Our Firm

Three mandates. One side of the table: yours.

Bracton Partners provides senior M&A advice to founders selling fintech, software, 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.

What we do

Sell-Side M&A · Primary

Selling your company

Full representation from first conversation to signed and funded: positioning the business, telling its story, running a competitive process, and negotiating the terms that protect your outcome.

Exit Readiness

Planning ahead

Valuation- and exit-focused strategy for founders who aren’t selling yet. We help you position, time, and build the business so that when the moment comes, it commands a stronger price.

Strategic Acquisitions

Buying & growth

Sourcing and closing the right targets for acquirers building in fintech, software and data: disciplined origination, valuation, and execution on the buy side.

How we work

A clear path from decision to close.

The same two partners run every step. Nothing is handed to an associate.

Step 01

Position

We immerse in the business and sharpen the equity story, then build what a sophisticated buyer expects: a defensible valuation, a data-driven model, and materials tailored to your specific company and market. We pressure-test it the way a buyer’s diligence team will, before they ever see it.

Step 02

Reach

We map the full universe of qualified acquirers, strategic and financial, domestic and global, then rank them by who should pay the most and why, and approach each one discreetly. Every buyer receives a case built specifically for them, never a mass-emailed deck.

Step 03

Negotiate

We create genuine competition and manage the field of offers, negotiating the terms that decide your outcome: valuation, structure, earn-outs, and protections, with your interests first at every turn. Leverage comes from a real process; we build it and we hold it.

Step 04

Close

We drive diligence and documentation to a signed, funded transaction: coordinating counsel and accountants, anticipating the issues that stall deals, and keeping steady hands from letter of intent to wire.

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 Bracton Intelligence, 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.

Considering a sale or an acquisition?

Let’s talk