Advisory List Launches Public Platform Connecting Business Buyers, Sellers, and M&A Advisors

San Diego, CA, USA, August 14th, 2026, FinanceWire

Advisory List combines a verified advisor directory, an open community, and educational content from working M&A professionals, all free to search.

Most mergers and acquisitions in America do not happen on Wall Street. They happen when the owner of a plumbing company, manufacturing firm, software business, or other privately held company decides to sell.

Thousands of these businesses change hands every year, often in transactions valued below $100 million. Private equity activity in the middle market alone reached $410 billion across roughly 4,000 transactions in 2025, according to PitchBook. That figure does not include much of the smaller end of the market, where individual buyers, search funds, family offices, and strategic acquirers purchase privately held businesses in transactions that often go unreported.

Yet the people at the center of these transactions often have limited access to reliable, public information. An owner may sell a business only once. A buyer may be preparing for a first acquisition. Institutional deal data is expensive, and practical guidance has traditionally been available only through private relationships or after an advisor has already been hired.

Most business owners enter the largest financial transaction of their lives with a trusted referral, but no clear way to compare advisors, understand the process, or know which questions they should be asking.

Advisory List was created to make that information easier to find.

The platform brings together a verified directory of advisors across 18 specialties, an open M&A community, and a growing library of educational content from professionals working in the market. Directory categories include business brokers, M&A advisory firms, investment banks, M&A attorneys, SBA lenders, tax advisors, wealth managers, quality of earnings providers, and other specialists involved in buying and selling privately held businesses.

Advisory List covers the United States and Canada and serves every participant in a transaction, including owners considering a sale, buyers pursuing an acquisition, private equity firms, family offices, strategic buyers, and the advisors who guide them.

In the community, advisors answer questions that owners and buyers may not know to ask until a transaction is already underway. Topics include how to evaluate unsolicited offers, how businesses in different industries are valued, what buyers review during due diligence, and how tax and financial planning can affect what a seller keeps after closing.

Professionals from accounting firms, brokerages, and M&A advisory practices are already publishing educational guides and market insights on the platform. Their contributions give buyers and sellers direct access to informed perspectives while helping advisors reach people beyond their existing referral networks.

"M&A has always been a closed-door industry. If you wanted answers, you had to know somebody," said Gaston Reeder, founder of Advisory List. "We are not trying to be the authority on M&A. We are building the place where the actual authorities, the advisors doing these deals every day, can share what they know in public."

Advisory List has also formed an advisory board. Members include Adam DeGraide, a serial entrepreneur who has founded and sold multiple software companies, including BZ Results, which served more than 1,600 auto dealerships before its acquisition by ADP, and Crystal Clear Digital Marketing, acquired by PatientNow. His companies have earned multiple Inc. 500 rankings and reached combined enterprise values exceeding $250 million.

Joining him is Nicolas Biancamano, who has spent 18 years as Chief Investment Officer of Pacifica Enterprises, a San Diego-based private equity and investment group. Nicolas currently leads Pacifica Advisors, a lower middle market M&A firm, and has personally transacted more than $2 billion in businesses and commercial real estate. Biancamano is also a former adjunct professor of finance at the University of San Diego.

Advisory List's directory, community discussions, and advisor-written insights are publicly searchable and available without a login.

About Advisory List

Advisory List is an online resource for the SMB M&A ecosystem, bringing together a verified advisor directory, an active community, and educational insights from working professionals. The platform serves buyers, sellers, investors, and advisors involved in transactions valued below $100 million across the United States and Canada.

Learn more at advisorylist.co.

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