being acquired by another public company, virtually always involves at least one investment bank on each side, along with fairness-opinion counsel; the absence of a named advisor in our data reflects what the specific press release we sourced chose to disclose, not an absence of advisors on the deal. This is exactly why we do not rank Austin firms by deal-index credit counts the way some of our sector-specific guides do: of the four Austin-metro deals in our 2026 tracked set, zero named a sell-side advisor in the source we cited, a sample too thin and too biased toward non-disclosure to support a league table.
Sources
- Focus Strategies Investment Banking, focus-strategies.com
- Westlake Securities, westlakesecurities.com
- pH Partners, phpartners.com and phpartners.com/team
- Venture Capricorn, venturecapricorn.com, venturecapricorn.com/contact and venturecapricorn.com/why-work-with-us
- Navidar, navidar.com and navidar.com/contact-us
- Austin Dale Group, austindalegroup.com and austindalegroup.com/about
- ScaleView Partners, scaleviewpartners.com and scaleviewpartners.com/about-us
- Benchmark International, Austin office page, benchmarkintl.com/about/offices/austin
- Corporate Investment, corpinvest.com, corpinvest.com/about and corpinvest.com/contact
- Morgan Kingston Advisors, morgankingston.com
- Corporate Finance Associates, Austin office page, cfaw.com/austin-tx (reviewed to check the shared-address question; not listed separately, see verification section)
- CGK Business Sales, Austin office page, cgkbusinesssales.com/austin
- IBEX Middle Market Business Brokers, Austin/Cedar Park page, ibexbeyond.com/locations/austin-tx/sell-my-business
- Viking Mergers & Acquisitions, Austin market page, vikingmergers.com/market/business-brokers-austin-tx
- Exit Equity, Austin location page, exitequity.com/locations/austin-ma-advisory (excluded, no verified Austin office)
- Parkland Capital Partners, Austin location page, parklandcp.com/locations/austin-ma-advisors (excluded, no verified Austin office)
- Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Austin Economic Indicators, July 2026, dallasfed.org/research/indicators/aus/2026/aus2605
- ProCloser Tech M&A Deal Index (internal), 1,740 tracked 2026 transactions, including Texas Instruments/Silicon Labs (prnewswire.com), Firefly Aerospace/Space-ng (Austin American-Statesman, statesman.com), CesiumAstro/Jariet Technologies (Community Impact, communityimpact.com) and Nexus IT/Loyal IT (PR Newswire, prnewswire.com)
- ProCloser EBITDA multiples by industry (internal), procloser.ai/blog/ebitda-multiples-by-industry