redacted Not because the deals dried up. Because the capital stack you built your whole search on stopped being legal while you were sending IOIs. New SOP: seller note and sub-20% investors share ONE cap of half the injection. Combined. The other half is your money, and it can't be anything the business pays back. On a $3M target you're writing a $150K check, plus you need to show significant post close liquidity. So you can't use your last $150k. Your investors' dollars used to meet the injection get locked up. No distributions except tax until the loan is gone. Basically, no more investor dollars coving required equity injections. We know a lot of people who were planning working with investors, this is no longer an option. We've done deals where the buyer put in nothing personally. We used to say "money shouldn't be why a great operator can't buy a great business" Can't do that anymore. My problem with it is that cash on hand doesn't tell you anything about whether somebody can run a company. The guy who ran a $40M division for somebody else and took a paycheck is now a worse credit than someone who's never operated anything but has money in the bank. The "good" news, you can use a loan that can be paid back by means other than the business as the injection. So if you have other income that can service the debt. You can borrow your injection.