The buy-side firm DEX wants.And the operating layer that comes with it.
DEX is building a real buy-side acquisition system across print, copier/MPS, and managed IT. Pierce Ridge can run that system end to end: sourcing, diligence, and outreach, continuously. The same engine compounds the organic growth DEX already does well. And the larger opportunity is the one DEX's leadership has already started exploring with AI: an operating layer the whole organization can use, so the leverage scales past a handful of people. Less time spent moving between tools. More time on the decisions that move the business.
This isn't a slide deck. Each section below is a working mock-up of the capability itself, built to be walked through live or shared as-is.
The deal firm, running every week, not per engagement.
A broker brings a lead, someone senior works it, an LOI gets signed, then an outside firm is engaged for quality-of-earnings. It's slow, relationship-gated, and it doesn't keep pace with how fast DEX wants to grow by acquisition, on the print and the managed-IT side.
Helix runs sourcing continuously inside your buy-box, enriches each target, drafts the diligence pages a QoE firm would build, and runs the outreach cadence under Pierce Ridge Capital's identity, so the pipeline is full before anyone picks up the phone. Below is one pass through the engine, then the live target map already built for DEX.
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- Owner
- Founder · 22 yrs
- Est. revenue
- $9–12M
- Headcount
- ~44
- Service / MPS %
- ~58%
- OEM lines
- Canon / Konica Minolta
- Buy-box fit
- 84 / 100
Step 1 / 6·Define the box: describe the target profile in plain language.
DEX's national branch footprint, the 50-mile copier / MPS acquisition scan around Cleveland, the 50-mile DEXTEK managed-IT scan around Austin, and the Northeast acquisition zone. Click a scan circle or the highlighted Northeast states to open the target list, decision-maker route, and ready-to-send outreach for each prospect. Public-source research, verify before any outreach.
Independent dealers, converted, not just bought.
The copier and MPS dealer roll-up is a proven DEX play, the footprint already includes Hendrix Business Systems, Valley Office Systems, Imaging Concepts, and Titan Wolfpack IT. But each one came broker-fed, one deal at a time, and there's no continuous engine pointed at the next dozen.
Helix runs the dealer screen every week: independent print / copier / MPS platforms inside the Cleveland 50-mile scan and the Northeast $10M+ zone (Atlantic, Fraser, Usherwood, Edwards, Doing Better Business, Conway, ACT, and more), enriched, diligence-drafted, and approached as a DEX-branded local platform that keeps its technicians and customers.
MSPs that fit the screen, before the broker calls.
DEXTEK growth needs the right kind of MSP, recurring-heavy, badged service teams, diversified commercial customers, not project shops or owner-dependent resellers. Finding those by waiting for a banker's book is slow and adversely selected.
Helix applies the DEXTEK acquisition criteria continuously, anchored on the Austin 50-mile scan and expandable to every DEXTEK market: 50%+ recurring revenue, 24–36-month agreements, 25–250-user clients, $200+/user/month, not owner-dependent, growing. Targets surface enriched and pre-screened; the map's Austin list is the first cut.
- EBITDA ~$500K–$2M
- 36-mo agreements preferred (24-mo ok)
- 50%+ recurring (ideally 60%+)
- Own badged helpdesk + field staff
- Diversified commercial base
- 25–250 users / client
- $200+/user/month pricing
- Not owner-dependent · growing
DEX grew this without AI. Now give every rep a bigger territory.
DEX's growth story is largely organic, branch by branch, rep by rep, relationship by relationship. But that engine is gated on hiring and ramping people, and on each rep's personal bandwidth: the prospecting that doesn't happen, the installed-base white-space nobody has time to chase, the proposal that takes a day to write.
The same engine that sources acquisitions, pointed at customers. Helix prospects net-new accounts in every branch territory, mines the installed base for white-space (add MPS, add DEXTEK, hardware refresh), routes each play to a rep with the context attached, drafts the proposals and RFP responses and QBR decks, and gives a new branch a pipeline before the team is even hired.
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- Triangle Surgical Partnersfit 8812 offices · aging fleet · no MPS vendor of record
- Cardinal Logistics Groupfit 81RFP for managed print closes in 6 weeks
- Research Park Law (3 firms)fit 79Print-heavy, security-sensitive, single-vendor preference
- Coastal Credit Unionfit 84Branch refresh budgeted, exploring DEXTEK-style managed IT
- $140K/yrBull City Health SystemAdd MPS to existing hardware lease
- $95KTobacco Road Mfg.Hardware refresh, fleet 6+ yrs old
- $210K/yrDurham Day SchoolsAttach DEXTEK managed IT to copier base
Same motion, before the team is hired: Helix maps the territory, builds the target list, and runs local prospecting so a new branch opens with a pipeline already moving, not a blank CRM.
Step 1 / 5·Pick a market: a branch leader names the territory in plain language.
Marketing, on the same operating layer as the rest of DEX.
Marketing today runs lean. The calendar, regional variants, asset production, and attribution tend to live across people and inboxes more than in a single connected system, and the team gets pulled toward what's urgent before what's planned. For a brand at DEX's scale, there's room for the marketing motion to operate at the same level the rest of the company already does.
Helix runs the marketing engine on top of the same operating layer: it builds the plan from a goal, drafts the editorial calendar, generates the assets (posts, emails, landing pages, social), ships regional variants for every branch market, and watches performance live. DEX gets a senior-grade marketing system without hiring a senior-grade team to staff it.
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A real plan, not a prompt-and-pray. Audience, themes, calendar, and copy come out as one connected artifact.
Step 1 / 5·Frame the campaign: goal, audience, channels, time window.
Move the leverage off leadership's desks.
Leadership is spending real hours hand-training Claude, re-prompting, reformatting, coaxing. Generously, that's an hour a day each: roughly $100K–$195K/yr of senior time. And when it works, the know-how lives in people's heads.
Give Helix a goal and the tools, and it runs to a finished deliverable, then leaves behind a reusable workflow and an adoption dashboard. The output ships, and the pioneering work your people started becomes the organization's capability, scaling past the people who built it.
Step 1 / 5·Same request, both sides: "Draft the Q3 managed-services go-to-market plan."
Ask Oscar. One source of truth. Zero clicks.
Whether you're identifying what the toner plant has on hand, where the DEXTEK pipeline stands, what customers are saying. Each lives in a different system, or in a different person's head. To get the picture you hunt across tools or interrupt someone who has the login.
Ask in plain language, between meetings or from the car, and Oscar pulls from dispatch, the ERP, the DEXTEK PSA, and the review feeds at once and assembles the answer. Follow up, and the work actually happens: dispatch rebalances, the renewals get routed, the production order is flagged. Operators build their own daily board; leaders just ask.
you ·
Step 1 / 5·A leader just asks, out loud, between meetings or from the car.
Every integration runs the same playbook.
The acquired business gets onboarded ad hoc: HR folders handed out on day one and names mispronounced. The wheels wobble because there's no repeatable integration motion, just goodwill and improvisation.
Each closed deal lands on a runbook: people & comms, systems & data, customer continuity, 30/60/90 milestones, every task owned, status visible, integration risk draining away as the checklist completes. Acquisition #4, #5, #6 inherit it automatically.
- Name pronunciations + org chart confirmed
- Welcome sequence scheduled (week 1–4, not day 1)
- Benefits & payroll mapped, no surprises
- Manager 1:1s booked with every employee
- Email & identity cutover plan
- CRM + service history migrated
- Ticketing / dispatch consolidated
- Toner & parts inventory into DEX ERP
- Top-50 accounts get a named contact
- "Nothing changes for you" notice sent
- Open tickets reassigned, none dropped
- Contract renewals calendared
- Day 30, integration review
- Day 60, cross-sell DEXTEK / managed IT
- Day 90, synergy check vs. model
Step 1 / 5·A new acquisition closes, it lands on a runbook, not in someone's inbox.
A twofer. Not two line items…just The Pierce Ridge Companies.
DEX is looking at bringing on a buy-side M&A firm. We can be that. But the same monthly retainer also amplifies the organic growth engine and stands up Helix across DEX: the operating cockpit, the enablement layer, the integration runbook. Our candid view is that within the term, much of the M&A motion runs on its own, so the lasting value is the operating layer that outlives any single deal cycle.
The buy-side M&A motion runs under Pierce Ridge Capital, our capital and acquisitions arm. Helix and the operating layer, the cockpit, the enablement program, the integration runbook, are built and run by Pierce Ridge Technologies. Together they are the Pierce Ridge Companies: one team, one retainer, two arms working the same plan.
- ✓Buy-side M&A engine: sourcing, diligence prep, and outreach, running every week, print and DEXTEK both
- ✓An organic-growth engine: net-new prospecting, installed-base white-space, drafted proposals and RFP responses
- ✓Helix operating cockpit pilot: one source of truth, ask-and-see
- ✓An enablement plan that turns hands-on AI work into a company-wide capability
- ✓An integration runbook ready for the next acquisition
- ✓The deal pipeline runs without a buy-side firm in the loop
- ✓Reps cover bigger territories without a bigger headcount
- ✓AI becomes a standard part of how teams work, owned by the organization, not carried by a handful of people
- ✓Every acquisition lands on the same playbook
- ✓DEX owns the operating layer; it doesn't leave when we do