MidStreet
At a Glance
Worth a bookmark for its sell-side education whatever your geography, and a real option for finding or selling a Southeast lower-middle-market business.
Our pick for Best Broker Disclosure in 2026.
- Pricing
- Success Fee, Sell-side representation on a Double Lehman success fee (10% of the first $1M, then 8%, 6%, 4%, and 2% above $5M), paid at close with no upfront retainer or listing fee, on a dedicated pricing page that also states the typical 12-month listing term and 24-month tail. Its educational content is free.
- Best For
- Buyers hunting Southeast lower-middle-market deals, and any searcher who wants to understand the seller's side from a broker that publishes its process
- Kind
- One firm, one bench of brokers, one process.
- Footprint
- Names North Carolina and Virginia. It works beyond the states it names, so one it does not name is worth asking about rather than ruling out.
- Sells
- Established businesses at $5M to $50M of revenue in home services, niche manufacturing, industrial services and managed IT, with over twenty years and hundreds of transactions claimed. Its own About page names a different gap, $1M to $50M, and its 450-transaction figure is the founder's whole career rather than this firm's.
- Publishes a size, and not one a buyer can use.
- Seller Fee
- Publishes a schedule. The actual percentages are on its own site, so a seller's quote can be checked against them.
- Buyer Fee
- Says nothing about a buyer fee. Its buyer-facing pages say nothing either way about what a buyer pays.
- Works For
- Buyer list only. Invites buyers onto a list to see or be alerted to its own listings. That is access, not advocacy: the firm is still paid by the seller.
- Before It Shows You Anything
- Wants proof of funds before it shows you a business. Proof of funds or a personal financial statement, alongside the NDA. Expect to show what you can actually spend before you see a single set of books.
- A call, then a longer interview, then a questionnaire, an NDA, photo ID and a personal financial statement, with the right to withhold materials reserved even after the NDA is signed.
- Roadmap Stages
- 2. Define & Test Your Thesis4. Source & Screen Deals
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Twenty-plus years and 400-plus closed transactions in the $1M to $25M revenue range, so it knows the lower-middle-market Southeast deal
- A large, genuinely useful free library of articles and videos on how the sell side prices, packages, and runs a process, which is buyer intelligence too
- A transparent Double Lehman fee with no big upfront retainer, so its incentives sit with closing
Cons
- Regional: it works the Carolinas and the Southeast, so a buyer outside that footprint uses it for its content more than its listings
- It represents sellers, not buyers, so on a live deal its duty is to the other side of the table
- Deal flow is limited to what it has listed at any moment, a fraction of a national marketplace's
What Searchers Say
Track record, footprint, and fee model verified against MidStreet's own site; its educational content is widely referenced in searcher and small-business-sale communities. Seller-side review aggregate runs 5.0 across 102 Google-sourced reviews with praise clustering on named advisors and the controlled-auction process, and the firm made the 2024 Inc. 5000 at No. 2729 on 186% three-year growth.
How to Approach
MidStreet is a brokerage, and it works for the seller rather than for you, so this is how that side of the table comes in and what it is deciding about you.
The Typical Arc
- A teaser and an NDA, before you see the name of the business.
- A call with the listing broker, who is screening you as much as answering you.
- The CIM, then a seller meeting the broker schedules and usually sits in on.
- Your offer, carried by the broker to the seller they represent.
What It Weighs
- Whether your money is real: how much is cash, and where the rest is coming from.
- Whether your criteria are specific enough to match against a listing.
- How fast you move, because the fee arrives on a close rather than on a conversation.
How to Prepare
- Write the one page a broker asks for before you inquire. Buyer Profile Builder
- Set criteria specific enough for a listing to match. Buy Box Builder
- Know what you can pay before the CIM lands. Business Valuation Calculator