What we do
We help UK business owners sell their companies.
For founders ready to exit a business they have built — or to find the right capital partner — Mastella runs the full process. From confidential first conversation to signed deal.
EXCEPTIONAL HUMAN GUIDANCE
Senior advisors lead every conversation that matters.
Yours, the buyers', the lawyers'. No junior teams in between, no advisor-of-the-week handover. The most senior person on the deal is the one you started with.
LEVERAGED BY TECHNOLOGY
Proprietary tools accelerate analysis and surface buyers others can't reach.
Faster financial work. Broader buyer discovery. Sharper benchmarking against live market data. Without compromising rigour.
The combination is what gets a deal done at the right price, on the right terms, in less time than the traditional process.
The shift
Traditional M&A has been slow to change. Adjacent professional services haven't.
The high monthly retainer fees charged on lower mid-market deals reflect the manual nature of how the work has always been done — and how most M&A firms still do it: advisors sifting through spreadsheets by hand, drafting information memoranda over six to eight weeks, cold-calling a rolodex of buyers, tracking diligence in email chains.
That work is now partly automatable. Financial normalisation, comparable transaction analysis, IM drafting, buyer mapping, data-room orchestration, term benchmarking - all of it can be done faster and more rigorously with AI than without it.
Mastella is built around that insight. We use AI to do the work that used to consume weeks, so experienced advisors can spend their time on what still requires judgement: positioning, relationships, negotiation, and the calls that actually move deals.
The people behind the work
AI does the legwork.
People do the deal.
The technology is the leverage. Every mandate is a conversation between humans with something at stake. These are some of them.
Built, not bolted on
Our own M&A agents. Built for this work.
Generic AI can summarise documents and draft emails. What an exit process actually needs is specialist work: financial statements normalised against sector benchmarks, buyer universes mapped by transaction behaviour, every term of every offer benchmarked against live market norms.
We have built our own agents for each of these jobs, purpose-built for lower mid-market M&A. Not a chat wrapper. Not a dashboard over someone else's model. Agents that know this specific work because we built them around it.
“We use AI” is what most firms now say. “We have agents built for this” is a different claim.
Our M&A agents
Agent
Readiness
Exit-gap diagnostic
Agent
Valuation
Comparables at scale
Agent
IM Drafter
First draft, fast
Agent
Buyer Map
Acquirer universe
Agent
Diligence
Data-room + Q&A
Agent
Terms
Offer benchmarking
Who does what
Financial normalisation
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Every task has a ratio. AI does the machinable work at machine speed; the advisor does what still needs judgement.
The process
Six stages. AI on one side, human judgement on the other.
Each stage in an M&A process has work that benefits from automation and work that requires judgement. We run both lanes in parallel - and keep them visibly separate so founders can see where each piece of the engagement is happening.
Matched from day one
The right specialist for your deal, not the generalist on the rota.
Mastella is deliberately small. Every engagement is led personally by someone senior who has done your kind of transaction before. No teams of junior analysts between you and the work that matters.
Step 01
We match you
On first conversation we pair you with a sector-specialist advisor chosen for your transaction type, stage, and buyer universe. Never a generalist on the rota.
Resident or bench
One named advisor leads
Either a resident Mastella partner or a vetted specialist from our wider bench of senior practitioners across sectors and deal types.
Plus the AI layer
Tech does the rest
Financial normalisation, buyer mapping, IM drafting, data-room orchestration, term benchmarking - handled in the background at machine speed.
“The AI is the leverage. The matched advisor is the difference.”
Concrete impact
What this means if you're thinking about selling.
The numbers below are not promises. They describe how the work changes when the machinable parts of an M&A process are actually machined. You will see them reflected in how we quote fees and how we plan timelines.
3–5×
Broader buyer pool
Systematic identification expands coverage well beyond a traditional advisor’s rolodex.
2–3 wks
Information memorandum
IM production compressed from 6–8 weeks. More iterations, higher production quality.
days
Valuation turnaround
Defensible valuation analysis across thousands of comparables - delivered in days, not weeks.
100%
Terms benchmarked
Every term of every offer is checked against market norms. Nothing slips past.
Meet the principal
Leo Meggitt
Principal & Owner
15 years in M&A. £400M+ transaction value advised across 30+ completed deals. Built and scaled businesses across recruitment, corporate finance and interim management before founding Mastella.
Read Leo's full profileThe Exit Readiness Checklist.
Twenty-five areas every founder should address before going to market. The same framework we run against every new engagement.
- Financial preparation and reporting standards
- Management team readiness and succession
- Legal, IP, and compliance review
- Valuation drivers and value enhancement
In their words
What founders say after working with us.
“Mastella guided us through a complex exit process with professionalism and deep market knowledge. They secured a buyer who truly valued what we had built.”
CEO
Financial Services Firm
Full sale, founder exit
“Their fundraising expertise was exceptional. They connected us with the right investors and structured a round that gave us the capital to scale without excessive dilution.”
Founder
Technology Company
Seed funding, £2m raised
“What set Mastella apart was their ability to manage the entire process while keeping us focused on running the business. We felt supported at every stage.”
Managing Director
Logistics Business
Majority sale to PE
FAQ
Founder questions we hear most often.
Direct answers, no hedging.
Your day-to-day contact is still a senior advisor. In the background, a set of agents we have built ourselves (purpose-built for lower mid-market M&A, not off-the-shelf) handles the structured work: financial normalisation, buyer mapping, IM drafting, diligence tracking, term benchmarking. Work that used to take weeks of analyst time happens much faster, so senior time is spent on positioning, relationships and negotiation rather than production.
Founder-led businesses worth £5M–£50M. Family-owned companies, founder-managed firms, and PE-backed businesses seeking an exit or capital raise. Most of our work is UK lower mid-market, with cross-border transactions where a founder's buyer universe is international, including Spanish and Portuguese deals.
Most exits run 6–12 months from engagement to completion, shorter than the traditional 9–18 month range - primarily because readiness gaps are surfaced earlier and IM production is faster. We recommend starting exit planning 12–24 months before target completion so remediation time is on your side.
Fees are agreed upfront in our first conversation, tuned to your specific situation. Traditional advisors typically charge high monthly retainer fees that reflect the manual nature of how the work has always been done — and how most M&A firms still do it. Our delivery model is different.
No. Identifying and closing the gaps in your financial reporting is part of the engagement. We work with your accountants and advisors to get financials into the form acquirers expect.
Yes. We advise on seed, Series A, growth capital, and pre-exit funding. Many clients engage us first for a capital raise and return for exit advisory as the business matures.
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