Trestle Capital Partners

Trestle operates as both. Its advisory practice executes M&A, growth equity raises, and debt placements for middle-market companies, while its principal investment vehicle commits the firm's own capital into select transactions. When Trestle advises on a deal and invests its own balance sheet, the firm's incentives are directly aligned with the client's outcome. This dual model is not universal among Southeastern boutique banks, many of which remain pure advisory practices.

Trestle works with private companies typically generating between $2 million and $10 million in EBITDA — a segment below the radar of regional middle-market banks and too complex for business brokers. The firm focuses on business services, niche manufacturing, and healthcare services, though it evaluates opportunities across industries. Transactions frequently involve founder-owned businesses undergoing their first institutional capital event or ownership transition.

The firm is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, and concentrates its deal activity across the Southeastern United States. Its completed transactions span North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia. Trestle's regional focus gives it deep relationships with business owners, attorneys, and accountants in those markets — a sourcing advantage that generalist national platforms cannot easily replicate.

Trestle invests its own partnership capital on a deal-by-deal basis rather than raising committed blind-pool funds. This gives the firm flexibility on hold periods and investment structures that a typical institutional PE fund with a 10-year fund life does not have. The firm can write equity checks for both control and minority positions and is not constrained by a mandate to deploy a fixed amount of capital within a set timeframe.

Trestle's principal investment activity is primarily driven by its own advisory pipeline rather than passive co-investment into deals led by unaffiliated sponsors. The firm's value proposition depends on bringing its own capital to clients it already advises, which limits its participation as a passive co-investor in third-party-led transactions. Outside of its advisory engagements, the firm does not maintain a separate fund-of-funds or LP allocation program, based on its stated operating model.