About Fillmore Partners
Fillmore Partners is a permanent capital holding company and investment firm that acquires and builds lower middle market B2B services businesses across the U.S., Canada and Europe. We're a small, high-conviction team of five people and we operate without the bureaucracy of a traditional fund structure. No expiration clock. No pressure to flip. We buy businesses to own them.
We don't rely on bankers to bring us deals. We go find them.
The Role
We're hiring a Deal Sourcing Associate to own and drive our proprietary deal origination engine. Fillmore is a direct-to-owner shop where we source the majority of our deal flow through targeted, relationship-driven outreach to business owners, not through broker processes. This person will be the primary driver of that pipeline.
The role goes beyond dialing and emailing. You'll be expected to build relationships with owners, with industry advisors, and with the ecosystem of people who know what's for sale before it's for sale. You'll be the one who figures out how to reach them, earn their trust, and bring the right opportunities to the table.
If you need a playbook handed to you, this isn't the right fit. If you're the type who builds the playbook on day one and automates it by day thirty, keep reading.
What You'll Do
- Generate proprietary deal flow — identify and reach acquisition targets through direct, owner-level outreach before they're in a formal process; this is not a broker-driven role
- Build owner relationships — develop genuine, trust-based relationships with business owners and founders; you'll be the face of Fillmore in early conversations that may become transactions years later
- Cultivate industry advisors and deal referral sources — develop a network of accountants, attorneys, consultants, and sector operators who surface deals informally
- Own the CRM and sourcing tech stack — maintain our deal pipeline in our CRM; administer tools like Clay, Sourcescrub, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator; identify what can be consolidated or automated
- Build AI-forward workflows — use AI not just as a writing aid but as an automation layer: enrichment pipelines, outreach sequencing, agent-based workflows; we expect you to use AI in ways most people in our community haven't attempted
- Track and report pipeline metrics — maintain clean data, measure conversion across outreach stages, and bring a metrics-driven view to what's working and what isn't
- Conduct initial target screening — evaluate outbound and inbound targets against Fillmore's investment criteria; build preliminary financial profiles on qualified opportunities
- Draft IOIs and LOIs — advance qualified opportunities from initial interest to formal expression under Partner guidance
- Manage deal process logistics — coordinate diligence workstreams and manage multiple stakeholders simultaneously through early-stage deal processes
- Represent the firm — attend conferences, advisor meetings, and owner conversations as a credible, knowledgeable representative of Fillmore's investment thesis
What We're Looking For
Non-negotiables:
- 2–4 years in a dedicated deal sourcing or BD role at a private equity firm, PE-adjacent sourcing platform, or search fund — you have personally run outreach campaigns, managed a live pipeline, and helped source deals that progressed
- Proprietary sourcing experience — you've done direct-to-owner outreach, not just managed inbound broker flow
- Commercial instincts and relationship orientation — you understand how to build trust with business owners, earn referrals, and develop relationships that may not convert for months or years; this is a long-game role
- Data and metrics driven — you track what you do, measure what works, and use data to sharpen your approach over time
- Strong process and project management — you can manage multiple active deal processes simultaneously, keep stakeholders aligned, and nothing falls through the cracks
- AI-forward — you actively use AI to do your job better and can demonstrate specific, concrete examples
- Scrappy and self-directed — you've built your own systems, not inherited them; you don't wait to be told what to do next
- Sharp written communicator — IOIs, LOIs, and owner-facing outreach will be part of your output
- Bachelor's degree from a four-year university
Strong signals:
- You've sourced a deal that closed
- You've built an outreach automation or enrichment workflow from scratch (bonus: using AI agents)
- You've worked at a firm where you were one of a handful of people, not one of hundreds
- You've had a conversation with a business owner that turned into a deal two years later
Compensation & Benefits
- Base salary: $120,000–$145,000 depending on experience
- Performance bonus: Deal-based success compensation and discretionary annual bonus
- Healthcare: Available
- PTO: Unlimited
- Travel: Firm-covered for conferences, management meetings, and office visits
- Reports To: Partner
- Target Start: June 2025
