Alan Scharfstein

Alan Scharfstein is the founder and CEO of The DAK Group, a middle-market investment bank he launched in 1984. He built the firm to give privately held, owner-run companies access to the caliber of investment-banking advice that large corporations receive on Wall Street, tailored to the very different needs of family- and founder-owned businesses. Over a career spanning more than 40 years, he has become a trusted advisor to thousands of business owners navigating growth, expansion, and exit decisions, and reports having personally been involved in negotiating 800+ transactions across a wide range of industries in the U.S. and abroad.

Before founding DAK, Scharfstein held several executive financial and manufacturing roles at PepsiCo, and served as a senior executive at Universal Folding Box, a privately held packaging manufacturer — experience that grounds his advisory work in operating companies rather than pure finance. He earned both a BS in Economics and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and holds Series 7, 17, and 24 securities licenses.

He is a frequent lecturer on the sale of privately held businesses, valuation, and negotiation strategy, and has been quoted in or written for publications including The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, the Financial Times, and Time. He is also a contributing author on packaging-industry M&A and has spoken to executive peer groups such as Vistage. In 2024, The DAK Group marked its 40th year as a middle-market M&A leader.

Important accuracy note: the "Angel Investor / Seed Round" descriptors in the source stub do not match any evidence found. Scharfstein's public profile is consistently that of a sell-side M&A investment banker and advisor to mature businesses. Founders seeking pre-seed/seed angel capital should treat the "angel investor" label with skepticism and verify directly before pitching him for early-stage equity.

• Not early-stage equity. DAK's work centers on advisory transactions for established middle-market companies — M&A, business sales, recapitalizations, restructuring, capital raises, valuations, and fairness opinions — rather than writing seed checks into startups.
• Client profile: privately held, owner-operated businesses, often family-owned, where the owner is weighing a full or partial sale, growth capital, or a liquidity event.
• Value driver: Scharfstein emphasizes maximizing enterprise value and running a competitive, well-prepared process — "you need to know everything you need to know for a successful liquidity event" — and stresses preparation, timing, and negotiation as the levers that move outcomes.
• Sector breadth: diversified across manufacturing, packaging, healthcare, technology, and business services, reflecting DAK's generalist middle-market mandate.

Scharfstein operates as an M&A advisor rather than a portfolio investor, so there is no public angel/venture portfolio to list. His track record is advisory: DAK reports 800+ negotiated transactions across industries over his career, spanning business sales, recapitalizations, and financial restructurings for middle-market clients. Specific named client deals are generally kept confidential and were not publicly verifiable in this research.