Software · Fintech · Data M&A

Founder-built.
Banker-run.

Bracton Partners provides senior M&A advice to founders selling software, fintech, and data companies. Every engagement is led by two senior partners and supported by software built in-house that expands buyer coverage and tailors the case to each acquirer. Most sale processes land near the middle. We build the positioning, buyer universe, and competitive tension to pursue a better one.

The FounderCo-founded YCharts · former Google revenue leader · scaled Stock Alarm
The Banker24 years, 100+ deals, $65B+, growth-stage to landmark mergers
The SpecialistsSoftware, fintech & data are not a focus area. They are the entirety of both partners’ careers.

Who we serve

If you have built something worth $5M to $75M, you are the most underserved seller in finance.

Marketplaces are optimized for transaction volume. Larger banks are optimized for larger fees. Between them sits the best of founder-led software, fintech, and data, getting neither the seniority nor the sector expertise a strong outcome takes. Bracton was built for that gap: senior, sector-specific representation and a genuinely competitive process, focused entirely on your result.

Marketplaces & brokersA standardized process optimized for transaction volume: one-size-fits-all, often asking-price driven, and rarely sector-specific.High volume
$5M to $75MFounder-led software, fintech & data companies that deserve full representation: senior, sector-specific positioning, a competitive process, and a partner negotiating on your behalf.◆ Where we work
Middle-market & institutional banksA deal this size either doesn’t clear their minimum, or clears it and is run day to day by an associate, not the partner who pitched you.Associate-Level Execution

Why Bracton

Every sale has a distribution of outcomes. We exist to drive yours into the right tail.

Your sale is run personally by two senior partners, never handed to associates. One is a founder and technologist who has built and sold a platform and ships production AI today; the other has spent 24 years in M&A at Wasserstein Perella and Sandler O'Neill, and has sat as an operator, CFO, and board director inside financial technology.

01

Senior-level dedicated attention

The two principals who win your trust in the pitch are the two people who run your deal. Two senior executives with five decades of combined experience run every part of the process, never associates.

02

Deep software, fintech & data expertise

Lifetime software, fintech, and data people, in every seat at the table, with dozens of companies advised from the inside. Not consumer, not industrial: this market is all we do.

03

Genuine real-world technical expertise

Advisors who have built, shipped, and sold technology platforms, not just covered them. That matters twice: positioning your technology in the acquirer’s own product language, and defending it when their technical team stress-tests it in diligence.

04

Blue-chip deal expertise

$65B+ in closed transactions across financial services, fintech, and market structure, completed by our banking partner prior to the firm’s formation.

05

A case built for every buyer

Every likely buyer gets its own case: the case for a strategic is not the case for a sponsor. Software we engineered in-house makes that economical, with 82,000+ companies mapped and an argument drafted per buyer. The principals supply the judgment.

The record

$65B+
Across 100+ transactions by our banking partner, prior to Bracton, growth-stage to landmark mergers
24 yrs
In M&A at Wasserstein Perella & Sandler O'Neill (now Piper Sandler)
82K+
Private companies, financings & investors mapped to power buyer research
2
Senior principals on every deal, first call to close, never handed to associates

Selected transactions

Landmark mergers to growth-stage software: the deals behind the desk.

Transaction experience of the partners, completed prior to Bracton. Across a 24-year career, our banking partner has advised on 100+ transactions totaling $65B+ across financial services, fintech, and market structure, from the mergers that reshaped the exchange and wealth-management industries to a decade of software, wealthtech, and data deals.

SectorCompanyTransactionCounterparty
Software, Data & WealthTech
WealthTechEnvestnetAcquisition of YodleeYodlee
WealthTechEnvestnetAcquisition of TamaracTamarac
WealthTechArchway TechnologiesCompany sale toSEI
DataMoody’sSale of CreditQuotes toWarburg Pincus
DataDTCCSale of Corporate Actions business toMarkit Group
Exchanges & Market Structure
ExchangeNYMEXMerger withCME
Post-TradeOmgeo (DTCC)Acquisition of JV stake fromThomson Reuters
ExchangeCMEAcquisition ofSwapstream
TradingKnight TradingAcquisition ofHotspot FX
FintechETF SecuritiesSale of company staken/a
Landmark Financial Institutions
BankingSwiss Bank Corp.Merger withUBS
BrokerageDean WitterMerger withMorgan Stanley
Asset MgmtNuveen InvestmentsLeveraged buyout toMadison Dearborn
TradingHerzog HeineCompany sale toMerrill Lynch
TradingD.E. ShawSale of Financial Products business toKBC Bank

A selection of transactions completed by the partners prior to the firm’s formation. Counterparties named where public.

Bracton Deal Intel

See the market you’d be selling into.

Who is buying companies like yours. What they’re paying, where terms are disclosed. Which buyers keep coming back. Bracton Deal Intel is our proprietary, AI-driven deal information service, built on 6,710 M&A deals and 67,186 funding rounds, with primary sources linked wherever the row can be traced.

The public beta includes 26,105 on-thesis company records from a full 82,132-company inventory. Across that inventory, we have verified websites for 17,725 companies and descriptions for 8,944. It is the same working layer of buyer research we run for clients, opened so founders can read the market before they decide whether to sell.

Open Deal Intel Free beta access with a work email, once.
M&A dealsAcquisitions of software, fintech, and data companies, with source links behind every row we can trace.
6,710
Funding roundsPrivate-company financings from Form D filings, with 842 press-reported rounds layered in.
67,186
Published companiesOn-thesis software, fintech, and data companies from the full 82,132-company inventory.
26,105
Verified websitesCompany sites confirmed for market reads, domain checks, and source-backed detail pages.
17,725

Our partners

A founder who's sold companies. A banker who's closed them.

Co-Founder & Managing Partner
Shawn Carpenter
Founder relationships, technology diligence & buyer intelligence
shawn@bractonpartners.com
  • A four-time founder. Co-founded YCharts, served as CEO, and remained on its board through the company’s sale to LLR Partners.
  • Former CMO at Rate, founder of RepIQ (backed by Pritzker VC), and a Google revenue leader.
  • Acquired and scaled Stock Alarm, a market-monitoring platform used by more than 300,000 investors.
  • Builds the firm’s technology in-house, including the Buyer Map, the buyer-research software behind every engagement.
Co-Founder & Managing Partner
Michael Kraines
Transaction strategy, negotiation & execution
michael@bractonpartners.com
  • 24 years in M&A: a Managing Director at Wasserstein Perella and Sandler O'Neill (now Piper Sandler), with 100+ transactions totaling $65B+ across financial services, fintech, and market structure.
  • One career across every seat at the deal table: law, regulation, strategy, negotiation, operations, and the board room. Banker, President, CFO, and director (JD, Harvard; MBA, Chicago).
  • A partnership tested by a real exit: served on the YCharts board alongside Shawn, through its sale.

Two names on the door. Both of them on your deal.

The first conversation

We won’t pitch you a number. We’ll send you the analysis instead.

Any valuation quoted to win a meeting is either low enough to insult you or high enough to be a promise no one can keep. Here’s what we’ll actually put together, confidentially and at no cost:

The buyers

Which acquirers should want you most, and why, drawn from 82,000+ private software, fintech, and data companies mapped, and two decades of knowing these buyers.

The levers

What would make buyers pay more, and what’s worth fixing before you’re ever in front of them.

What buyers will test

Where a sophisticated acquirer pushes hardest in diligence, including the technical case, and how it gets prepared for rather than improvised.

Let’s talk

Considering a sale or an acquisition? We’d welcome the conversation.

Every conversation is confidential and carries no obligation. Whether a transaction is months or years away, the earlier we speak, the more we can do to protect and grow what your company is worth.