David Blender

David A. Blender is a Senior Advisor at MASI, Ltd., an independent international middle-market investment banking firm founded in 1984 and headquartered in the Chicago area. MASI provides M&A advisory, corporate finance, enterprise valuation, and strategic planning services, and describes itself as operating through a global network of partner firms and roughly 750 professionals across dozens of offices worldwide.

Before joining MASI, Blender was President of Mustang Capital, LLC, an advisory, intermediary, and consulting firm concentrated in mergers and acquisitions, funding alternatives, capital plans, strategic business management, litigation support, and general advisory services. Across his career he has accumulated more than 20 years of industry, business-management, and consulting experience, with expertise spanning acquisitions and divestitures, capital financing, turnaround assistance, and expert-witness testimony.

Earlier in his career, Blender spent more than nine years combined with the former "Big Eight" (now "Big Four") accounting and management-consulting firms. At Arthur Andersen & Co. in Dallas, Texas, he was instrumental in growing the firm's strategic-consulting practice and helped establish practice standards and development. At KPMG (formerly KPMG Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co.) he worked in the Strategic Management Services and Professional Development practices out of the Dallas and New York executive offices, handling strategic business planning, feasibility studies, competitive assessments, litigation support, and acquisition decision support.

Blender holds a B.B.A. and a B.S., both from Southern Methodist University.

*Important caveat:* The known stub data characterizes David Blender as an "Angel Investor" writing seed-round checks. I could not find any primary source confirming startup angel/seed investing activity under this name. All verifiable sources point to a middle-market investment-banking and corporate-advisory career. A founder should confirm his current investing mandate directly before assuming he makes seed-stage angel investments.

• Verified professional focus is sell-side and buy-side M&A, recapitalizations, management buyouts, and capital funding for established middle-market companies rather than early-stage startup equity.
• Engagements at MASI have included identifying acquisition targets, negotiating and structuring divestitures (e.g., the sale of Chenille Kraft to Pacon Corporation), and advising on management buyouts and cross-border transactions.
• Sector-agnostic within the middle market; MASI's disclosed deal history skews toward industrials, manufacturing/forgings, consumer and marine products, and specialty services.
• No publicly stated seed-stage thesis, check-size range, or startup-focused investment criteria could be verified from available sources.