An independent sponsor and advisory firm serving the lower middle market. We invest in, advise on, and partner around transactions where outcome depends on rigor, structure, and judgment.
We acquire control or significant minority positions in lower middle market companies, raising capital deal by deal alongside aligned co-investors. We focus on owner-led businesses at decision points — succession, recapitalization, partial liquidity, or growth equity — where the right partner matters as much as the right valuation.
We advise companies, sponsors, and capital providers on transactions and strategy. Mandates include sell-side advisory, buy-side diligence and acquisition support, capital structuring, and complex strategic work where transaction expertise and operating perspective are both required.
We are selective about the engagements we accept and the transactions we pursue. Our economics depend on outcomes, not volume.
Every situation receives the analytical depth, structuring expertise, and diligence standards developed over careers in principal investing, management consulting, and merchant banking.
As an independent sponsor, we raise capital transaction by transaction from a curated network of family offices, institutional partners, and strategic co-investors. There is no fund clock, no deployment quota, and no incentive to do deals that don't deserve to be done.
Our investments are made with patient capital and our advisory work emphasizes durable outcomes over expedient ones. We are positioned to take the longer view because our structure does not require the shorter one.
Considering a sale, recapitalization, or growth capital event. Looking for a counterparty who will close, treat the business with care, and bring meaningful capability beyond purchase price.
Engaging us as advisors on transactions, capital raises, strategic decisions, or complex situations requiring institutional analysis and execution support.
Family offices, institutional investors, and individual partners seeking direct co-investment access alongside an active sponsor with aligned economics.
Senior lenders, mezzanine providers, and other professional advisors with whom we partner on transactions and from whom we welcome introductions.
We do not constrain ourselves to a single sector. The best opportunities rarely fit clean vertical boxes, and the firms that pretend otherwise often miss what actually matters in a transaction.
We pursue conviction across industries, with a preference for situations where operating substance, structural opportunity, and the right counterparty alignment converge. The work tends to share a common profile rather than a common industry: owner-led businesses with real economic substance, situations at meaningful inflection points, transactions where outcome depends on how the work is done rather than simply whether it is done.
We have spent meaningful time across essential services, professional services, technology-enabled services, and specialty distribution.
We engage where we believe we can add real value. We pass when we cannot. The model functions because we are willing to say no often.
The largest investment banks and private equity firms have minimum thresholds that exclude most of this market. The local advisors and brokers who serve it often lack the analytical depth, structuring experience, and institutional standards that meaningful transactions deserve. Owners and operators are frequently left choosing between firms that cannot fully serve them.
Cutthroat addresses that gap.
The firm is built on more than a decade of professional experience spanning principal investing, management consulting for institutional private equity clients, and partnership in a merchant banking firm. That work has covered direct investment origination and structuring, fund formation, buy-side and sell-side advisory, growth strategy, and commercial diligence across a broad set of industries.
Cutthroat is based in Montana — close to the work, distant from the noise.
For owners considering a sale, recapitalization, transition, or strategic capital event — the counterparty matters as much as the price.
We do not lead with pitch decks or pressured timelines. We start with a conversation about what you are trying to accomplish and whether we are the right people to help you accomplish it.
Start a ConversationWe work with a curated group of family offices, institutional investors, and aligned individual partners.
If you are interested in co-investment access or in learning more about our investment process, we welcome the conversation.
Connect With UsEngagements structured around outcomes and held to institutional standards.
Whether you are an owner exploring a transaction, a capital partner seeking access, an advisory client with a situation that fits, or another professional with an introduction to make — we welcome the conversation.