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WATERFALL · LIVE
Commercial HVAC Texas · $1.5M SDE · 4.0×NEWRoute-based services Southeast · $900K SDE · 3.8×MATCHManaged IT services Midwest · $1.0M SDE · 4.5×Plumbing & mechanical Southwest · $2.0M SDE · 4.0×NEWCommercial landscaping Mid-Atlantic · $750K SDE · 3.3×Medical billing Remote · $1.0M SDE · 4.0×MATCHFire & life safety Mountain West · $2.0M SDE · 4.4×Specialty contracting Southeast · $1.2M SDE · 3.5×NEW
DealStratum
On-market and off-market — one feed

Buy your first business
like a fund would.

DealStratum is the deal team you can’t afford to hire — reaching the brokers that matter, screening each deal, keeping every follow-up on schedule — while you keep your day job.

Start 14-day free trialSee the engine work
Runs from your own inboxReplies sorted & trackedPlain-English deal screens
DealStratum — your search, working
Off-market map
Dale R. · owner
dale@midwesthvac.com
Traced
Deal pipeline24 active
Reaching out12
Coastal Logistics
EBITDA $0.9M
Reviewing7
Offer3
Brightline Mfg.
EBITDA $2.1M
Midwest HVAC Co.
EBITDA $1.4M
AI deal screen
86
Worth a closer look
Recurring revenue · clean books
Plain read: ~70% recurring route contracts make this resilient. The risk is owner dependence — ask how transferable the top accounts are.
Outreach sent today37

Offer sent

Midwest HVAC Co. · direct mail on its way

Outreach sent today 38
Built for buyers, not salespeople1,000+ brokers in reachReplies sorted & trackedPlain-English deal screens

The search math

One closed deal is a thousand at-bats.

Searchers who close will tell you the same thing: a serious search is a funnel, and the top of it is enormous. A fund staffs analysts to run those numbers. You have nights and weekends — and now, the same machine.

1,000
brokers reached
DealStratum drafts, sends & follows up
150
conversations opened
replies sorted, PFS reply teed up
40
CIMs screened
the analyst reads each one in plain English
8
LOIs worth drafting
your hours go here
1
business bought
yours

DealStratum runs the top of this funnel on autopilot, so every hour you have goes to the handful of deals that matter — not the hundreds that don’t.

Illustrative search math — every search runs its own numbers.

The Waterfall — live deal feed

The major marketplaces. One feed. Zero tabs.

DealStratum syncs thousands of listings from the major marketplaces and broker sites we track, de-dupes the re-posts, and scores each one against your buy box. New matches surface in your feed fast — usually within a day of posting.

Synced daily, de-duped
One listing, one card — even when it’s posted on four sites under three names.
Scored against your buy box
Industry, SDE range, geography, owner involvement — every listing in your feed is graded the moment it lands.
Alerts that find you
New matches land in your inbox — not in a tab you forgot to check.
YOUR BUY BOX · HOME SERVICES · $750K–$2M SDE · SOUTHEASTLIVE
Route-based pest control
MATCH 92
TAMPA, FL · $890K SDE · 3.8× ASK · MARKETPLACE
Commercial landscaping
MATCH 88
CHARLOTTE, NC · $740K SDE · 3.2× ASK · BROKER SITE
Residential HVAC
MATCH 84
JACKSONVILLE, FL · $1.2M SDE · 4.0× ASK · MARKETPLACE
Managed IT services
FIT 61
COLUMBUS, OH · $1.1M SDE · 4.5× ASK · MARKETPLACE
Specialty coffee roaster
FIT 34
PORTLAND, OR · $480K SDE · 3.4× ASK · MARKETPLACE

The analyst, on call

Paste a deal. Get a fast, plain-English read on any business.

Drop in a CIM, a listing URL, or a paragraph from a broker’s email. The screen reads it the way a seasoned buyer would — what’s strong, what’s a flag, and the questions to ask before you burn a week of diligence.

“It told me to ask about owner dependence before I’d even noticed the org chart.”
ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE — THE KIND OF FLAG A SCREEN RAISES
deal-screen

Illustrative sample output. Deal screens are automated analysis, not financial, valuation, appraisal, or investment advice — always do your own diligence.
6 owner-operated businesses found in view. Owner lookup: R. Delgado, Delgado Mechanical — letter queued for delivery.

Off-market sourcing

The best businesses never hit a marketplace.

Plenty of companies worth buying sell to the first credible buyer who shows up — no listing, no auction, no bidding war. DealStratum helps you get to their desk first.

01
Frame your market
Point the map anywhere — a metro, a county, the streets around your house — and hit Search this area. If you can see it, you can search it.
02
Look up the owners
DealStratum surfaces the owner-operated businesses in view and looks up each owner’s contact details from public records.
03
Land on their desk
A real, personalized letter — printed, mailed, and tracked to delivery. The kind of deal flow most buyers never see.

Territory Intelligence

Find the market the data says is ripe.

Most searchers pick where to hunt by accident. Build a plain-English thesis instead, and DealStratum scores every market in the country 0–100 for fit — then paints it on a map you can read at a glance and drill into.

01
Build a thesis
Pick an industry and the signals that matter — owner age, white space, fragmentation, deal activity, momentum. It reads like a sentence.
02
Score every market
One nationwide scale, so markets compare cleanly. The fit score follows your thesis — you set which signals are Critical, which merely Matter, and which to turn Off.
03
Drill into the map
County grain for the national picture, ZIP grain to zoom into a metro’s trade areas — with a decomposed scorecard behind every score.
See Territory IntelligenceStart your free trial

What’s inside

Everything an acquisition search needs, in one workspace.

Source, screen, reach out, and track — without stitching together a spreadsheet, a CRM, and five broker tabs.

Live feed

Waterfall

The major business-for-sale marketplaces and broker sites we track, aggregated into one live feed, refreshed daily.

WATERFALL · LIVE128 new today
Established HVAC Co.
HVAC · North TX
Ask $1.5M
● today
Commercial Plumbing
Plumbing · Phoenix
Ask $2.1M
1d
Pest Control Route
Home Svcs · Atlanta
Ask $1.1M
2d
AI read

AI Deal Screening

A fast, plain-English read on any business before you spend hours on it.

screen — atlas-pest
> Is Atlas Pest worth pursuing at 4.2× EBITDA?
Short answer: yes, with one question.
The owner personally services the top 5 accounts. Confirm those contracts transfer — and survive his exit — before you fall in love.
Fit 86
Kanban

Deal Pipeline

Every opportunity and where it stands on a clear board — sourced, NDA, review, offer.

Outreach2
Express Car Wash
Austin, TX · Ask $2.5M
Pest Control Route
Atlanta, GA · Ask $1.1M
Reviewing1
Established HVAC Co.
North TX · Ask $1.5M
Offer1
Dental Practice
Raleigh, NC · Ask $1.8M
Buy box

Buy Box

Define exactly what you want to buy, so everything stays focused.

Broker outreach

AI Broker Outreach

Warm, personalized intros sent to brokers from your email.

Rolodex

Contact Rolodex

Every broker, lender, and advisor in one searchable place.

Follow-ups

Automatic Follow-ups

Well-timed follow-ups go out for you — good leads never slip.

Direct mail

Direct Mail

Reach off-market owners who never list — by physical letter.

Owner sourcing

Owner Sourcing & Traces

Pinpoint off-market owners on the map, then trace their verified contact details.

Pricing

Pay less than a single analyst’s afternoon.

14-day free trial on every plan. No contracts. Cancel anytime.

Most popular

Base

$97/mo

For the searcher running one focused thesis.

  • Everything in Scout — Waterfall feed, buy box & alerts
  • ~50 owner traces / mo — find & verify owner contacts
  • Off-market sourcing map
  • Connect your Gmail — outreach + auto-pausing follow-up sequences
  • Deal pipeline + deal-team rolodex (full CRM)
  • AI CIM screening on every deal
  • Territory Intelligence — county-level market analysis
  • Direct mail — pay per letter with mail credits
  • 1 buy box · 1 connected Gmail inbox
Start 14-day free trial

You won’t be charged during your 14-day free trial. After it ends, $97/mo is charged and your plan renews automatically every month until you cancel. Cancel anytime in Settings → Billing.

Owner traces and physical letters carry real third-party costs — they run on simple prepaid credits, so you only pay for what you actually use.

Questions

Asked before you ask.

I've never bought a business before. Is this for me?
You're exactly who it's built for. The structure is the product — buy box in, qualified deals out, every step explained in plain English. If you can use email and a spreadsheet, you can run a search.
Are the emails automated?
You send from your own email address, and every message is personalized to the deal and the broker. You can review and edit anything before it goes out, so what lands in their inbox is genuinely from you.
How is this different from a spreadsheet or a generic CRM?
A spreadsheet stores your search. DealStratum runs it — outreach goes out, follow-ups fire, replies get sorted, and deals get screened whether or not you're at your desk that day.
What's included, and what costs extra?
Your plan covers the feed, the pipeline, outreach, and the analyst. Two things carry real third-party costs — owner traces and physical letters — so they run on prepaid credits. You only pay for what you use.
Where do the off-market businesses come from?
DealStratum continuously surfaces owner-operated businesses that aren't listed on the usual marketplaces, with contact details compiled from public records — verify before relying on any single record.
What size businesses is this built for?
Owner-operated companies, typically $1M–$5M — the range one buyer or a small team can realistically acquire, finance, and run.
How quickly can I get started?
The same afternoon. Connect your Gmail (about two minutes), set your buy box, approve your first sequence. No setup call, nothing to install.

From the blog

Playbooks for buying your first business.

Financing

How to Finance a Business Acquisition: Every Option, Ranked

Jul 21, 2026 · 9 min read

Valuation

How to Value a Small Business: the SDE Method, Step by Step

Jul 18, 2026 · 9 min read

Deal sourcing

How to Work With a Business Broker (and When to Go Around Them)

Jul 15, 2026 · 8 min read

All posts →

The deal you’re searching for is in someone’s feed tonight. Make sure it’s yours.

Bring the discipline of a fund to the biggest decision of your career.

Start 14-day free trial

No contracts · Cancel anytime · Built by a buyer, for buyers