Overview
This internship is designed as a high-intensity training ground for future dealmakers, focused on learning M&A fundamentals through real buyer/seller interaction rather than passive research or slow-paced financial modeling.
The organization is a private equity and acquisitions platform operating in the lower-middle-market M&A space and the ETA ecosystem. Recent activity includes completing $50M worth of transaction value year-to-date, with expectations to exceed $150M in Q1 & Q2 of 2026 following a January 2025 launch.
Responsibilities
- Call business owners and executives daily
- Navigate objections, gather context, and understand founder psychology
- Learn how buyers and sellers negotiate outside of textbooks
- Practice controlled, professional persuasion
- Keep conversations structured and outcome-oriented
- Support structuring deals in the lower-middle-market M&A space based on conversation insights
- Understand seller motivations versus buyer constraints
- Evaluate fit, feasibility, and deal readiness
- Learn and apply deal mechanics including earnouts, seller financing, rollover equity, and reps & warranties
- Observe how valuation gaps and structure negotiations evolve in real time
- Support live buyer–seller interactions
- Help prepare call notes, next steps, and negotiation plans
- Understand what kills deals and what revives them, including transaction pacing and sequencing
What You’ll Learn
- Real negotiation psychology and rapid deal exposure
- How earnout and seller financing structures work in practice
- How deal conversations unfold and how structures adjust dynamically
- The “psychological arc” of a deal
Highlights
- 100% real-world communication and deal execution
- Learn negotiation psychology from day one
- Paid hourly
- Rapid exposure to real transaction mechanics
- Opportunity to collaborate with the deal team and research team (for those showing strong KPIs after one month)
- Potential performance-based opportunity: interns who make the deal team and manage deal flow can make up to 20% of the success fee (several interns have accumulated a potential bonus pool of $50K+)
- Preference to hire full-time talent from the internship program; in 2025, 3 interns converted to full-time roles, and in 2026 the organization expects to onboard significantly more full-time hires from the internship program
Qualifications
- Fluent in English
- Strong communication skills
- Fast learning ability
- Preference for learning through doing and taking on responsibility early
- Interest in understanding how deals happen in practice
- Enjoys structured, dynamic conversation over spreadsheet-heavy analysis
Location
Not specified in the provided description.
Compensation & Benefits
- Paid hourly
- Performance-based success fee opportunity: up to 20% of the success fee (potential bonus pool of $50K+)