Data
Who Is Buying Small Businesses in Your Industry
The private equity firms consolidating the trades, and the deals that prove it. Useful whether you are bidding against them or selling to them.
Why This Matters to a Buyer
A firm that is already rolling up your industry is two things at once. It is the other bidder on the business you want, which is why a competitive process in a consolidating trade closes at a higher multiple than the same business in a quiet one. It is also the buyer you would eventually sell to, which is the whole point of building something bigger than what you bought.
If you are the owner rather than the buyer, the same list tells you who to call, and how much competition there is for your business.
a Commercial Cleaning Business
- Boyne CapitalMiami, FL
Founder-owned lower-middle-market companies, weighted toward services. Explicitly courts owners who are still running the business.
- H&B Facility Services · Commercial cleaning and facility services.
- Premier Building Associates · Commercial roofing.
- Trivest PartnersCoral Gables, FL
Founder- and family-owned businesses only, and it will buy a minority stake rather than force a full sale. The widest small-business footprint of any firm here: pool service, pest control, auto, and cleaning all at once.
- AquaVerse · A pool-service platform assembled from several regional brands across Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee.
- Alta Pest Control · Residential and commercial pest control.
- Take 5 / Oil Changers / Open Road Collision · Quick-lube and collision repair, held across several funds.
a Landscaping Business
- Align Capital PartnersCleveland, OH and Dallas, TX
Industrial and professional services, software, and specialty manufacturing. Buys a platform, then bolts on steadily rather than in bursts.
- Strata Landscape Services · Commercial landscaping platform, still actively acquiring.
- Watersedge (into Strata) · Landscaping add-on.
- Kian CapitalCharlotte, NC
Lower-middle-market, founder-partnership oriented. Its landscaping platform has nearly tripled revenue since 2021, mostly by buying.
- Diamond Landscaping · Luxury residential landscaping platform; seven acquisitions since the 2021 partnership.
- Christensen Landscape Services (into Diamond) · High-end residential landscaping in Connecticut; adds design and hardscape.
- The Sterling Group (Foundation Fund)Houston, TX
A large industrial firm's small-company fund. Worth watching because it brings big-firm capital to businesses a searcher would consider.
- Russell Landscape Group · Commercial landscaping platform; its fifth add-on took it into Texas.
a Pest Control Business
- Trivest PartnersCoral Gables, FL
Founder- and family-owned businesses only, and it will buy a minority stake rather than force a full sale. The widest small-business footprint of any firm here: pool service, pest control, auto, and cleaning all at once.
- AquaVerse · A pool-service platform assembled from several regional brands across Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee.
- Alta Pest Control · Residential and commercial pest control.
- Take 5 / Oil Changers / Open Road Collision · Quick-lube and collision repair, held across several funds.
a Plumbing Business
- Fort Point CapitalBoston, MA
Service businesses, including the unglamorous infrastructure trades. Its sewer platform buys plumbing companies outright.
- Sheridan Plumbing & Sewer (into VisuSewer) · Plumbing and sewer services in greater Chicago.
- Boston Green Company · Environmental services: waste transport, disposal, industrial cleaning.
a Pool Service Business
- Trivest PartnersCoral Gables, FL
Founder- and family-owned businesses only, and it will buy a minority stake rather than force a full sale. The widest small-business footprint of any firm here: pool service, pest control, auto, and cleaning all at once.
- AquaVerse · A pool-service platform assembled from several regional brands across Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee.
- Alta Pest Control · Residential and commercial pest control.
- Take 5 / Oil Changers / Open Road Collision · Quick-lube and collision repair, held across several funds.
a Roofing Company
- Shoreline Equity PartnersTampa, FL
Services businesses: roofing, landscaping, pool, paving, water treatment. Close to the trades a first-time buyer actually looks at.
- Core Roofing Systems · Commercial roofing services; a second partnership round.
- C&S Chemicals · Water treatment chemicals.
- Boyne CapitalMiami, FL
Founder-owned lower-middle-market companies, weighted toward services. Explicitly courts owners who are still running the business.
- H&B Facility Services · Commercial cleaning and facility services.
- Premier Building Associates · Commercial roofing.
an Auto Repair Shop
- Trivest PartnersCoral Gables, FL
Founder- and family-owned businesses only, and it will buy a minority stake rather than force a full sale. The widest small-business footprint of any firm here: pool service, pest control, auto, and cleaning all at once.
- AquaVerse · A pool-service platform assembled from several regional brands across Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee.
- Alta Pest Control · Residential and commercial pest control.
- Take 5 / Oil Changers / Open Road Collision · Quick-lube and collision repair, held across several funds.
an MSP
- Prospect PartnersChicago, IL
Calls its target the pre-middle market, which is genuinely small: the range where a self-funded searcher is a real rival bidder. Fund V closed at $225M.
- C2 Computer Services (into Entech) · Managed IT add-on to its Entech platform.
- LAN Infotech (into Entech) · Managed IT, cybersecurity.
How This List Is Built
Every deal here is traced to the acquiring firm's own announcement. Roll-up trackers and deal-database listicles are useful for finding a lead, but they restate each other, and a name that appears on three of them can still be wrong. So they are not cited here, and firms whose deals we could not confirm from a primary source are left off rather than listed on someone else's word.
That makes the list conservative. An industry with no firm listed is not necessarily an industry nobody is consolidating; it may just be one where we have not confirmed a buyer yet. Read a name here as verified, and read silence as unverified rather than as empty.
Deal announcements are point-in-time. Firms raise new funds, change mandates, and exit platforms, so confirm a firm's current appetite with the firm before you act on it.
More Reference Data
Everything here is educational information, not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. Figures are estimates or cited third-party data; verify anything that matters against primary sources and your own advisors before acting on it.