Private Equity Deal Origination Associate | Founding Team

The Opportunity

Crossbeam Partners is an AI-native buy-side M&A advisory firm. We partner with top-tier private equity firms and family offices to source high-quality, thesis-aligned acquisition targets. Having successfully proven our model, we are expanding the team and looking for our first hire to help scale our deal pipeline.

This role provides an unparalleled, front-row seat to the private equity and ETA ecosystems. Unlike traditional banking roles that keep you trapped in spreadsheets, you will be responsible for the most critical stage of the M&A lifecycle: Origination. You will manage the entire outreach funnel, from high-level market mapping to conducting primary discovery calls with founders of lower mid-market companies. This is an entrepreneurial apprenticeship in the psychology of deal-making and the mechanics of proprietary sourcing.

What You’ll Do

• Direct Founder Outreach: Lead strategic outbound campaigns via phone and email to build relationships and engage directly with CEOs and founders of $5M–$50M revenue businesses.
• Qualification & Discovery: Conduct initial discovery calls with business owners to evaluate financial health, operational metrics, and transition readiness.
• Thesis Development & Market Mapping: Collaborate with leadership to identify high-fragmentation niches ripe for consolidation and map out target ecosystems.
• AI Sourcing Optimization: Actively leverage and help train our internal sourcing engine, finding novel ways to use LLMs, automated data mining, and workflow automation to compound pipeline velocity.
• Investor Interface: Work directly with PE clients to refine acquisition mandates, share market intelligence, and present qualified leads.
• Pipeline Management: Own your deal funnel within our CRM, ensuring rigorous follow-up, relationship nurturing, and data integrity.

Who You Are

• Investment Banking Foundation: You have 1–2 years of experience in investment banking and a degree from a top-tier academic institution. You have the technical foundation down but want to transition to a startup environment with much more responsibility and impact.
• Principal Trajectory: This role is perfect for someone who eventually wants to be a principal. You want to learn how to find, evaluate, and talk to business owners so that you can run your own deals in the future.
• Deeply AI-Forward: You are not just a user of technology; you are obsessed with leverage. You routinely integrate advanced AI tools into your daily workflow to automate mundane tasks and maximize output. You want to be at the forefront of how artificial intelligence is disrupting legacy finance.
• Highly Entrepreneurial: You have a High Agency mindset. You do not wait for a playbook; you help write it. You are deeply curious about small business ownership and the lower middle market. 
• Exceptional Communicator: You possess the executive presence, empathy, and verbal polish required to build trust and hold the attention of seasoned business owners on cold outreach.
• Resilient & Execution-Oriented: You recognize that proprietary deal flow requires grit. You view navigating founder conversations not as a chore, but as the fastest way to develop world-class sales and negotiation intuition. You have an unmatched work ethic and a competitive background (such as collegiate athletics)

What We Offer

• Direct Deal Upside: Competitive base salary plus uncapped performance-based earnings from every deal you successfully source.
• Co-Investment Opportunity: You will have the opportunity to invest your own capital directly into these deals alongside our clients, allowing you to build real equity early in your career.
• Unmatched Trajectory: You will shape the future of the business. We will expect you to be leading a team within 6 months and you will have the opportunity to build out our principal investing business as an independent sponsor/investor.