Buying or selling a small business has long been a fragmented, confusing process. Most owners rely on brokers, word of mouth, or outdated listing sites that pull together stale data and unresponsive contacts.
SMB.co, launched in June 2024, is a Cincinnati-based platform built to change that.
It positions itself as an AI-powered marketplace where business owners, buyers, and advisors can find, evaluate, and close deals in one place, with less back-and-forth and more transparency from start to finish.
Key Takeaways
- SMB.co uses AI-powered matching to connect buyers with both on-market and off-market small business listings.
- The platform serves three distinct user groups: business owners looking to sell, buyers searching for acquisitions, and advisors facilitating transactions.
- SMB.co raised $1 million in pre-seed funding and launched publicly in 2024 with over 2,000 users already on its waitlist at launch.
What SMB.co Actually Does
At its core, SMB.co is a marketplace for small business transactions.
The platform aggregates listings and goes further by reaching out directly to business owners who have not listed anywhere, surfacing what it calls off-market opportunities.
For a buyer tired of scrolling through BizBuySell listings that have been sitting unsold for two years, this is a real differentiator.
The platform is designed around three user types:
| User Type | Primary Use Case |
|---|---|
| Business Owners (Sellers) | Value, grow, and sell their business |
| Buyers | Search, evaluate, and acquire businesses with confidence |
| Advisors / Brokers | Manage transactions and connect both sides |
Each group gets a tailored set of tools. Sellers can get a business valuation through the platform, which SMB.co has offered as a complimentary feature.
Buyers can build a profile, let the AI surface matching opportunities, and manage their entire deal pipeline in one secure hub, including sending NDAs, submitting offers, and tracking progress.
Advisors get transaction management infrastructure that replaces the usual pile of spreadsheets and email threads.
The AI Matching Engine
The matching feature is what separates SMB.co from older directory-style listing platforms.
Rather than having buyers scroll through listings manually, the platform builds a buyer profile and surfaces relevant businesses, including ones that are not publicly listed.
When a buyer flags interest in an off-market business, SMB.co reaches out to the owner directly to gauge openness and initiates the introduction if there is a fit.
This matters because most small businesses never publicly list for sale. Owners either sell quietly through their network or simply do not sell at all.
SMB.co's off-market access pipeline addresses a real gap in how deals have traditionally been discovered, and the platform tracks outreach progress so buyers can see exactly where each potential deal stands.
What Buyers Are Actually Searching For
SMB.co published internal data in May 2025 showing what buyers on the platform are prioritizing. The findings give a clear picture of the current acquisition market:
- Service-based businesses lead searches at 6.9% of total buyer interest
- Car washes come in second at 4.6%, favored for their passive income appeal
- Laundromats rank third at 3.4%
- Home services (HVAC, plumbing, etc.) follow at 3.2%
The pattern across the top categories is consistent: buyers want cash-flowing businesses that do not require deep operational involvement day-to-day.
Recurring revenue and simple operations are priorities, not growth-stage complexity.
The Founding Team
CEO Joe Brown grew up in a family of small business owners, from farms and meat processing operations to a family medicine practice.
After exploring the world of entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) himself, he noticed that existing platforms were slow, opaque, and poorly matched to what buyers and sellers actually needed.
That experience is the direct origin of SMB.co.
COO Mike Hillenmeyer brings over 20 years of experience in payments and product development, with a background in mobile and e-commerce.
CMO Brit Karel comes from B2B SaaS marketing and is a certified leadership coach.
The team covers product, operations, and growth with relevant prior experience in each area, which is not always the case with early-stage marketplace startups.
Funding and Growth
SMB.co raised $1 million in pre-seed funding, which the company stated would go toward platform improvements, better matching capabilities, and expanding educational resources for users.
The raise was reported ahead of the official public launch in June 2024, at which point the platform already had a waitlist of more than 2,000 users waiting to onboard.
For a platform that launched under 12 months ago, the early traction suggests real demand.
The small business acquisition market has been growing as more individuals pursue business ownership as an alternative to traditional employment, and platforms that make the process less opaque have a clear opening.
Platform Features at a Glance
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| AI Business Matching | Surfaces on- and off-market opportunities based on buyer profile |
| Business Valuation | Complimentary valuation tool for sellers |
| Deal Room | Secure hub for NDAs, offers, and due diligence |
| Off-Market Outreach | Platform contacts unlisted owners on buyer's behalf |
| Advisor Tools | Transaction management and deal tracking for brokers |
| Educational Resources | Blog content, webinars, and guides for all user types |
How It Compares to Existing Platforms
The small business listing space is not empty. BizBuySell, BizQuest, and BusinessBroker.net have been around for years, each with tens of thousands of listings.
What they share is a mostly passive model: listings go up, buyers search, and the platform does little beyond connecting the two parties.
SMB.co's active outreach to off-market owners, the AI-driven matching, and the integrated deal management tools are meaningful differences.
That said, the platform is newer, which means fewer total listings compared to established competitors. For buyers who prioritize deal volume over deal quality, the older platforms still have scale on their side.
For buyers who want curated matches and access to businesses that are not publicly available anywhere else, SMB.co has a distinct advantage.
Content and Education
The SMB.co blog and resource section covers topics like seller financing, business valuation, negotiation tactics, and transition services agreements.
In partnership with SILVER, the company has also hosted webinars covering how buyers evaluate businesses and what actually drives valuation multiples.
This kind of content serves both SEO purposes and genuine user education, helping first-time buyers and sellers understand a process most people only go through once.
The educational angle is a smart long-term play. People who find SMB.co through a blog post about seller financing are already signaling intent to buy or sell.
Converting them into platform users is a straightforward next step.
Potential Limitations
A few things worth considering before committing to the platform:
- Listing volume is still growing. As a 2024 launch, the total number of active listings is smaller than platforms that have been around for a decade or more.
- Pricing details are not fully public. The pricing page notes free options with success fees, but specific rates are not published on the site, which makes direct cost comparisons difficult.
- Off-market outreach relies on owner response. The model of contacting unlisted owners is innovative, but conversion depends on whether those owners are actually open to selling.
Conclusion
SMB.co is a well-built, clearly focused platform addressing real friction points in the small business acquisition market.
For buyers and sellers who want more than a passive listing directory, it is worth a serious look.