Stella Maris Capital is an independent sponsor. We find a profitable business, agree terms with the owner, then raise the equity for that one company — from investors who choose it deal by deal. No blind pool. No fund clock counting down to a forced sale.
A private equity fund raises a large pool of committed money first and then goes looking for companies to spend it on. The fund has a fixed life, so every business it buys inherits a clock: deploy by year three, exit by year seven, whether or not that is the right year for your company.
An independent sponsor works in the opposite order. We source the company first. We do the diligence, agree the structure with the owner, and only then bring the transaction to family offices, private investors and co-investment funds who evaluate that specific business on its merits and write a cheque for it.
The model has moved from the margins to the mainstream of the lower middle market — there are now well over a thousand active independent sponsors in the United States, and a growing share of family offices prefer to invest this way precisely because they can see exactly what they are buying.
For an owner, the practical difference is hold period and attention. We are not managing a portfolio of twenty companies against a fund vintage. We are buying one, and our own economics only work if it is still a better business in year eight.
Pressure to deploy. Fixed exit window. Your business is one line in a portfolio, benchmarked against a vintage year.
Investors choose your business specifically. No fund life dictating the exit. Hold as long as the company should be held.
Written for the intermediaries who scan fifty of these a week. If a business fits four of the first five lines, it is worth a call.
Criteria are guidelines, not gates. Interesting businesses rarely fit a grid exactly.
Email the opportunity →Tell us about the business at a level you are comfortable with. We will tell you honestly whether it is something we would pursue, and if it is not, we will say why and point you toward buyers who are a better fit.
A real valuation range and a real structure, in writing. Not a placeholder number designed to win exclusivity and then get retraded. If we cannot get to a number that works for you, you will hear that quickly rather than after six weeks of silence.
We name our equity partners and our lender before we ask you for exclusivity — that is the question every seller should put to an independent sponsor, and we answer it unprompted. Diligence is run by the same people you have been talking to.
The company keeps its name, its people and its customers. Leadership stays and owns equity in what comes next. We work on the handful of things that actually move the business — pricing, sales capacity, systems, add-on acquisitions — and we leave the rest alone.
You built it, and how it is handed over matters as much as the number.
Bankers, brokers and accountants who need a buyer who will not waste the client's time.
Family offices, private investors and co-investment funds who want to underwrite one company, not a blind pool.
Stella Maris is the old name for the star that held still while everything else moved: the fixed point a navigator took a bearing from when the coast was out of sight. It is an unfashionable idea in an industry that measures itself in quarters, and it is the reason for the name.
Stella Maris Capital is led by Matthew Piwko, its founder and Managing Partner.
The firm is based in the New York metropolitan area and looks at businesses across the Northeast corridor.
An independent sponsor is a buyer who finds, diligences and negotiates an acquisition first, then raises the equity for that specific deal from family offices, private investors and co-investment funds. A traditional private equity fund does it the other way round: it raises a blind pool of committed capital first, then goes shopping. Because the capital is committed to one company rather than to a portfolio, an independent sponsor is not under pressure to deploy money by a deadline or to sell on a fund's timetable. Independent sponsors were once called fundless sponsors — an unfortunate name, because the capital is very much there; it is simply raised per transaction.
By naming the capital before we sign anything. We identify and pre-qualify our equity partners and our lender during diligence, and we tell you who they are before we ask for exclusivity. That is the right question to ask any buyer, and it is fair to ask us for our last closings, our capital relationships and references from sellers we have bought from. A buyer who will not answer those questions is the real execution risk — fund or no fund. Plenty of funded buyers walk away late; plenty of independent sponsors close on time. The difference is preparation, not structure.
Businesses with roughly $1.5 million to $6 million of adjusted EBITDA, $5 million to $50 million of revenue, at enterprise values of about $8 million to $40 million. Our focus sectors are business and industrial services, specialty manufacturing, value-add distribution, facilities and infrastructure services, healthcare services and niche B2B products. We look primarily at New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and eastern Pennsylvania, and we will travel for the right business. We do not do venture-stage companies, distressed restructurings, real estate development or single-project contracting.
Independent sponsor economics have largely standardised around three components. A closing fee is paid at the transaction, typically expressed as a percentage of enterprise value. An ongoing management fee is paid by the company, usually set against EBITDA. And carried interest — the sponsor's real upside — is earned only after the capital partners have received their invested capital back plus a preferred return, often on a tiered basis that increases as returns improve. The practical effect is that the great majority of a sponsor's compensation depends on the company performing, which is a materially different incentive from earning a management fee on a large pool of committed capital.
Yes. We are not buying companies in order to fold them into something bigger and strip the overhead out. Leadership stays. The name stays. We ask managers and often the departing owner to roll a portion of proceeds into the new equity, so that the people who know the business own a real share of what happens next. If your reason for selling is that you want to stop working entirely, we will want to see who is ready to step up — and if nobody is, that is a conversation to have at the start rather than at the closing table.
We work with business brokers, M&A advisors and investment banks on sell-side engagements and honour their fee arrangements with their client. For owners who come to us unrepresented, we will pay a properly structured referral fee to whoever made the introduction, where it is lawful and appropriate to do so. Call and we will be specific about the situation in front of us.
Thirty minutes, no NDA required for a high-level conversation, and nothing you tell us leaves the conversation. We will ask what the business does, roughly what it earns, why you are thinking about a transaction and what a good outcome looks like for you personally. You will get a straight read at the end of it: this is something we would pursue, or it is not and here is why. If it is not a fit for us, we will usually be able to point you to two or three buyers or advisors who are.
If you own a business in the New York metro area and have started wondering what comes next, a phone call costs you half an hour and commits you to nothing. Whoever answers is the person who makes the decision.
Stella Maris Capital
Metro New York · Serving NY, NJ, CT and PA