Our Approach
Founded in 2010, First Hill Partners provides high-touch M&A, capital raising and strategic advisory services to founders, companies and investors. From the first call to the final close, transactions are led exclusively by our senior bankers who each bring three decades of investment banking experience.
We take a long-term approach to our relationships and pride ourselves on offering clients advice shaped by our experience on all sides of the table as investment bankers, board members, investors and operators combined with, disciplined and competitive deal execution, perspective gained across market cycles, and deep sector knowledge of the buyers and investors who matter most.
Our expertise spans multiple sectors including:
- Software & Technology
- IT & Managed Services
- Healthcare
- Aerospace and Defense
- Industrial Technology and Manufacturing
- Closely Held Business
First Hill provides mergers & acquisitions, capital raising, and advisory services. All securities transactions are offered through our wholly owned subsidiary First Hill Securities, LLC, a member of FINRA and SIPC.
Our Services
Every company, founder, owner, and investor eventually reaches an inflection point where changes in growth, positioning, operational or market dynamics raise important questions about what comes next. Whether it is the right time to sell, raise capital, transition the business to the next generation or take some capital off the table while continuing to participate in future growth, these decisions can shape not only the future of the business, but also the financial and personal objectives of those who built and invested in it. At First Hill, we partner with our clients to navigate through these inflection points by tailoring each process to achieve our client’s strategic and financial objectives.
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
Our principals bring deep, hands-on experience across sell-side, buy-side and divestiture transactions, with senior-level attention on everything from private company sales and corporate carve-outs to founder liquidity events. For our sale/divestiture clients, our relationships allow us to position them to a broad base of potential buyers, including many not obvious to others, enabling us to exceed expectations for consideration and service received. For our buy-side clients, those same relationships allow us to present proprietary targets for strategic acquisition.
Key components of our M&A services include:
- Sell-side Representation
- Buy-side Representation
- Management Buyouts
- Recapitalizations
- Restructuring
CAPITAL RAISING
Our principals’ backgrounds in venture, private equity and debt placement give us an extensive network of investors and lenders interested in every component of our clients’ capital structure, from growth equity and minority recapitalizations to senior and subordinated debt. These relationships let us match each financing to a company’s plan, maximizing the strategic value of a partner while minimizing our clients’ cost of capital. Additionally, these capital providers have come to value First Hill’s domain knowledge, bringing them opportunities relevant to each of their focus areas. In short, they see differentiated transactions from us.
Key components of our capital raising services include:
- Debt Placements
- Recapitalizations
- Equity Placements
- Strategic Investments
BOARD AND FOUNDER ADVISORY SERVICES
Unlike many transaction-only investment banks, First Hill takes a longer-term view of its relationships. We work with owners and boards on valuation perspective, exit readiness and long-range planning well before a transaction is ever on the table. This practice began with demand from many of our reference clients who, after selling their business, went on to start or take over senior roles at new companies. Today we bring that same long-range guidance to closely held businesses planning for a founder’s retirement, companies navigating generational change, or entrepreneurs mapping a long-term home for what they’ve built.
Key components of our Board and Founder Advisory Services Include:
- Corporate Strategy and Positioning
- Transaction Timing Evaluation
- Generational Transition