Paul Donnelly

Paul Donnelly is the founder and Managing Partner of Coil Partners Investment Banking, a Southern California firm originally launched in 2013 as Optivest IB (the investment banking division of Orange County wealth manager Optivest, Inc.). The division was created to provide corporate finance advisory and transaction-based investment banking services for emerging growth and middle-market companies with enterprise values between roughly $10 million and $150 million. In 2019 Donnelly teamed with Managing Partner John Blackburn to rebrand and expand the practice as Coil Partners, focused on both M&A and private placements.

Before founding Optivest IB, Donnelly was a Managing Director at the Los Angeles-based investment bank B. Riley & Co. Earlier in his career he began at L.F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin and later served as a Managing Director at L.H. Friend & Company. (He and his longtime partner had worked together for roughly 17 years across B. Riley and L.H. Friend before launching Optivest IB.) His experience spans mergers and acquisitions, recapitalizations, equity and debt financings, and valuations/fairness opinions.

Notably, Donnelly has also been active on the principal side of equity and debt investing, having invested through venture capital firms Enterprise Management Company, Pacific Venture Finance, and Ally Capital — the basis for any "investor" framing of his profile. Across his career and the firm, Donnelly and his team report having executed well over 100 transactions (cited figures have grown from ~90 to 140+ transactions and from ~$3.75B to ~$4.85B in aggregate transaction value as the firm has continued to close deals).

He holds a B.S. in Finance and Business Administration from San Diego State University and maintains FINRA Series 7 and Series 63 licenses.

• Advisory, not a traditional fund: Coil Partners is a sell-side/buy-side advisory and capital-markets firm, not an angel or seed fund. It provides M&A advisory, private placements, recapitalizations, valuations/fairness opinions, and strategic advisory.
• Middle-market sweet spot: Targets emerging growth and middle-market companies, historically described with enterprise values in the $10M–$150M range.
• Sector breadth: Business services, distribution, healthcare services, marketing, restaurants/food, software, and specialty manufacturing/industrials.
• Owner-focused, contrarian timing: Donnelly publicly counsels business owners on deal timing. In his September 2025 piece *"2025: Be a Contrarian Seller — Position Your Business Ahead of the Crowd,"* he argues owners should position to sell ahead of the crowd rather than chase peak markets; his earlier *"Recession Fears and M&A"* commentary highlighted flight-to-quality buyers, opportunistic acquisitions, and "merger of peers" strategies during volatile markets.
• Hands-on senior engagement: The firm emphasizes that its principals are directly engaged in all aspects of each capital-markets and M&A mandate.