Software · Fintech · Data M&A

Founder-built.
Banker-run.

Every company sale has a distribution of outcomes — and most land in the middle. Bracton exists to drive yours into the right tail: the outsized exit, not the median a marketplace settles for. Senior advisory for founders selling $5M–$30M software, fintech, and data companies — a founder who has sold companies, a banker who has closed them, and technology, built in-house, that finds and tailors to every buyer worth reaching.

Let’s talk See how we work
The TechnologistFour-time founder who builds the technology himself
The Banker24 years in M&A — Wasserstein Perella & Sandler O'Neill
The Reach285K+ founders & investors — a proprietary channel to buyers

Who we serve

If you have built something worth $5M to $30M, you are the most underserved seller in finance.

Below you, a marketplace lists your company like a used car. Above you, the bulge bracket will not return the call. The best years of your work fall into the gap between them. Maximizing price isn’t a volume game — it takes tailoring the story to your specific business and to each individual buyer, backed by the industry-specific expertise that superior positioning demands. Bracton exists to own that gap — with the seniority of an established bank and the discipline your outcome deserves.

Under $5MOnline marketplaces and high-volume brokers, built for their own throughput — not your price. One-size-fits-all can’t maximize value, and most make you post an asking price: good for the platform, far worse for the seller. None are industry specialists. And a few disappointing outcomes don’t move the needle for a volume shop — to them, your life’s work is one deal among many.Run & gun
$5M – $30MFounder-led technology & software companies that deserve full representation — positioning, a competitive process, and a partner who negotiates on your behalf.◆ Where we work
$250M+Bulge-bracket banks & elite boutiques — who will not put a senior team on a transaction your size.Out of reach

What we do

Three mandates. One side of the table — yours.

Sell-Side

Selling your company

Full representation from first conversation to signed and funded — positioning your business, telling its story, running a competitive process, and negotiating the terms that protect your outcome.

Buy-Side

Acquisitions & roll-ups

Sourcing and closing the right targets for acquirers building in software and AI — disciplined origination, valuation, and execution on the buying side of the table.

Preparation

Planning ahead

Valuation- and exit-focused corporate strategy for founders who aren’t selling yet. Few management teams have watched scores of companies grow — and helped drive that growth; almost none can wed operating strategy to knowing how to engineer a superior exit. We help you position, time, and build the business so that when the moment comes, it commands its best price.

Why Bracton

Specialists in software, fintech, and data — who understand what you built.

Your sale is run personally by two senior principals — never handed to associates. One is a four-time founder and technologist who builds software himself; the other brings 24 years of M&A from Wasserstein Perella and Sandler O'Neill and years as an operating CEO. Between them, they can prove what your company is truly worth — and make the case to every buyer who should pay for it.

01

Specialists, not generalists

We sell software, fintech, and data companies — and only those. We know their buyers, their multiples, and their diligence traps cold: hard-won expertise and relationships a “we-do-everything” shop cannot fake.

02

We understand the technology — at the builder's level

Most bankers talk the tech talk; few grasp what your product actually does. Our founder has built it, in code. That is what lets us articulate the real value, curate diligence with credibility, and tell an acquirer's CTO precisely why they cannot just rebuild this in a month.

03

Who is really on your deal?

At most firms, the senior banker who wins your trust in the pitch is not the one running your process three weeks later — a partner's job is to bring in business, then hand it to associates. Not here. We guarantee the two principals run your deal, first call to close.

04

We know the buyers you don't

You may wonder how anyone could know your subsector as well as you do. The answer is two and a half decades spent mapping exactly these acquirers — strategic and financial, across continents — and keeping those relationships live. The right buyer is often one a local process never surfaces: a strategic on another continent that should pay the most.

05

Bespoke to every buyer

Most firms send one deck to a list. We build the positioning and outreach for each individual buyer — because we know what each one actually weighs. Our banker has advised CEOs and boards from startup to publicly traded companies worth billions; our technology lets us bring that depth to every acquirer, one at a time. True customization, at a size where it was impossible until now.

06

Founder DNA

We have built and sold our own companies. We understand the founder's journey as intimately as the technology itself — the weight of selling your life's work, and exactly what a great outcome feels like. To us you are a peer, not a number.

How it works

A clear path from decision to close.

Step 01

Position

We immerse in the business and sharpen the equity story, then build what a sophisticated buyer expects: a defensible valuation, a data-driven model, and materials tailored to your specific company and market. We pressure-test it the way a buyer’s diligence team will — before they ever see it.

Step 02

Reach

We map the full universe of qualified acquirers — strategic and financial, domestic and global — rank them by who should pay the most and why, and approach each one discreetly. Every buyer receives a case built specifically for them, never a mass-emailed deck.

Step 03

Negotiate

We create genuine competition and manage the field of offers, negotiating the terms that decide your outcome — valuation, structure, earn-outs, and protections — with your interests first at every turn. Leverage comes from a real process; we build it and we hold it.

Step 04

Close

We drive diligence and documentation to a signed, funded transaction — coordinating counsel and accountants, anticipating the issues that stall deals, and keeping steady hands from letter of intent to wire.

4×
Ventures founded by co-founding partner Shawn — including YCharts, sold to LLR Partners
$35B
In fintech M&A transactions completed by our banking partner
24 yrs
In M&A — Wasserstein Perella & Sandler O'Neill (now Piper Sandler)
285K+
Founders and investors in our community — a proprietary channel to buyers
2
Senior principals on every deal — first call to close, never handed to associates

Our partners

A founder who's sold companies. A banker who's closed them.

Co-Founder & Managing Partner
Shawn Carpenter
Founder, technologist & origination
  • A four-time founder. Built YCharts into a leading investment-analytics platform, sold to LLR Partners. Founder of StockAlarm, serving 285K+ investors — and of ventures before them.
  • Technical to the core. Builds the firm's technology in-house — applied AI in production, not theory — so every process reaches further and goes deeper than a traditional shop can.
  • An operator's full range. Former CMO at Rate; founder of RepIQ, backed by Pritzker VC; early revenue leadership at Google.
  • He speaks founder-to-founder — because he has sat in exactly your chair, four times over, and knows what a life's work is worth.
Co-Founder & Managing Partner
Michael Kraines
M&A execution & operating experience
  • 24 years in M&A — a Managing Director at both Wasserstein Perella and Sandler O'Neill (now Piper Sandler), with $35B+ in completed fintech transactions.
  • An operator, not just an advisor. President of Trading Technologies (TT), and a CFO and board director across fintech and financial services — he has sat in the chair he now advises.
  • Harvard Law, with distinction, and a University of Chicago MBA in Finance — the transaction, governance, and capital-markets depth that anchors every closing.
  • A partnership tested by a real exit. Michael served on the board of YCharts alongside Shawn, through its sale to LLR Partners.

Two names on the door. Both of them on your deal.

Let’s talk

Considering a sale, an acquisition, or a raise? We’d welcome the conversation.

Every conversation is confidential and carries no obligation. Whether a transaction is months or years away, the earlier we speak, the more we can do to protect and grow what your company is worth.

Email the partners Connect on LinkedIn
Shawn Carpenter Michael Kraines