ECP Ventures

Trusted Advisors, Not Brokers

ECP Ventures is a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory firm that provides strategic guidance to businesses, particularly in the lower middle market (companies with revenues between $0 to $100 million). The firm focuses on helping business owners navigate the complexities of selling or merging their companies, with an emphasis on ethical practices, integrity, and personalized client support.

Our performance-driven approach means we only get paid when we deliver results, ensuring our goals align with yours.

Backed by decades of experience across Fortune 500 companies and private equity, we bring unparalleled expertise, transparency, and a personalized strategy to every deal.

How we work

We are advisors dedicated to building long-term value for business owners and ensuring smooth, successful transitions. We take the time to understand your unique goals, crafting a strategy that not only meets your financial expectations but also ensures a lasting legacy for your business.

No Upfront or Minimum Fees

We believe in results before compensation.

Fees only paid for transaction achievement

Our fees are only earned upon successful completion of your transaction - no upfront costs until we deliver results

No Indenturing “tail period”

Our agreements are straightforward, with no hidden fees or long-term commitments.

Performance based Contracts

Our one-year contracts are performance-based, ensuring you only pay for tangible results, not just time.

Our Experience

Christian marketplace firm

Fortune 500 fiNANCIAL EXPERIENCE

CPA EXPERIENCE

Private EQUITY EXPERTISE

representation through all stages OF BUSINESS

50 years of financial experience

Our Services

Mergers & Acquisitions

Expert guidance on buying or selling companies, ensuring both financial success and cultural compatibility.

Strategic Advisory

Preparation for market offerings and strategic planning to increase business value before a transaction.

Due Diligence

Comprehensive handling of due diligence processes, ensuring a smooth negotiation that protects your interests.

Post-Merger Support

Support for integrating operations post-transaction to ensure long-term success and value realization.

Book a call

Our team

We have both worked for several multi-billion dollar companies so it was quite a shock getting involved with Lower Middle Market (LMM) sized companies from 5M to 100M.Those surprises included disreputable brokers charging unsuspecting business owners upfront fees as well as selling their companies for a value far below market (flipping) just to earn a fee. It also included transaction savvy buyers swiping sellers' companies (sweat equity) for far less than the company's actual value. We were also quite shocked to see how many business owners commit blatant tax evasion. We are proud to state that we are a Christian firm and that we offer a high integrity option for business owners that need high quality representation to assist with their transactions. Our purpose in life is to serve and to help others every day of our lives. We used to say that we represent business owners. We now say that we "represent and protect" business owners. Our purpose is to be your trusted advisor!Plus, truth be told, we really enjoy balancing out the negotiation table while negotiating on behalf of our high quality clients. We rigorously evaluate prospective clients and we only accept high quality, high character clients that we can represent with pride and confidence. We enjoy a very high close rate due to the quality of clients we represent.

Cliff W Gardner

Cliff began his financial career by graduating from a top three US accounting university (University of Northern Iowa) and passing the CPA examination during his graduation year.

He went on to join a national CPA firm which commenced a rigorous career in Corporate Finance and Operations. Cliff’s career progressed from entry level staff accountant to EVP and Division CFO of several Fortune 500 companies. Cliff specialized in Mergers & Acquisitions, Rollups, Financial & Operational Management, SEC Reporting and Turnarounds. He has led an IPO and numerous transactions from both the buy side and sell side.

His Fortune 500 experience includes healthcare, commercial construction, manufacturing, automotive and eCommerce. Cliff’s very untraditional career has included:

CFO of the world’s largest open heart surgery company performing 50,000 open heart surgeries per year.

MLB and Collegiate Products Licensee and ManufacturerFull NASCAR PartnerCo-Founder of the largest OEM auto parts eCommerce platform ever created with 165,000,000 parts applications on it which he personally sold to AutoNationCliff is a driven results-oriented professional who is all about maximizing value and achievements.

He is at an “elective” point in life where he can do what he wants to do instead of what he has to do.

His greatest passion is helping others. He has recognized that many small and mid-sized businesses do not have an exit strategy or the ability to conduct a sales transaction whereas business buyers are typically very transaction savvy.

Cliff really enjoys providing his Fortune 500 level financial experience to business owners to level the playing field and achieve maximum value for his sellers.Cliff is a very strong Christian who operates an altruistic company called Praying As One www.prayingasone.com which distributes a very unique 12” handheld Christian cross (Hold Onto Cross). He also founded FansAlign www.fansalign.com with a goal of aligning one million MLB fans into a unified collective voice on behalf of all MLB fans.

He is happily married and has a daughter that works for Google and a son that works for AppFolio and three additional great children from a second marriage. Cliff’s biggest weakness is that if you get him started talking about baseball you might never get him focused again. He is a season ticket holder of the Chicago Cubs – San Diego Padres – Texas Rangers and he wrote a baseball essay that has been placed in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Listen to Cliff talk about ECP Ventures on this Podcast episode

Eric Wilhelm

Eric attended Biola University, a nationally ranked Christian university where he graduated with a degree in Accounting and a minor in Biblical Studies.

He passed the Uniform CPA Examination and began his professional financial career at Deloitte, a “Big 4” national CPA firm. Eric’s career progressed quickly from Staff Auditor to Controller to Vice President, Finance for large, private equity portfolio companies in the medical, dental, optical, automotive and commercial construction sectors.

At one point in his career, Eric was employee number two of a startup company where he and his fellow entrepreneurs put in a tremendous number of hours and sweat equity to build the startup from the ground up. They did everything imaginable at the company from building the back office, to creating the products, to building the brand to take to market.
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This experience gave Eric a tremendous appreciation for business owners and the grueling process that they have endured to grow their businesses and create the value that they have today.

At this point in his career Eric’s goals are to help people and to leverage his extensive financial experience to represent business owners that would like to sell or acquire other additional businesses.

Eric and his wife Jaclyn are both strong believers in the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, and are raising their 3 children (11, 9, and 5) in Flower Mound, TX.

Customer testimonials

Cliff is nothing short of brilliant! At first, I was overwhelmed when we began talking with Cliff. I couldn’t believe how much information was being requested, how many reports, financial data and spreadsheets my partner and I had to create. I quickly learned that to keep Cliff happy, I was to keep using the same email thread when discussing a particular topic instead of starting a new email chain. I learned to appreciate the fact that Cliff’s attention to detail precision was critical in the financial representation of our company. In fact, it was contagious. Over time, I began to enjoy his requests for information and looked forward to his emails and calls. Cliff recommended that when tasks became daunting, while also running the business full time, that we should knock out the hard things first and get them out of the way, then focus on the easier tasks. I did that, and he was right. His advice was instrumental in the due diligence process. The team had us so prepared ahead of time that by the time we had reached due diligence, we had already done most of the work. The dedication, commitment, and loyalty demonstrated from the beginning of the acquisition process through closing not only made me feel like we were their only client, who we were not, but also made me feel like they had become a part of our company’s family. They couldn’t have found a better buyer for us.

Beth

Autism Group

As an owner of a national medical device company, I thought I was being prudent when I engaged a firm that advertised themselves as the “top business brokers in Indianapolis”. Eighteen months later I was very frustrated and discouraged by the lack of valid offers for my company. I was lamenting my plight to a friend of mine and he said “I know an M&A professional that can sell your company”.I brought in Cliff Gardner and assigned him full and complete responsibility to sell my company. Given that I had signed a broker’s listing agreement with a tail (obligation to pay the broker their fees after the broker listing agreement expired and the broker failed to sell my company). I still had to pay the broker their contractual fee even though Cliff took over and conducted the entire sale on my behalf. The immediate difference in focus, intensity and results was amazing after wasting 18 months with our broker not accomplishing anything. Cliff is a no nonsense driven professional who earns the respect of everyone involved in the transaction from our company employees to the buyers’ acquisition team.I can tell you that he had our best interests in focus throughout the entire process. He has a refuse to lose mentality. He told me the first time that I met him that he will always be the most informed and prepared person in the room. We sold to a large multi-national company and Cliff ensured that we were very strongly represented due to all of his Fortune 500 experience. He championed the value of our company rigorously and relentlessly while maintaining a professional decorum at all times.Cliff not only changed my ability to sell my company but he changed the rest of my life. I received a very fair price for my company and I now consider Cliff to be a great friend.

Ted

National Medical Device Company

To say it was an adventure being Cliff’s business partner would be a significant understatement. When Cliff says “let’s go” he has already moved forward. We decided that we would strive to build the largest OEM auto parts eCommerce platform ever created. The next thing I know Cliff is walking into dealerships where he does not know a single person and he is asking them to fund our parts eCommerce platform. The next thing I know it is funded and he says “let’s go”. I took over and leased three billion data elements and built a comprehensive site with 165,000,000 parts applications. Our sentinel moment was when Google scanned and approved 55,000,000 pages of our website with zero errors. We envisioned – funded – launched – perfected - operated this mammoth site with 39 brands of parts on it. Then we came to the realization that it would be much more valuable if operated by a leading auto dealer group. Cliff said “let’s sell it to one of the top five dealership groups in the US”. I didn’t even wait for the “let’s go” that time. Cliff was relentless in his pursuit of a buyer. He walks in one day and says “I have our buyer…it is AutoNation, the largest dealership group in the US”. It was Cliff versus a 20-billion-dollar auto empire and I was confident that Cliff could pull this off. He did and little did either of us know at the time that this would become the genesis of Cliff helping other business owners sell their companies for a fair value.

Gary

Technology Partner on 165,000,000 Parts eCommerce Platform Build and Sale

I will never forget the first time I spoke to Cliff. I shared with him that we probably did not need his services because we were close to selling our company to a national healthcare company. Cliff’s first question was “why are you selling your company for less than half price?” We had an offer for $2,400,000. Cliff offered (at no charge) to do a technical review and redline of the unsolicited LOI that we had at that time. We then submitted Cliff’s redline LOI to our prospective acquirer. The acquirer immediately increased their offer to $4,000,000. We immediately saw the value of having a highly experienced Mergers and Acquisitions professional on our side. Cliff encouraged us to pass on the revised $4,000,000 offer and we did. We then engaged Cliff and Eric and they generated interest from 66 buyers.We put our complete trust in Cliff and Eric and it changed our lives. We ultimately agreed to terms with a high-quality healthcare company for $7,000,000. I am sharing this testimonial to help others understand that you want (and need) the highest quality Mergers and Acquisitions team on your side in order to achieve the maximum value for your company. Cliff and Eric also worked rigorously to negotiate great post-transaction positions for us with our acquirer. We could not have been more pleased.

Jose

Therapy Company Owner

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