Toronto · Southwestern Ontario & Northeast US

Built to last.
Grown with purpose.

We acquire one exceptional, founder-led business in the Canadian lower middle market and dedicate ourselves entirely to its next chapter — preserving what was built, and earning the right to add what comes next.

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Dovetail Growth Partners

"Dovetail joints require patience, precision, and discipline to execute well — combining to become something stronger and more enduring than the sum of their parts."

Founding Principle · DGP
Our Purpose

"We are not acquiring a transaction. We are accepting stewardship of something built over decades."

Dovetail Growth Partners is a Toronto-based search fund pursuing a single acquisition in B2B field services and vertical SaaS. We are not a fund cycling through portfolios. We are an operator committing full attention to one business, for the long term.

The best businesses in the lower middle market are not poorly managed — they are under-resourced for the next chapter. They have loyal customers, durable revenue, and a founder who has given decades to building something worth preserving. What they need is a capable successor with capital, a plan, and genuine commitment.

We are actively seeking founders in the GTA and Golden Horseshoe who are thinking about succession, and who want a buyer that will care about what they leave behind. Three-quarters of Canadian small business owners plan to exit within the next decade — yet only 9% have a formal succession plan. We are here for the ones who have built something real.

Target EBITDA Range
–5M

CAD. Lower middle market businesses with demonstrated, recurring profitability over 3+ fiscal years.

Succession Wave
T+

In Canadian small business assets changing hands this decade. 67% of exiting owners have no formal plan.

Search Fund Track Record
33%

Median pre-tax IRR across 681 global search funds (Stanford GSB, 2024). DGP projects ~3.0x MOIC anchored to its own LBO model.

Acquisition Criteria

What we are looking for

These thresholds are guidelines rather than hard constraints. Compelling opportunities outside this range will be evaluated on their merits. Hover each card to learn more.

01
Financial Profile
–5M EBITDA · –20M Revenue
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Financial Profile
Profitable, cash-generative businesses
Preference for demonstrated profitability over 3+ fiscal years. Some owner add-backs are expected and understood. We look for EBITDA margins that can be improved through process discipline — not capital-intensive investment.
02
Geography
Southwestern Ontario & Northeast US · Southern Ontario preferred
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Geography
Ontario-first, with selective reach
Primary focus on the GTA and Golden Horseshoe — representing 38% of Canada's 1.08M small businesses. Selective outreach into Quebec, northeastern US, and the West Coast. Proximity matters for an operator-led model.
03
Sector Focus
B2B Field Services · Vertical SaaS
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Sector Focus
Defensible, recurring businesses
Managed IT services, environmental and compliance services, specialty staffing, and healthcare administration software. Sectors with recurring revenue, customer relationships anchored in operational dependency, and limited PE penetration at the –5M EBITDA level.
04
Team & Tenure
10–75 FTEs · 10+ years in operation
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Team & Tenure
Established brand and loyal employees
We need a team motivated to grow together — not a skeleton crew that exits when the founder does. Businesses with 10+ years of operation have established brand, process, and customer relationships that survive ownership transition.
05
Customer Profile
<25% largest customer · Diverse base
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Customer Profile
Diversified, trust-based relationships
We are cautious of single-customer dependency that creates fragility at transition. The ideal business has customers who rely on the service operationally — not personally on the founder — making revenue genuinely transferable.
06
Succession Motivation
Retirement · Transition · Partial liquidity
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Succession Motivation
No forced timelines
We work with owners who are thinking about succession — whether in one year or five. We explicitly avoid turnarounds, distressed situations, and businesses whose revenue is tied to a single individual relationship that will not survive transition.
Our Approach

One acquisition.
Full commitment.

We are not a multi-portfolio investor spreading attention across dozens of deals. DGP is structured to acquire one business and operate it with the full focus of an owner-operator — because that is what exceptional lower middle market businesses deserve, and what the search fund model is designed to deliver.

01

Long-Term Ownership

We are not optimizing for a five-year exit. Our hold horizon is 5–7 years post-acquisition with no pressure to exit early. The search fund model's structural advantage — a single operator with genuine accountability to one business — is only realized over a long hold. We measure success by whether the business is stronger and better positioned a decade from now.

02

Operator-Led Growth

The operator joins as the day-to-day leader, not a board member visiting quarterly. Unlike PE portfolio managers overseeing 5–10 companies, a search fund entrepreneur runs one business — with corresponding depth of attention and accountability. We earn trust by showing up, understanding the business deeply, and making decisions alongside your team. Walk, then run, then sprint.

03

Investment Discipline

The primary objective in deal selection is not to maximize the probability of finding the best business — it is to avoid acquiring a bad one. In a single-acquisition model, the asymmetry is stark: one undisclosed liability or key-person dependency that does not survive transition can produce a zero. Our qualification framework is designed around consistent avoidance of existential risk, not optimization of maximum upside on any given deal.

How We Work

A process built around respect

Selling a business is one of the most consequential decisions an entrepreneur will make. Our process is transparent, low-disruption, and always at the pace that makes sense for you. Click each step to expand.

01

Initial Conversation

A confidential, no-pressure call to understand your business, your timeline, and what matters most in a transition. No deck. No agenda. Just a conversation. Many of the best acquisitions in search fund history resulted from relationships cultivated over 12–18 months before an LOI was ever submitted. We are designed for that cadence: systematic, patient, and documented.
02

Mutual NDA & Preliminary Review

We sign a mutual NDA before reviewing any financial detail. Confidentiality is not a courtesy — it is a firm commitment. Your employees, customers, and competitors will not learn of this process from us. We review your CIM or financials on a completely confidential basis and move at your pace.
03

Letter of Intent

A clear, clean LOI that reflects our genuine interest. We do not use LOIs as leverage or negotiating tools — they represent a good-faith commitment to close on fair terms. Our deal structure is intentionally flexible: seller notes, earn-outs, rollover equity, and phased transitions can all be accommodated based on what makes the most sense for you.
04

Focused Diligence

Organized, purposeful diligence designed to minimize disruption to your team and operations. We bring 20+ institutional due diligence engagements from Bain & Company to this process — we ask focused questions, share what we find openly, and complete diligence in 30–45 days. Diligence is a two-way process: we want to understand what you have built, not catch you out.
05

Close & Transition

We work closely with your advisors and, critically, with you — through close and well into the transition period. Phase 1 of our ownership (months 1–6) is explicitly a stabilize-and-learn phase: structured knowledge transfer, financial baseline installation, and team assessment before any significant changes are made. Warm introductions to customers and employees are not optional — they are how we protect what you built.
06

Value Creation (Years 1–5+)

Our value creation follows a structured, phased framework:
  • Phase 1 (Months 1–6): Stabilize & Learn — knowledge transfer, KPI dashboards, team assessment, 1–2 quick wins
  • Phase 2 (Months 7–24): Professionalize & Grow — pricing reviews, CRM discipline, process standardization, targeted technology enablement
  • Phase 3 (Year 2–5+): Value Maximization — selective tuck-in M&A, geographic expansion, management depth, exit positioning
DGP
Taylor Miller
The Operator

Taylor Miller

Founder & Managing Partner · Dovetail Growth Partners

I founded Dovetail Growth Partners because I believe entrepreneurship through acquisition is one of the most intellectually honest models in private investment. It is not financial engineering. It is not a bet on markets. It is a disciplined commitment to one business, and driving durable value within it — built over years, not quarters.

Over nearly 8 years at Bain & Company, I supported 20+ acquisitions, cost transformations, and growth strategy engagements across B2B services, industrials, and technology — with a primary focus in private equity commercial due diligence and PE-backed value creation and merger integration. I consistently observed that the best businesses in the lower middle market are not poorly managed — they are under-resourced for the next chapter.

After Bain, I made a deliberate choice to get closer to operations. As Interim Chief of Staff at TOPIX Pharmaceuticals (PE-backed skincare), I executed supply chain restructuring and cross-functional initiatives directly. At Consilio (.5B AI legal software), I supported transformation alongside the CEO and CTO. Both roles were chosen deliberately — to understand the gap between a credible plan and one that survives contact with an organization.

Prior Firm Bain & Company · ~7 years
Operating Roles TOPIX Pharmaceuticals · Consilio · Bazaar Ventures
Education Ivey Business School, HBA
Based In Toronto, Ontario
Bias to Action Make effective decisions quickly when the path forward is clear. Trust judgment enough to act without waiting for consensus when speed matters.
Conviction Through Data Know our inputs better than most. Cook with data, never ego. Poor inputs produce poor outcomes.
Know the Edge Know the edge of my own competence and build deliberately around it — through advisors, investors, and operators who have done this before.
What We Offer

Flexible structure.
Principled ownership.

Flexible Capital Structure

We adapt the deal structure to your goals — seller notes, earn-outs, rollover equity, or phased transitions. We prefer working alongside you during ownership transition rather than asserting control from day one. There is no institutional investment committee setting rigid deal terms.

Your Team Stays Your Team

We do not acquire businesses to restructure headcount or signal AI-native transformation through layoffs. Your employees are what we are acquiring as much as the revenue. We retain employees, maintain customer relationships, and honour the commitments you have made. Your reputation becomes our reputation.

Customer Relationship Continuity

Warm introductions. Shared context. A transition plan built around protecting the relationships that took you years to earn. Customer relationships anchored in operational dependency — not founder personality — are the most durable, and we know how to manage the handover accordingly.

Operator Focus Over Reporting

We are not preparing monthly decks for institutional sponsors or private equity oversight committees. Our time goes into the business. We focus on what matters: decisions made and actions taken, not slides delivered. Bain's operating culture is explicit about this — results, not reports.

No Institutional Overhead

There is no fund bureaucracy, no competing portfolio priorities, and no investment committee approval cycles pulling our attention. DGP is a focused, single-acquisition vehicle. This is 100% of our time and focus — not one of many investments in a managed portfolio.

Experienced Investor Network

The investors backing DGP are selected as much for their operating experience and network quality as for their capital. We chose the traditional search fund structure deliberately — to access a group of principals who have navigated complex post-acquisition situations and can provide perspective when judgment is under pressure.

Get In Touch

Let's start a conversation.

Whether you are a founder exploring options, an advisor with a client in mind, or an investor interested in the fund — we welcome direct, confidential conversation. We respond to all serious inquiries within one business day.

Email Taylor.Miller@dovetailgp.ca
Mobile +1 647 921 8117
Based Toronto, Ontario
Focus Southwestern Ontario & Northeast US