You'll find this may be possible in smaller owner-operated companies, and I'd say it depends on 2 things: 1) rapport with the seller: how much he trusts you with his company/legacy/employees, and 2) what is the seller's primary motivation: not all sellers need the money right away. They might have built a nice retirement income throughout the years (through their company and/or passive income) so they don't actually need the money from the sale of their company to be in their bank account on day 1 after the sale, so they might be open to deferred payments over x amount of years. I had this happened to me with a 1 million revenue landscaping company I was considering buying early this year: I negotiated a 100k downpayment with the seller, that I was going to get from an asset based lender pledging 130k of the company's hard assets. The remaining 300k was going to be paid to the seller throughout 5 years at 6% interest. I ultimately didn't pull th trigger, and the seller later decided to sell to his employees. The seller basically wanted to focus on other interests (real estate) and had some passive income, so he was OK with the majority of the asking price being paid to him throughout 5 years.

I have taken the redacted. It is highly useful and not that expensive. Many of the PE firms that back independent sponsors look for a seller's note of at least 25%. There are infinite ways to structure deals but yes it depends on the seller's taste for such deals, what assets the firm has, and what cash flow the firm throws off.