Introducing Forum

Dear Readers,

The private capital markets are changing quickly. Business owners now start their financing and exit planning research process online; crowd-based capital sources are emerging within an evolving regulatory landscape; boutique advisory firm growth is leading to more and more deal sourcing fragmentation; family offices are becoming a major source of direct investment capital; online networks and a growing trove of valuable online resources are empowering both entrepreneurs and deal professionals to make decisions and important connections with unprecedented efficiency and speed.

At Axial, we are fascinated by these changes and focused on creating a well-organized capital market that better supports the needs of our economy’s middle market’s entrepreneurs, their advisors, and their capital partners.

Introducing Forum

Today, we are announcing Axial Forum – our publishing platform to educate and empower the members of the entrepreneurial economy.

Forum formalizes the research and insights that we and our Members have been developing since our inception.  With over 15,000 subscribers and 40,000 pageviews last month, it’s clear that the topics are resonating with our Members and the entrepreneurial community at large.  Forum builds on that momentum and allows us to cover industries, business development and transaction best practices, and important middle market news and trends.

Get Started

Whether you are a business development professional with hundreds of done deals under your belt or you will do only one deal in your career, Forum offers relevant information and insight for you – from analysis of industry activity to articles written and published by some of the most active practitioners in the middle market.

Here are a few things to check out on Forum:

• Leaderboards – See the most active private equity groups, investment banks, lenders, corporations and family offices in our Q1 lower middle market leaderboard.
• Tearsheets – Get a sense of real-time transactions in your sector with our quarterly tearsheets. Consumer members shared the most deals in Q1 of 2014, and the market was strong overall.
• Playbooks – We are beginning to aggregate our library of content into playbooks to support Members who want a more holistic view of how the pieces fit together.
• Articles – And here’s our most popular piece across all our content … “6 Keys to Writing Great Investment Teasers”

We hope you’ll keep an eye on Axial Forum, share it with your colleagues and send ideas for improvements.

If you’re interested in contributing, or want to provide any feedback at all, I’d love to hear from you — just send me a note at [email protected].

Peter Lehrman
CEO I Axial