William Blair today announced it has acquired Armentum Partners, a premier boutique debt and alternative capital solutions advisory firm serving venture-backed businesses, public companies, and academic institutions.
The transaction marks William Blair’s second investment banking acquisition of the year and underscores the firm’s continued investment in key growth areas including healthcare, technology, and the venture capital ecosystem. It broadens William Blair’s capital markets and debt advisory solutions, adding an enterprise value and asset-based lending and royalty monetization capability.
Founded on expertise in the healthcare and technology sectors, Armentum Partners advises companies with high-growth potential on bespoke capital solutions. Leveraging deep venture capital and public company relationships, and longstanding access to growth-focused and enterprise-value lenders, the firm has a track record of delivering tailored financing and seamless execution for clients. Armentum Partners also advises academic institutions and life sciences companies on royalty monetization, helping them to capitalize on intellectual property.
The firm includes professionals in Boston, Chicago, Menlo Park, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, serving clients in the U.S. as well as Europe. As part of the transaction, William Blair will open an office in Menlo Park, establishing a presence in the heart of Silicon Valley in addition to William Blair’s existing strategic footprint.
All Armentum Partners professionals are expected to join William Blair as part of the transaction, preserving their deep relationships and specialized expertise.
“We continue to invest in capabilities and teammates who can provide differentiated outcomes for our clients across the venture capital, public company, and collegiate communities,” said Matt Zimmer, global head of investment banking at William Blair. “The Armentum Partners team has decades of experience earning the trust of their clients, key investors and lenders in their markets, and the institutions and universities that fuel innovation. Together, we can offer these clients a broader set of solutions to finance their continued growth.”
“This is a natural synergistic extension of our capital markets strategy,” said Steve Maletzky, head of capital markets at William Blair. “Enterprise value lending is a specialized discipline—financing companies against the value of their assets, often before traditional cash flows exist. Armentum Partners has built a leading franchise advising many of the most well-known and innovative public companies, universities and venture-backed businesses.”
“We built our firm with a dedicated focus on our clients, offering them access to our deep market relationships and expertise in delivering bespoke solutions,” said Armentum’s Hutch Corbett. “Joining William Blair unlocks opportunities for our clients, providing the increased scale, reach, and sector depth of a premier global platform along with relationship and execution continuity. We can now offer our clients a much deeper set of services—including public and private equity capital raising, M&A advisory, secondary advisory, primary fund raising, and equity research—while leveraging William Blair’s sector breadth to cover adjacent industries.”
The transaction comes amid rapid expansion in the private credit and direct lending markets, as venture-backed and public companies increasingly turn to flexible, non-dilutive capital to fund growth in areas such as healthcare innovation, artificial intelligence, software, consumer, media, fintech and industrial technology—as well as acquisition financing for growth companies.
Demand has been especially strong among later-stage technology companies and biopharmaceutical firms financing clinical trials and commercialization—segments where William Blair has been investing and deepening its expertise. William Blair’s continued growth in life sciences includes the recent addition of Michael Allwin as head of Biopharma investment banking, Emanuela Branchetti as managing director of scientific affairs, and Alethia Young in equity research.
Armentum Partners will continue to operate under the same name for a period of time after the closing of this transaction. Clearsight Advisors, Inc. served as financial advisor to Armentum in connection with the transaction.
About Armentum Partners
Armentum is an independent financial advisory firm that raises debt and non-dilutive capital primarily for technology and healthcare companies, and also has an active royalty monetization practice. The firm is led by an experienced team of senior bankers with over 200 years of combined experience spanning investment banking, commercial banking and lending, venture financing, private and public equity investing, and business development. The firm has raised over $22 billion since inception across 390+ transactions. Founded in Silicon Valley, the firm has grown to have professionals across the United States and In Europe.
About William Blair Investment Banking
William Blair’s investment banking group enables corporations, financial sponsors, and owner/entrepreneurs around the world to achieve their growth, liquidity, and financing objectives. Drawing on the collective intellectual capital and deep sector expertise of a global team that reaches over 20 cities on four continents, the investment banking group brings a rigorous and innovative approach to corporate board advisory projects, mergers and acquisitions, and equity and debt financing. From July 2021 through June 2026, the team advised on more than $880 billion in completed transaction volume.
About William Blair
William Blair is the premier global partnership with expertise in investment banking, investment management, and private wealth management. We provide advisory services, strategies, and solutions to meet our clients’ evolving needs. As an independent and employee-owned firm, together with our strategic partners, we operate in more than 30 offices worldwide.*
*Includes strategic alliances with Allier Capital, BDA Partners, and Poalim Equity Ltd.