Rick Annichiarico

🚀 Meet PACT, simplifying SBA-backed acquisitions with investors. Think YC’s SAFE, but built for Main Street M&A. 📘 What is PACT and why we built it PACT (Partnership Acquisition Commonsense Terms) is a free, balanced starting point for the agreements used in SBA-backed acquisitions with outside investors. For too long, SBA-backed acquisitions with outside investors have been the wild west: every deal is different, inefficient, and confusing, especially for first-time searchers raising capital. PACT gives everyone a common baseline so reviews are faster, expectations are clear, and operators can focus on acquiring the business. 🧩 SAFE for ETA Y Combinator’s SAFE gave startups a shared template that made early investing easier to execute. PACT brings that same idea to ETA. It teaches the key concepts in plain English, aligns searchers and investors on the economics, and sets a fair place to start. Our goal is for PACT to become the default baseline for investor-backed small business acquisitions using SBA loans. 🤝 Who contributed 🏛️ Legal input from top SMB M&A attorneys: Joseph Spina (Cullen and Dykman LLP), Mark Dittrich (Groundswell Advisors, LLP), and Eric Hsu (Clear Focus Law, PLLC) provided feedback on drafts. 💼 Early investor adopters: Jordan F. (Shareholder Ventures), Grant Hensel (Entrepreneurial Capital), Jason Ehrlich (Fruition Capital), Sean Smith (Search Fund Ventures), Adam Kaplan (ETA Funding Partners), Jacob Hall (Kando Capital), Tony Cappaert (Workbench Capital) and Adam Markley (PROX Search Capital) have adopted PACT on new deals. 🎓 Community support: Chelsea Wood and Walker Deibel at the Acquisition Lab and Buy Then Build have committed to start educating the community on how investor deals work using PACT. 👉 What to do next 🔍 Searchers: download the docs and ask your lawyer to start from PACT. ⚖️ SMB M&A Law firms: review the templates and send feedback so the next version is better. 💸 SMB investors: adopt PACT as your starting point and share redlines from real deals. This is a community-led standard, and we will keep versioning PACT as feedback comes in from all sides. 📝 Thanks: Special thanks to Joseph Spina for leading the legal drafting with me and helping shape a true middle ground. 🔗 Download PACT and see the key terms: ETAPACT.com (link in the comments) Let’s make investor-backed acquisitions clearer, faster, and fairer for everyone. 🚨 DISCLAIMER: PACT is not legal advice. Searchers must engage experienced SMB M&A counsel to review and tailor these documents to their deal.

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Too many founders still buy into outdated financing myths like waiting on SBA loans that won’t come, refusing to lease equipment, or avoiding debt like it’s toxic. The truth? Smart businesses use capital to move faster. Debt isn’t the enemy. Waiting too long to scale is. Don’t let pride in bootstrapping hold you back when the market’s moving. Financial literacy is as critical as your product. Know your numbers, challenge the myths, and grow with intention. #SmallBizFinance #FoundersMindset #Entrepreneurship

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Sourcing for a $500M+ fund shouldn't look like a sales department. It should look like an engineering lab. If your team is spending 60% of their time on manual outreach, you're missing the "Cluster Mapping" that reveals roll-up opportunities in fragmented markets. AI.DA 3.0 maps the operational DNA of entire sectors to find the 5th and 6th tuck-in acquisitions before the market knows they exist. Systems build pipelines. People just manage the relationships. #PrivateEquity #Automation #AIDA #RollupStrategy #ValueCreation

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Startup Funding Updates This Week • Welcome Tech (LA) – Immigrant workforce platform, raised $7.5M from TTV Capital, Mubadala Capital, Westbound Equity Partners, CityRock Ventures Partners, Next Legacy Partners, BTN Ventures. • Heave (Tampa, FL) – Heavy equipment mechanic marketplace, raised $7M Series A led by Outsiders Fund, with FJ Labs, Long Journey Ventures, Slow Ventures. • InstaLILY AI (NYC) – AI teammates for operations, raised $25M Series A led by Insight Partners, with Perceptive Ventures, Marvin Ventures. • Central (SF) – Autonomous back-office for startups, raised $8.6M Seed led by First Round Capital, with Y Combinator, Ritual Capital, Multimodal Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Surgepoint Capital + angel founders (Kulveer Taggar, JJ Fliegelman, Richard Aberman). • Artificial Societies (London) – AI simulating human societies, raised $5.35M (seed + pre-seed) led by Point72 Ventures + angels (DeepMind, Strava, Sequoia Scout). • Bench IQ (Toronto) – AI judicial intelligence, raised $5.3M Seed led by Battery Ventures, Inovia Capital, with CIBC Innovation Banking, MVP Ventures, Maple VC, Haystack VC. • Farang (Stockholm) – AI research lab, raised €1.5M Seed from Voima Ventures, Amadeus APEX Technology Fund + angels (Tero Ojanpera, Nilay Oza, Niraj Aswani). • Yottar (Exmouth, UK) – Energy tech, raised $1M pre-seed led by Haatch, with Cape Capital. • Sequifi (Lehi, UT) – Real-time pay engine, raised $6.7M Seed led by Cervin Ventures, with Frazier Group, Tokyo Black. • Holiwise (London) – AI-powered travel platform, raised €1.45M pre-seed from angels (Bobby Previti, Ulf Nilsson, Sabri El Jailani, Filippo Zorzoli, Houman Ashrafzadeh). • Therna Biosciences (SF) – RNA medicines, raised $10M Seed led by AIX Ventures, Pear VC, Fusion Fund. • Sarborg (Wilmington, DE) – Algorithmic decision-making & cybernetics, raised $10M Seed from Corvus Capital. • PodUp (Rexburg, ID) – Podcasting platform, raised $5.8M across two rounds from North Texas Angels, Harvard Business School Alumni Angels, others. • Axenya (São Paulo) – Corporate healthcare orchestration, raised $12M Series A led by Canary, co-led by Indicator Capital, joined by Zentynel. • Darwin AI (São Paulo) – AI workers for sales & support, raised $4.5M seed extension led by Base10 Partners (total $7M). #fundraising #vc #startups #startup #entrepreneur

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Had a great time at DC Startup & Tech Week (Formerly DC Startup Week) moderating a panel with Scott Christensen (Chesapeake Bay Seed Capital Fund (CBSCF) , Faith Davis (Exelon) and Bill McNulty (NextEra Energy Investments), convened by the great C'pher Gresham. Here's a quick recap: 1) The panelists were phenomenal - a mixture of corporate, state and foundation-backed VC's all focusing on climate. They're actively funding companies across a range of sectors - e.g. nature-based solutions, energy + AI, water, etc. Point being, we were lucky to have experts with such broad purviews. 2) The current climate could be pushing at least some climate VC's to focus on software and move away from hardware, at least temporarily. This type of capital may indeed just be better suited for software companies at this juncture. It also reflects the fact that certain segments of the climate-tech market are just more mature than others - e.g. software performs best once the hardware and the business case around it are solid, then it becomes and optimization and efficiency game. 3) Founders need to target "must-solve" climate problems from the investor lens. In other words, yes there's a sea of climate challenges where startups can be additive. However, in this environment, few of these areas are attracting meaningful capital. There's nothing wrong with tackling problem areas that are under-invested, we need this in spades. However, for those trying to get capital in the door, realize the constraints that come with targeting problems that investors just aren't prioritizing. 4) Look to funders overseas. The EU, where so much climate finance, policy and general expertise has come from, could be playing a much more important role. I'd also argue that Gulf countries like KSA and UAE are going to be critical here too, not to mention China, of course. 5) We need mentoring and coaching to be at an all-time high. With so much uncertainty, networks/communities where both founders and investors can learn from/lean on each other have never been more important. The panel/audience was a nice microcosm of the types of support networks we need to be actively building. Big thanks again to C'pher, Faith, Scott and Bill, as well as the whole DC Startup + Tech Week team. Til next year!

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You can turn $100,000 into a $50 million business through acquisitions. This is closer to capital allocation than traditional entrepreneurship. Here's the deal structure. First, the capital stack. You buy a business the same way you buy a house. Equity in, bank covers the rest. With SBA loans: 90% loan, 10% equity. A million dollar business might require $100K to $200K down. Target companies with $1 to $3 million in earnings. Go to sellers that are NOT at market. Brokered deals are competitive and sellers want cash at close. This only works off-market. Here's what you propose: Seller keeps 20% equity in a new entity. Asset sale, their company moves into newco, they keep running it at fair market salary. You write them a check for 60% via bank loan. Remaining 20% is a seller's note: 10% straight note, 10% performance earnout. From the bank's perspective, you created 40% equity. The truth? It's really only 20%, and it's the seller's. Your money in? Approaching zero. But you own 80% of Enterprise Value. Why would a seller agree? Tell them: my goal is to make your 20% as valuable as the 80% we're giving you today. What are the odds you double the value on your own in 3 to 5 years? Now stack earnings. $2 million average per company. Buy 10 just like this. $20 million combined earnings under one entity. Centralize marketing, accounting, HR, governance at HQ. You bought each at 4 to 4.5x. A $20 million earnings business sells for 7 to 7.5x or more. That's multiple expansion, just by combining them. Close the first one. Negotiate the next $100K for the next business. Then newco sells to PE for 7, 8, 9x your $20 million in earnings. That's the path from $100K to $50 million. If you're considering buying a business in the next 12 to 24 months, we built Acquisition Lab for exactly this. walkerdeibel.com

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🚀 Stop chasing investors blindly. Here's the 5-step system that gets startups funded: Define financial needs (12-18 months) Research aligned investors Build a killer pitch deck Systematize outreach Prep due diligence docs Most founders skip steps 1 & 5. Don't be like most founders.

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Most founders are overcomplicating growth. You don’t need a huge team, fancy funnels, or million-dollar ad spend to scale profitably. In this new case study, I break down how our client Landon Brazile, founder of ZFIN, built a real estate tech company doing over $100K/month with just three remote A-players. No burnout. No chaos. Just structure, clarity, and elite hiring. If you’re scaling your business and still wearing every hat, this one will show you exactly what to change. Watch the full breakdown on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eAnPBGPV  

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Most people think buying a business is only for the ultra-wealthy. It’s not. Through structured SBA 7(a) financing, qualified entrepreneurs can acquire established, profitable businesses with surprisingly modest capital requirements, often just a small fraction of the total purchase price. Take a $1M service business generating $300K in annual cash flow: ✅ SBA financing covers about 75% of the price ✅ Seller financing often bridges another 15–20% ✅ Meaning a buyer might only need $100K–$150K in cash to close This model has quietly democratized business ownership, turning what once seemed unreachable into a very real opportunity for experienced operators ready to step up. Of course, smart buyers don’t stop at the down payment. They keep reserve capital on hand for working capital, integration costs, and unexpected challenges like equipment upgrades or turnover. The most successful acquirers balance aggressive leverage with conservative cash management, ensuring stability and growth after the deal closes. In the video attached breaks down exactly how this structure works, and why now might be the best time to buy a business. Join the WhatsApp group to stay updated with all business listings, link in comments. #SwiftAcquisitions #BusinessOwnership #YourGrowthPartner

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New partnership alert!! Excited to announce that Black Flag is partnering with xAI to give founders free credits and direct access to Grok - xAI’s family of powerful, multi-modal, real-time models. Across essentially any end product you're applying to Black Flag with, Grok will deliver: - Deep reasoning across text, code, and context - Faster inference and improved function calling - CUI: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth just announced that Grok is being adopted for handling Controlled Unclassified Information If you're building in critical technology areas important to the West - space, energy, autonomy, cyber - the next generation of secure software will be built with Grok and you can now get a head start through Black Flag. Only 18 days left to apply to Black Flag’s January batch - apply at the link in the comments!

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Great overview of the Florida VC ecosystem 👇 What stands out is not just the ~$2.85B raised, but how distributed and specialized each region is becoming. • South Florida → crypto, fintech, LatAm access • Tampa Bay → strong early-stage pipeline • Orlando/Space Coast → deep tech, defense, space • North Florida → emerging operator-led funds Tax advantages help, but the real story is growing density of founders, angels, and operators building locally. Still early compared to SF and NY, which is the opportunity. Who are the next Florida-based funds or angels getting active?

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