Can I sell my business off-market without listing it publicly?

Off-market simply means selling without a public listing. Rather than advertising on a marketplace, you or an intermediary approach a curated short list of qualified buyers directly and confidentially, sharing details only after an NDA is signed. Owners choose this to protect confidentiality — keeping employees, customers, suppliers, and competitors from learning the business is for sale — and to control exactly who sees it.

Off-market is the norm in lower-middle-market M&A. The buyers are private equity firms (typically 4-8x EBITDA), search funds (3-5x EBITDA), family offices, and strategic acquirers (5-10x EBITDA), many of whom actively prefer proprietary deals with less bidding competition. The flip side is that a quiet process lacks an open auction's price tension, so benchmark against industry multiples and get an independent valuation before you negotiate.

DealSeam is built for exactly this. It is not a traditional business broker; it introduces owners to qualified buyers off-market, without any public listing, and shares information under NDA. The buyer pays the success fee where there's a fit, so the seller pays nothing — you get confidential access to vetted buyers while keeping the sale out of public view.