Headquarters:
Charlotte, NC
Year founded:
2019
Number of employees:
18
Phone:
704 756 7160
Email:
allen.darby@alarisacquisitions.com
Website:
alarisacquisitions.com
LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/company/alaris-acquisitions
Allen Darby
Founder and CEO
Jacqueline Martinez
Managing Partner
Leadership
Allen Darby has spent three decades in wealth management. He founded and sold a firm that pioneered helping accounting firms enter the wealth management business, then built a Charlotte-based RIA serving high-net-worth families, personally completing nine acquisitions as an owner before selling the practice in 2009 to focus on M&A.
From 2012 to 2019, he led United Capital’s outbound M&A activities as a buyer advisor, sourcing more than 30 acquisitions that culminated in United’s sale to Goldman Sachs. He launched Alaris in 2019 and leads origination, discovery, and deal strategy. He is also responsible for the firm’s thought leadership.
Founder and CEO
Allen Darby
Jacqueline Martinez helps buyers build repeatable, scalable acquisition programs, leads sell-side clients into a broader marketplace, and runs the back-office and close process in later-stage execution. Before joining Alaris in 2021, she served as head of acquisitions for Goldman Sachs Personal Financial Management following Goldman’s 2019 acquisition of United Capital.
In the five years prior to that sale, she led United Capital’s analytical and legal efforts to close and integrate roughly 35 RIA transactions. She was named M&A Executive of the Year in Wealth Solutions Report’s 2025 Pathfinder Awards, selected among WealthManagement.com’s Ten to Watch, and co-hosts The Buyer’s Boardroom podcast.
Managing Partner
Jacqueline Martinez
Read on
IB Top Brokerages
Award Winner
Award Winner
ALARIS
SPECIAL REPORT
Home
Bio
“With Vestmark, clients can expect a partner, not just a vendor: a team that anticipates operational gaps before they arise and builds solutions accordingly, backed by a platform they won’t outgrow as their business scales”
“A process is something you repeat. A platform is something that learns. Everything Lens has learned points the same direction: conviction comes from compatibility, and conviction is what makes buyers stretch on price. Our 101st deal is smarter than our 100th and that advantage compounds”
Allen Darby, Alaris
In wealth management M&A, buyer selection has long run on generic buyer lists, an advisor’s memory, and broad outreach. Alaris Acquisitions treated that as a problem worth solving before its clients even named it.
The Charlotte, NC-based boutique works exclusively as a sell-side RIA M&A advisor, representing owners of Registered Investment Advisors. Every seller arrives with a version of the same question: how do I sell my RIA to the right partner without sacrificing economics? Alaris answers it by pursuing compatibility and economics together.
Alaris’ answer is Applied Buyer Intelligence, a solution powered by the firm’s proprietary platform, Lens. Rather than run a blind financial auction, Alaris measures compatibility across roughly 90 percent of the buyer universe before a single introduction is made, then concentrates on the buyers who are genuinely compatible. The logic is that conviction comes from compatibility, and a convinced buyer will stretch on price and terms, so prioritizing fit enhances valuation rather than sacrificing it.
Lens is a decision model. A list tells you which buyers match certain criteria; Lens tells you which buyers to engage, in what sequence, with what likely objections, and with what risk of mismatch. Its edge is behavior data: not only what buyers say they want, but what they pursue in live deals, where they pay up, where they retrade, and where they win or lose. That intelligence spans roughly 90 percent of the buyer universe, structured across nine data categories per buyer, and Alaris argues it cannot be replicated without years of the same structured access. Built entirely in-house, Lens pairs its analysis with human judgment rather than relying on algorithms alone.
The firm measures the platform’s value by outcomes rather than usage. Across more than 100 completed acquisitions, no Alaris deal has resulted in a post-close breakup. Behind that figure sit more than $2 billion in seller proceeds and a referral rate above 30 percent from past sellers, which the firm considers its most honest measure, since it is rendered only after a seller has lived with the result.
The approach reflects leadership that has sat on both sides of the table. Founder and CEO Allen Darby spent three decades in wealth management, led United Capital’s outbound M&A through its sale to Goldman Sachs, and launched Alaris in 2019. Managing partner Jacqueline Martinez previously served as head of acquisitions for Goldman Sachs Personal Financial Management. Vision and origination sit on one side, disciplined execution on the other.
Over the past five years, Alaris has turned that experience into infrastructure. Its roster now includes more than 90 buyers, each completing a structured onboarding process, while insights from every deal feed back into the platform, making each successive transaction smarter than the last. For sellers, Alaris operates Lens to deliver a focused, informed process grounded in a deep understanding of each firm. Building on this foundation, Alaris is investing further in Lens, widening the gap between Applied Buyer Intelligence and a traditional auction with every transaction.
