OffDeal, a tech-enabled investment bank serving small and medium-sized businesses, has launched a dedicated landscaping practice to help owners capitalize on buyer demand for green industry companies.
The practice is led by Varun Agarwal, formerly of J.P. Morgan, with senior support from Ori Eldarov, OffDeal's CEO and Head of M&A, and Alec Shimell (ex-Macquarie). Over the past year, the team has met with major consolidators active in residential and commercial landscaping — including strategic acquirers, private equity platforms and family offices — to map the market and understand what's driving valuations.
"Fewer than 1 in 200 (landscaping businesses) meet institutional buyer criteria," Agarwal says. "And even within that group, buyer preferences vary wildly—some invest strictly in residential, others only in commercial. Some require a self-perform model, others prefer subcontractors. Getting in front of the wrong buyer doesn't just mean a lower offer — it often means no offer at all."
OffDeal's technology platform, built by engineers from tech companies like Meta and Google, has tracked landscaping companies nationwide along with active buyers and their past deal history. This system powers a free self-serve, buyer-matching tool that shows owners which acquirers are most likely to pay a premium for their specific business. The tool also enables OffDeal to offer any landscaping owner a confidential market check — testing buyer interest and getting valuation feedback within 72 hours, without revealing the business's identity.
"Private equity buyers told us they routinely look at hundreds of landscaping businesses for every one they acquire," Eldarov says. "That means when a buyer approaches an owner, there's less than a 1% chance that conversation actually leads to a closed deal. We started OffDeal to flip those odds."
The OffDeal banking team includes professionals from Wall Street firms including J.P. Morgan, Evercore, Barclays, and RBC Capital Markets.
