Company: WELLESLEY HILLS FINANCIAL

Headquarters: NEWTON, MA

Year Founded: 2020

1. What problem was wellesley hills founded to solve?

Wellesley Hills Financial identified an opportunity in the marketplace for core investment banking services targeted at lower middle-market companies in payments technology, fintech, and tech-enabled software. These are companies with enterprise values between $20 million and $300 million, who we believe are underserved and often neglected by larger middle market firms, particularly as it pertains to access to growth capital and M&A. With over 20 years of experience in banking and advising these niche technology assets, we are uniquely positioned to provide end-to-end strategic guidance, from capital needs to commercial GTM.

2. How do you describe wellesley hills' right to win in your market?

In 2020 my partners and I found ourselves at a crossroads. After 16 years in payments and fintech, we had the opportunity to scale up and bring our niche domain expertise to a global market. We decided to build our own investment bank, enabling us to deliver expanded capabilities more efficiently to our target clients. Whereas the majority of middle market firms are purely transactional, our approach is relational. We are not bound by the staid processes of white shoe Wall Street firms - we are creative, innovative and nimble with our strategy and execution, which maps perfectly to our founder-led client base.

3. What are your key goals and definition of success in the next 12 months?

My overarching goal is to create the leading middle-market fintech, payments and B2B software investment bank with a global footprint, and do so through a bottom-up build founded on unique domain expertise, analytical rigour, and customer-centric engagement. Wellesley Hills’ banking team is aggressive, highly driven, with an innate mindset to attack the marketplace and advocate strenuously for its clients. By the end of 2025, success will be measured by key milestones, which include opening an office to service the UK, launching a lending platform for recurring revenue payments and SaaS companies, and raising our first equity fund to invest in early-stage startups.