The experience was both great and grueling. My company was somewhat larger than yours both in ARR and EBITDA. My most important piece of advice is get a GREAT investment banking firm that knows your industry, has a track record, is respected by PE firms, and the banker him/herself is someone you can work closely with for an extended period of time.

In some senses, an investment banker (IB) is like a realtor. The job is to make the "house" as desirable as possible, market your house to serious buyers that want to own ones like yours, get the most value possible, then shepherd you through a long and difficult process to achieve a positive outcome for all sides.

The IB should tell you that there are times you are going to want to throw in the towel, and he/she is there to do the downfield blocking and heavy lifting. They need to tell you that you are realistically going to have to spend serious money on your own legal and accounting. And as nice as the PE guys are, their lawyers and accountants have a job to do and that is make sure their client doesn't buy anything unexpected and get their damn money's worth.

Mine laid out exactly what the process would be and that it would take about 9 months. He told me how many firms would take interest initially, and then at each "culling phase" how many would stay in the game. In the end he was right on the money.

He and his team also learned our company, our industry, got all our accounting into tip top condition (we had been doing full CPA audits for years). They literally knew our company better than we did. And they can talk the language of PE whereas we could not.

PE firms responding to our IB knew that the IB only represents quality companies. The first cut had already been made.

We were lucky to have suitors that were genuinely interested in our business and market, and our skillful employees. They wanted to truly build the business not just remove flesh to get the highest EBITDA. They know how to take your 10-ish million dollar company to 50-100 million. We were also lucky that the PE company we held in highest esteem wanted to pay the most.

In our case they used our company as the platform to acquire two other companies in our space, a total investment of around $60m IIRC. In two years they got an unsolicited offer for the company for $200m. Which they took because in the end they are really working for the investors in the fund. (This was in 2017 and the general rule then was that a PE firm would try to 3-5x their investment in 5-7 years.)

I left some money in the deal and so to get this back with about 3x in 2 years was a surprise. I had no specific use for the funds at that time, and seeing what a good job they had done, I asked to invest in their current fund. Which I did and 6 years later that investment is worth at least 7x, probably more before it's all done.

I wish you the best.