OUR MISSION

Giving Every Buyer Access to Institutional-Grade Deal Flow

We're building the platform that gives individual searchers, buy-side brokers, and micro-PE operators the same proprietary off-market deal intelligence that large PE firms build entire origination teams to produce — at a price that works for anyone serious about finding their next acquisition.

Our Inspiration

After years on the institutional side of M&A transactions, we kept watching the same dynamic play out: large PE firms and strategic acquirers with full origination teams sourcing proprietary off-market deals, while individual buyers and boutique buy-side brokers were stuck fighting over the same picked-over listings on BizBuySell.

The information asymmetry was stark. Institutional buyers had data teams tracking owner tenure, UCC filings, regulatory milestones, and digital signals across thousands of companies. Individual searchers had a LinkedIn account and a cold email sequence.

The Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition movement has created an enormous market of serious, motivated buyers who deserve better deal flow infrastructure. We built AcquisitionEdge to close that gap.

Why We Started This

We founded AcquisitionEdge because we believe the buyer side of the market is profoundly underserved. Individual searchers, buy-side brokers, and micro-PE operators represent the most motivated class of transaction-hunters in the small business market — and they're forced to compete using tools that were built for a different era.

A $500/month stack of ZoomInfo, LinkedIn Premium, and cold email tools gets you a raw list. What it doesn't get you is context — the signals that distinguish a business whose owner is genuinely ready to transition from one that's simply aging in place with no intention of selling.

By aggregating public records, operational data, and digital signals into a single scored pipeline, we give every buyer the deal origination infrastructure that used to require an institutional team to build.

WHAT WE'RE BUILDING

Our Goals

Find Off-Market Deals Before They List

We surface acquisition targets using the same signal categories that institutional origination teams track — owner age and tenure, debt payoff patterns, entity conversion filings, and digital infrastructure changes — at a price that works for individual searchers and boutique buy-side operations.

Replace the $500/Month Tool Stack

Individual searchers spend $500+ per month stitching together ZoomInfo, LinkedIn, and cold email tools to build a raw list with no signal context. Our goal is to replace that entire stack with a single purpose-built engine that delivers scored, signal-enriched acquisition targets instead of cold contact data.

Reach Owners Before Any Broker Does

The best acquisition opportunity is one that never hits the open market. By identifying transition signals early, our platform gives buyers the window to approach owners directly — before an asking price is set, before a broker controls access, and before any competing buyer knows the business exists.

THE TEAM

Meet Our Founders

Ziye Lin

CEO & Strategy

Ziye brings over a decade of M&A and financial due diligence experience to AcquisitionEdge. As a former Director in FTI Consulting's Technology, Media, and Telecom practice, he led engagements spanning due diligence analytics, M&A advisory, and post-merger integrations for both strategic buyers and private equity firms.

At FTI, Ziye sat on the institutional side of hundreds of M&A transactions and watched large acquirers source proprietary deals using origination infrastructure that smaller buyers could never afford to replicate. That information asymmetry is what AcquisitionEdge is built to eliminate.

Stevie Rhim

Chief Business Officer

Stevie serves as Chief Business Officer, bringing deep expertise in product strategy and go-to-market execution from the high-tech sector. As a former Director of Product Management and Marketing, he led cross-functional teams to launch multiple full-stack hardware and software solutions from concept to commercial success.

Stevie's strength is translating complex analytical capabilities into tools that people actually want to use. His mission is to make AcquisitionEdge the indispensable deal sourcing platform for every serious acquisition entrepreneur, buy-side broker, and micro-PE operator in America.