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ORIGINATION & ADVISORY · LOWER MIDDLE MARKET

Buyside advisory and proprietary dealflow.
for the Lower Middle Market.

OutSearched is a buyside advisor and proprietary sourcing engine for private equity, family offices, and corporate development. We execute direct to owner outreach for qualified buyers in the lower middle market.

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$500MM+

SOURCED IN 2025

52×

MORE QUALIFIED CONVERSATIONS

~ 60 DAYS

TO FIRST QUALIFIED CONVERSATION

Partners and Clients

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Proprietary Deals Sourced

LIVE

Lighting Services Platform

Mountain West / Nationwide

Founder-led

$4.1M EBITDA
LIVE

Chemical Manufacturing

South-Central U.S.

Family-owned

$3.5M EBITDA
LIVE

Steel Distribution & Fabrication

Southeast

Multi-location

$2.5M EBITDA
LIVE

Industrial Cleaning & Environmental

Northeast

Specialized services

$2.8M EBITDA
LIVE

Logistics Services

Nationwide

Direct Intro

$1.6M EBITDA
LIVE

Plumbing & HVAC Services

Midwestern US

Founder-owned

$1.5M EBITDA
LIVE

Metal Roofing & Building Products

Southeast

Proprietary

$1.2M EBITDA
LIVE

Home Inspection Services

Midwest

Owner-Operator

$1.0M EBITDA

Sourcing in the lower middle market has never been more competitive.

The math has shifted. There are more buyers, fewer prepared sellers, and rising prices on the deals that do reach market. The buyers who win are the ones reaching owners first.

2,000+

Active LMM PE Buyers

Up from roughly 300 in 2020. The pool of capital chasing every quality target has grown nearly 700%.

5.3×

Average EV/EBITDA

Auction processes are bid up. Off-market sourcing is the only consistent path to attractive entry multiples.

$200K+

Per-Mandate Sourcing Cost

Building and internal Business Development function, the stack, and the data is expensive.

WHAT WE DO

Three ways to plug us into your
deal team.

Every OutSearched engagement is built around how you want to operate. We can be invisible, named, or fully embedded.

01 · ENGAGEMENT MODEL

Internal Business Development

A trained team member handles proprietary and banker dealflow for your firm. Owners see your firm; we run the engine behind the scenes.

  • Branded as your firm in all outreach
  • Integration with your team and systems.
  • Mandate-specific outreach architecture
  • Weekly pipeline reviews and reporting

02 · ENGAGEMENT MODEL

Fractional Business Development

Elite origination capability without the cost of building it internally. Our team, your mandate, scaled output.

  • Outreach under our brand
  • Pre-qualification before introduction
  • Multiple concurrent mandates supported
  • Low success fees, for programmatic buyers

03 · ENGAGEMENT MODEL

Advisory

Sourcing and buyside advisory. No matter where you're at in the process, we've been there.

  • Industry mapping and target universe build
  • Outreach playbook and messaging strategy
  • Data and tech stack recommendations
  • Negotiations pre & post LOI

SERVICE PLANS

Pick the plan that matches your
deal team.

Three retainer-based packages. Fixed monthly cost. No success fees on closed deals — ever.

FOR LIMITED BUDGETS

Bootstrapped

Scaled email outbound on your single most important mandate. You handle qualification; we handle reach.

  • Single mandate
  • Scaled email outbound
  • Proprietary channel only
  • Direct-to-owner introductions
  • Client handles early qualification

BEST FOR: SOLO SEARCHERS, LEAN INDEPENDENT SPONSORS

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MOST POPULAR

FOR BUSY TEAMS

Managed

We act as the intermediary. You only see deals that have been pre-qualified against your investment criteria.

  • Two concurrent mandates
  • Outbound as named intermediary
  • Early qualification handled by us
  • Brokered channels included (optional)
  • Pre-qualified deals only

BEST FOR: INDEPENDENT SPONSORS, SMALL PE FIRMS

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FOR FAMILY OFFICES & FUNDS

Buyside Desk

Full buyside advisory. Unlimited mandates, multi-channel outbound, and a dedicated analyst on staff.

  • Unlimited mandates
  • Outbound email + outbound phone
  • Dedicated analyst on staff
  • Brokered + proprietary channels
  • Full buyside support for lean teams

BEST FOR: FAMILY OFFICES, MULTI-STRATEGY FUNDS

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PLAN COMPARISON

FEATURE Bootstrapped Managed Buyside Desk
Fixed-cost retainer pricing ✔ ✔ ✔
Proprietary channel outreach ✔ ✔ ✔
Outbound email ✔ ✔ ✔
Brokered / banker channel — ✔ ✔
Multiple concurrent mandates — ✔ ✔
Pre-qualification by OutSearched — ✔ ✔
Outbound phone outreach — — ✔
Dedicated analyst — — ✔
Full buyside advisory support — — ✔

WHO WE SERVE

Built for institutional buyers who
need to source like one.

Every buyer type has a different mandate, timeline, and economics. We tailor our approach to each.

FOR INDEPENDENT SPONSORS

Deal-by-deal economics demand off-market sourcing.

Independent sponsors win on entry multiple. Auction-bid deals don't pencil. We help you get to owners early, build conviction, and bring LPs deals they couldn't have found themselves.

Typical mandate: $2M–$10M EBITDA · 1-3 sectors

FOR SEARCH FUNDS

One acquisition. A clock that's already running.

Searchers have 18–24 months and a narrow buybox. Generic deal flow wastes the runway. We build a dedicated outreach engine around your exact criteria so every conversation matters.

Typical mandate: single thesis · narrow geography or vertical

FOR LOWER MIDDLE MARKET PE

Platform plays and bolt-ons that bankers haven't seen.

Whether you need platform investments or strategic add-ons for portfolio companies, we run mandates concurrently across your investment thesis. We integrate with your internal BD team or operate as a stand-alone function.

Typical mandate: multi-thesis · platform + add-ons

FOR FAMILY OFFICES

Direct, discreet, and built around your principles.

Family offices want what bankers can't deliver: relationships, optionality, and discretion. Our Buyside Desk operates as your full origination function with the discretion the role requires.

Typical mandate: unlimited scope · direct holding focus

HOW IT WORKS

From mandate kickoff to closed
deal.

A disciplined, four-phase process designed to put qualified opportunities in front of you within the first 60 days.

Step 01

Mandate Definition

We meet with your investment team to define the buybox: industries, geography, EBITDA range, structural preferences, and non-negotiables.

Step 02

Data & Infrastructure

We build the target universe, enrich it with proprietary data, configure outbound infrastructure, and calibrate messaging to your firm's voice.

Step 03

Direct-to-Owner Outreach

Multichannel outreach launches and we handle qualification calls, NDAs, and document requests. You get qualified conversations.

Step 04

Negotiation & Close

Qualified opportunities move into LOI, diligence, and close. We stay engaged through the deal lifecycle to keep the pipeline producing.

WHY OUTSEARCHED

The alternatives and what's
different about us.

Most LMM buyers stitch together some combination of an internal BD hire, broker relationships, and a SaaS subscription. Each comes with structural problems we were built to solve.

OPTION 1

Hiring Internal Business Development

  • $150K+ all-in per year before tools
  • 6–12 months to ramp
  • Capacity tops out at one or two mandates
  • Departure = pipeline restart
  • No leverage from shared infrastructure

OPTION 2

Working with Brokers & Bankers

  • You're one buyer in a competitive process
  • Auction dynamics drive entry multiples up
  • Limited ability to shape deal structure
  • Limited access to sellers to build relationship before LOI
  • Off-cycle from your investment thesis

THE OUTSEARCHED WAY

Embedded Origination, Built for LMM Buyers

  • Fixed retainer + lowest success fees
  • Deal team ready in 21 days
  • Multiple mandates supported concurrently
  • Direct-to-owner before a process exists
  • Tech infrastructure already built and tuned

FROM OUR CLIENTS

In their own words.

★★★★★

Quick to First Deal

I'm the founder of The Edelweiss Company and I decided to use OutSearched to help bring deals forward. They were professional, fast, and I have a deal (nearing LOI) on my plate already with less than 60 days of outbound.

February 2, 2026 Unprompted review
★★★★★

Great experience!

Nate and team did a great job of laying the foundation for our sourcing efforts. We are able to issue 3 LOIs within a few months of getting up and running. Definitely would recommend to any searcher or platform.

March 17, 2026 Unprompted review
★★★★★

An Essential Resource for Our Firm

Nate and his team at OutSearched have played a critical role in helping us uncover and pursue off-market opportunities across several industries. Their responsiveness and transparency made collaboration seamless.

April 6, 2026
“

Nate and the OutSearched team have been a fantastic asset to operations. Since working together, we have been presented with over $300MM in proprietary EV deal flow.

Johnny Sebastian

Buyside Advisor

“

Nate brings the unique combination of in-depth technical knowledge and high-caliber people skills. He knows how to talk to business owners, what questions to ask, and how to run a tight, comprehensive process.

Phil

Individual Buyer

“

OutSearched got going quickly. Three of the first deals were great. They keep adding to my pipeline so I can focus on closing. We have too many options — a good problem to have.

Nick Stefanyk

Individual Buyer

“

Submitted an LOI on an actionable target in the first 60 days.

Travis Monteleone

Independent Sponsor

“

Nate and team did a great job generating off-market leads. They were easy to work with, honest, and communicated clearly throughout the entire search process.

Nick Riley

Individual Buyer

“

OutSearched got going quickly and kept me well updated on status. They brought several quality deals within the first 60 days. I was pleased with the results.

Bill Balliette

Search Fund

From Our Clients, In Their Own Words

"I built OutSearched because I was tired of brokers and bankers controlling the dealflow. I wanted a service that found, qualified, and delivered dealflow for a specific mandate and didn’t want to pay massive success fees. We built that with OutSearched."

Nate Niehuus · FOUNDER

ABOUT OUTSEARCHED

Built by a buyer, for buyers.

Our founder spent years searching for great acquisition opportunities in the lower middle market and kept running into the same problems.

Manual outreach was slow. Deal data was outdated. Brokers were saturated. Tech stacks were fragmented and expensive. And every BD hire felt like a gamble against a market shifting toward off-market sourcing.

If a single experienced buyer was hitting these walls, thousands of others were too. Without a full-time team, modern data infrastructure, and outreach engineered for scale, most lower middle market buyers don't have access to a complete origination solution.

OutSearched is that solution a buy-side origination firm purpose-built for the institutional and programmatic buyers shaping the next decade of lower middle market M&A.

GET STARTED

Find your next deal.

A 30-minute strategy call. We'll walk through your mandate, show you how we'd build the engine, and tell you whether we're the right fit.