About
Built for operators,
not investment banks.
Selling a small business in Ontario has meant handing ten to twelve per cent of the price to a broker, and taking their word for what the market thought. Buying one has meant asking a stranger to prove their numbers and hoping. MicroM&A is the marketplace underneath that: the listings, the verification, the documents and the deadlines, without the intermediary who priced most of these businesses out of a proper process.
What we are trying to do
A business worth six or seven figures deserves the same machinery as one worth fifty million: a real agreement, a deposit held in trust, conditions with dates on them, and a record of who signed what. That machinery has always existed. It has simply been priced for larger deals, so the businesses that employ most people got the informal version: a handshake, a spreadsheet and a lawyer brought in far too late.
“The same process the big deals get, at a price the small ones can carry.”
Every business here is sold by public auction: a diligence period that lasts until the seller opens bidding, then ten days of open bidding by verified buyers on terms the seller fixed in advance. Everything else follows Ontario practice, because that is where these businesses are and whose law will govern the argument if there is one. The winning bid becomes an Agreement of Purchase and Sale. The deposit sits in trust, not in escrow. None of that is our invention. It is simply how it is done properly, made available to a deal that could not previously afford it.
What counts as a small business
Any independently owned, operating business, typically under $10 million in annual revenue.
- Service businesses: landscaping, cleaning, accounting, consulting
- E-commerce stores and online brands
- Retail shops, restaurants, and food and beverage operations
- Professional practices: dental, medical, legal, optometry
- SaaS and digital products with recurring revenue
- Manufacturing, distribution, and trades
- Franchises and franchise resales
Never shares: every sale is a sale of assets. A business listed here has to earn its value from what it does. If it owns the building it runs from, the building can be sold with it, in the same auction and the same agreement.
Who is on it
Buying
- First-time acquisition entrepreneurs
- Operators expanding by buying rather than building
- Investors looking for a business that already makes money
- People leaving a salary to own something
Selling
- Founders ready to move on from something they built
- Retiring owners looking for a successor rather than a buyer
- Operators selling one location or one line
- Anyone unwilling to give a broker a tenth of the price
What we are not
MicroM&A acts only as auctioneer. It is not a business broker, a real estate brokerage, a law firm or an accountancy. We do not represent either side, we do not negotiate, we are not a party to any agreement between a buyer and a seller, and we give no legal, tax or valuation advice. The multiples shown on a listing are arithmetic on figures the seller supplied. They are context, not an appraisal. Every document the platform generates is a template built to Ontario convention and says so on its own face.
Have your own solicitor read anything you are about to sign. On a transaction this size it is the cheapest money you will spend, and we would rather say so here than have you discover it later.
The narrower questions are answered in the FAQ, and the fee is on one page.