The Orb business has grown from a few simple core principles:

1. Companies are bought and not sold. 
2. The brokerage model is dead and does not work.
3. The M&A market itself is highly fragmented and inefficient.
4. The world of corporate finance is arrogant to its own failures.
5. Deal-flow is mistakenly given to the most junior member of the team.

From these core principles, we see our opportunity to add value in:

1. Deal-flow - Targetted strictly off-book opportunities.
2. Strategy - Identifying where it makes sense to acquire.
3. Research - The physical process of finding and matching opportunities.
4. Qualification - Making sure both parties understand what's on the table. 
5. Presentation - Removing a barrier by directly introducing all parties. 

Like all markets prior to disruption, the vast majority fail to recognise that they cannot continue a practice that does not serve the customers' best interests - believing that what has always been will always be.

I believe the future of M&A will look very different. Business owners are becoming far more capable of understanding and executing a growth by M&A strategy and or managing an exit.

Platform businesses that act as a marketplace for buy or sell-side transactions will eventually outperform the traditional brokerages, advisers and consultants for smaller transactions, leaving the larger and more specialist opportunities to in-house corporate development teams. Teams that will start to appear within the business earlier in the growth cycle.

Our business is designed with this future in mind, adding value and accelerating the process of researching, sourcing and targetting opportunities to feed a growth by acquisition strategy.

Our process removes the barriers that cause so many deals to fail. Put simply. We do not get in the way. We can move faster, take more significant steps and open more doors than your in-house team. We are experienced founders, globally networked and party to a stream of emerging buy and sell-side opportunities. In many cases, we can simply join the dots between two companies that otherwise would not have been visible to each other.

Rather than spend our time battling to protect our fees while squeezing the client for more - Our service seamlessly complements your corporate development function.

From my perspective, as the founder of Orb. This business represents as close to "my perfect business" as I think is possible. I love exploring exciting companies. I love working with entrepreneurs learning about their approach to business, and I love the processes financial, statistical, and analytical nature. It's a win-win-win.

So that's me. Let's get to work.

Best, Robert