FirmOptic is a purpose-built research workflow for solo and two-partner searchers. Build your thesis, pull a ranked target list, and generate a cited diligence memo before your next owner call. No analyst required.
You raised ~$500K in search capital (or skipped the raise and went self-funded). You have 18 to 24 months. You are one person, maybe two. The 2024 Stanford GSB Search Fund Study tracked a record 94 new funds launched in 2023 alone, which means more searchers are hunting the same owners you are (Stanford GSB, 2024).
200 emails go out. Maybe four replies come back. Industry benchmarks put cold outreach reply rates around 2% for well-targeted campaigns (Sopro, 2026). That is not a failure of your campaign. That is the game.
An owner replies and wants to talk Thursday. You are in Google, LinkedIn, Apollo, the state business registry, ChatGPT, and a half-built Excel pipeline. Eight tabs open. Notes you will not trust tomorrow. You take the call with a half-page of research and a lot of nodding.
Your LPs want a pipeline update. You spend the afternoon rebuilding a deck you already rebuilt last month. Every hour on tooling is an hour not on owner calls. The clock does not stop. Your investors are counting.
You do not need a bigger tool stack. You need the analyst team you cannot afford to hire.
The parts that build your judgment stay yours. The parts that do not teach you anything get compressed into minutes.
Describe your thesis in plain English. "HVAC companies in the Southeast, $1M to $4M EBITDA, owner 55 plus, no broker listing." FirmOptic parses it into structured filters, and you refine with natural language. No NAICS code memorization, no filter stacking.
See the size of your universe before you commit a single dollar. Get a ranked list of companies that match every criterion, with enrichment on ownership, revenue signals, headcount, and geography.
Accept or pass on targets with a reason code. Every pass is saved with your reason.
Click "research" on any company and a multi-agent pipeline (planner, researcher, sanitizer, reviewer) produces a cited report in about 15 minutes. Ownership, financial signals, market, leadership, legal, technology, and more. Every claim links to a source you can verify before the call.
Every researched company gets a scorecard calibrated to your thesis, not a generic algorithm. Rank 50 targets in seconds.
Send a link to an LP, an advisor, or a lender. They read the memo and export to PDF or Word. No FirmOptic account required on their side.
From thesis fit to closed, in one kanban. Time in stage, overdue alerts, CSV export. Stop maintaining a pipeline spreadsheet you only trust on Fridays.
Per-company contacts and a pipeline with stages, time in stage, and overdue alerts. Research and deal tracking stay in the same workflow. Pipeline is part of Growth.
Search funds in the 2024 Stanford study posted a 35.1% aggregate IRR across 681 tracked funds since 1984 (Stanford GSB, 2024). The returns are real. The constraint is time to acquisition. FirmOptic compresses the research hours that stand between a thesis and a closed deal.
Every memo cites every source. You verify what you need to verify, the same way you would verify an associate's work.
Built for principals backed by traditional search investors including the kinds of LPs featured in funds like Pacific Lake's fourth vehicle (Buyouts Insider, 2024), and by self-funded operators running SBA-backed acquisitions.
The common pattern across search stories on Acquiring Minds and Think Like an Owner is the same: the winners got more at-bats. FirmOptic is a lever on at-bats.
| Plan | Researches a month | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 5 | $0 |
| Growth | Up to 25 | $99 / mo |
Free gives you 5 company researches a month. Growth is $99 a month for up to 25, plus pipeline, contacts, and term sheets. Top-up packs of 20 to 200 researches are available in the app. Cancel any month. No annual commit.
You know the math. 18 to 24 months, one person (maybe two), hundreds of targets, and the owner conversations that actually matter are the ones you walked into prepared.
Build your thesis in the next ten minutes. Run your first deep research report for under five dollars. See what a cited memo looks like before your next call.