William Blair acquired Armentum Partners, a boutique debt and alternative capital solutions advisory firm serving venture-backed businesses, public companies and academic institutions. The transaction broadens William Blair’s capital markets and debt advisory solutions, adding an enterprise value and asset-based lending and royalty monetization capability.
The firm includes professionals in Boston, Chicago, Menlo Park, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco, serving clients in the U.S. as well as Europe. As part of the transaction, William Blair will open an office in Menlo Park, establishing a presence in the heart of Silicon Valley in addition to William Blair’s existing strategic footprint.
All Armentum Partners professionals have joined William Blair as part of the transaction, preserving their deep relationships and specialized expertise.
“We continue to invest in capabilities and teammates who can provide differentiated outcomes for our clients across the venture capital, public company, and collegiate communities,” Matt Zimmer, global head of investment banking at William Blair, said. “The Armentum Partners team has decades of experience earning the trust of their clients, key investors and lenders in their markets, and the institutions and universities that fuel innovation. Together, we can offer these clients a broader set of solutions to finance their continued growth.”
Steve Maletzky, head of capital markets at William Blair, added, “This is a natural synergistic extension of our capital markets strategy. Enterprise value lending is a specialized discipline — financing companies against the value of their assets, often before traditional cash flows exist. Armentum Partners has built a leading franchise advising many of the most well-known and innovative public companies, universities and venture-backed businesses.”
Armentum Partners will continue to operate under the same name for a period of time after the closing of this transaction.
“We built our firm with a dedicated focus on our clients, offering them access to our deep market relationships and expertise in delivering bespoke solutions,” Armentum’s Hutch Corbett said. “Joining William Blair unlocks opportunities for our clients, providing the increased scale, reach and sector depth of a premier global platform along with relationship and execution continuity. We can now offer our clients a much deeper set of services — including public and private equity capital raising, M&A advisory, secondary advisory, primary fund raising and equity research — while leveraging William Blair’s sector breadth to cover adjacent industries.”
Clearsight Advisors served as financial advisor to Armentum in connection with the transaction.
