The thesis
A structural shift, not a sales pitch.
Adjacent professional services - consulting, audit, legal research - have quietly absorbed a generation of AI tooling. M&A advisory, especially in the lower mid-market, has not.
The high monthly retainer fees charged on a £5M–£50M deal reflect the manual nature of how that work has always been done — and how most M&A firms still do it: financial normalisation by hand, information memoranda written over six to eight weeks, buyer outreach run from a rolodex, diligence coordinated in email.
Those activities are now, to a significant extent, machinable. Models can normalise financials, analyse thousands of comparable transactions, draft an IM, map a buyer universe, orchestrate a data room, and benchmark term sheets against market norms - faster than a team of analysts and often more thoroughly.
Mastella is what an advisory firm looks like when you start from that premise rather than bolt it on afterwards: senior advisors paired with agents we have built ourselves - purpose-built for lower mid-market M&A, not a chat wrapper over someone else's model - and fees that reflect the actual cost of delivery.
How we work
Four operating principles.
01
Two lanes, always visible
AI on one side, senior advisors on the other. Every engagement is explicit about which lane a piece of work is in. Founders always know who - or what - is doing what.
02
Judgment is not automatable
Positioning a business for a buyer, leading a negotiation, telling a founder a term is worse than it looks - these still require people with experience. We do not pretend otherwise.
03
Fees reflect the work
When the machinable parts of a process actually get machined, the hours add up differently. Our fee structures reflect that. We publish them, we do not hide behind them.
04
£5M–£50M, not everything
We work with founder-led businesses worth £5M–£50M — mostly UK, with cross-border work where a founder's buyer universe is international. Outside that range other advisors are better placed. Saying what we are not is part of saying what we are.
The bench
A small team with deeper reach.
We are a deliberately small resident team. Keeping the firm small is what makes seniority-only delivery possible. But a small team alone cannot cover every sector and deal type that lower mid-market founders need.
So we run a vetted bench: a network of senior specialists who have been through exits and raises across financial services, technology, consumer, industrials, infrastructure, healthcare and more. At engagement we match you with either a resident partner or the right bench specialist for your transaction type and buyer universe.
Tech plus the right specialist. That is the equation. AI gives us leverage; the matched advisor gives you someone who has already done your kind of deal.
Who we're for
Founders of lower mid-market businesses preparing to sell or raise.
Founder-led businesses worth £5M–£50M. Family-owned, founder-managed, or PE-backed. Planning an exit in the next 6–24 months, running a current capital raise, or simply wanting to know what their business is actually worth and what the path would look like.
Most of our work is UK lower mid-market, but we also advise on cross-border sales where a founder's buyer universe is international, including Spanish and Portuguese transactions.
Sector-agnostic. We have advised across financial services, technology, consumer, logistics, infrastructure, education, and agriculture. The thesis applies in all of them.
The best way to see if the approach fits is to have the conversation.
Forty-five minutes, confidential, no obligation. If we are not the right fit we will say so.