Definitely an interesting area to try to do a deal. Knowing about the companies when it's clear they aren't going where they want but before they find another alternative or just shutdown is probably the hardest part. Finding someone who somehow would know these companies in that sweet-spot would be a huge advantage. I imagine valuation and cap structure would be more interesting than traditional deals. Would be interested to hear some case studies from the community where it's worked.

Spoke to some friends who were VCs about this, but agree identifying the candidate is the toughest part. Not sure I would agree around valuation though as there seems to be a bigger dispersion from the few one-off cases I have seen and it didn't feel worth it to step in w/ the complex capital structure makes it more annoying to deal with the different stakeholders. Doesn't help that a lot of these companies were pricing off hopes&dreams/rev multiples vs. SDE/EBITDA