Operator-led holding company
We acquire and operate durable businesses.
AAO Holdings buys small and medium-sized businesses from owners planning their next chapter, then keeps operating them and invests in their people and systems.
Get in touch
Our experience
In 2017 we bought a San Diego dental staffing firm that had been around since 2002 and rebuilt it into DirectDental, a platform connecting dental practices with the professionals who staff them. Henry Schein acquired the business in January 2025.
We've sat in the owner's chair and know what a transition actually asks of the person selling.
Principles
Buy what works. Don't break it.
Reward operators. Stay out of their way.
Measure outcomes in years, not quarters.
Focus
What we do.
The disciplines we bring to every business we own. Each company keeps its own brand and team; we provide the operating support behind them.
SMB acquisitions
Profitable, established small and medium-sized businesses with loyal customers and capable teams.
Technology enablement
Systems that remove friction from how the business already works, rather than replacing what works.
Operational optimization
Every owner has a list of things they'd fix if they had the time. Scheduling, pricing, purchasing, collections. We take that list and work through it.
Strategic partnerships
Relationships that open channels a business its size could not reach alone.
Approach
Patient ownership, short feedback loops.
We invest in the people, systems, and relationships that make a business work. We bring the time and operating support to help teams act on their priorities.
- Operating support
- We work with the people who know the business, supporting their team and the customer relationships they have built.
- Patient capital
- We have the flexibility to structure deals around what each business actually needs.
- Operator first
- Decisions are made by people who have built and run companies. We sit with operators and work through the priorities they know best.
- No forced timeline
- We don't have a fund timeline forcing a sale on someone else's schedule.
We're not buying to strip and resell, and we don't pursue distressed deals.
Criteria
What we
look for.
- An owner planning a transition, with no obvious successor in place
- Established and profitable, with a track record behind it
- Lower middle market
- Western US, with a preference for Southern California and San Diego
For owners
Thinking about
what's next?
Most of the owners we talk to have spent twenty or thirty years building something and have never sold a business before. They don't know what theirs is worth, what the process looks like, or what happens to their people afterward.
We're a buyer, not an advisor, and we'll be straight about that. But a first conversation costs nothing, commits you to nothing, and stays between us. If we're not the right fit, we'll usually know who is.
Contact
Get in touch.
Tell us about your business and what you have in mind, and we'll get back to you. Inquiries are confidential.
anthony@aaoholding.com