About | Archen Partners

Our story

Built by operators who sat on your side of the table.

Archen Partners started with a pattern its founders, Will Jacobsen and Max Rigtrup, had seen too many times. A founder builds a company that missions, plants, and homeowners quietly depend on, a buyer comes calling, and the sale runs through a process built for someone else. The team is junior, the partner who won the work disappears once the papers are signed, and nobody on the seller's side can explain to a buyer what it means to be the only approved source for a critical part.

Archen is the firm they built to fix that, run from Cary, North Carolina on a simple idea. Senior people who stay on the deal from the first call to the closing table. Advisors fluent in programs as well as spreadsheets, who know a recompete, the moment a contract comes back up for bid, from a new start. And one side of the table only, the seller's, so there is never a question about who we work for.

That is still the firm. We keep the client list short because senior attention does not scale, and we do not pretend otherwise. Our clients spent decades building companies people quietly depend on. They deserve advisors who treat the sale with the same seriousness, and who measure the job the way founders do: finished, done right, worth hiring again.

Principles

How we work

Four commitments we make to every founder, starting with the first phone call.

Straight answers

You get our honest read even when it costs us an engagement. If the business is not ready, if the market is wrong, or if the smartest move is to wait until your next recompete is behind you, we will say so. Straight answers are cheaper than wrong ones.

Senior attention

The partner you meet on the first call runs your deal, makes the buyer calls, and sits next to you at closing. We take on a small number of clients at a time so that promise holds.

Confidential by default

Buyers sign an NDA, a nondisclosure agreement, before they ever hear your name, and we screen every buyer before outreach, including for foreign ownership concerns. Employees, customers, and contracting officers learn about the sale when you decide they should.

One side of the table

We represent sellers only and never take a buyer mandate. We never wonder who we work for, and neither do you. Every incentive we have points the same direction as yours.

Who you will work with

The team

No hand-offs and no bench of juniors. These are the people on your deal.

Will Jacobsen

Managing Director

Will has spent his career on the operating side, building and running an industrial supply business that keeps plants and programs across the country running. At Archen he runs the numbers and the materials: valuations and deal models, the documents buyers see, and the marketing and outreach systems that fill the pipeline.

Max Rigtrup

Managing Director

Max leads the firm's relationships: founder meetings, buyer coverage, and the association and conference circuit where this market actually gathers. By the time a process launches, the buyers already know his name and take his calls.

The landscape

Where we fit

Founders usually weigh us against a local business broker or a bulge-bracket bank, the global giants of the industry. Both are good at what they do. Neither is built for a company like yours.

	Business broker	Bulge-bracket bank	Archen Partners
Typical client	Main Street listings under $1M	$100M and up	$5M to $100M enterprise value
Who runs your deal	A solo agent	Junior team, partner cameo	The partner you hired
Buyer reach	Listing sites	Global, but not your buyer	Curated buyers across defense, industrial, and home services
Process	List and wait	Broad auction	Targeted competitive process

Enterprise value means the total price of the business, including any debt paid off at closing. These are generalizations, but fair ones.

We run the deal. You run the business.