Jay Jung has always enjoyed what he calls the "quantitative nature" of corporate finance. He spent 20 years mired in the finance world as an investment banker and management consultant with powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs and Mckinsey & Company.
However, Jung always nurtured an entrepreneurial spirit and found the work he enjoyed the most was the work he did with founders and smaller start-ups. "Compared to working with Fortune 100 companies, working with smaller businesses has a different sense of fulfillment, and I feel that the relationships borne out of the projects are deeper and more personal," Jung explains.
Jung opened his own corporate financial firm, Embarc Advisors, to continue serving those smaller and medium-sized businesses. Embarc offers these companies high-grade corporate financial services to help them scale, grow, and thrive.
The challenge of striking out on your own
Despite Jung's years of experience, building his own firm was a completely different experience. "When I first executed an M&A transaction in the middle-market space, we got obliterated during the due diligence process. It was like walking into a modern combat zone with rickety WWII-era gear."
However, since those uncertain early days, Jung has fashioned Embarc Advisors into a firm with an innovative, modern approach to corporate finance. "We are not just transaction-oriented," he explains, "we strive to be a long-term partner to our clients. We are well-equipped to help clients raise capital and support them as their strategic CFO 'team' to grow the business, execute on buy-side acquisition, and finally a sale of the business."
In addition to this unique approach, Embarc does not charge a success fee. Instead, they bill hourly. "This ensures that we can right-size our services and serve clients as small as Series A all the way to small public companies," says Jung.
Expertise and flexibility
To ensure that clients are receiving the highest-quality service and support from Embarc, Jung has assembled a multifaceted team of diverse professionals. "We know that no single person has the experience and expertise to execute all facets of our strategy," says Jung.
Jung also knows that, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the shift to remote work worldwide has made the financial sector far more competitive. Since starting Embarc, Jung and his team have focused on personalized service and applied expertise and created some delighted clients as a result.
"We had an early client in the industrial equipment space and helped them raise their first round of equity capital," Jung recalls. "During this process, we increased the term sheet valuation by 80% while doubling the funding amount and worked with the company as it quadrupled in revenue."
Still, Jung urges small and medium businesses to find the right advisors for their needs. "Seek advice from the right experts," he says. "Large companies engage advisors when they execute M&A deals or raise large amounts of capital, but remember that smaller acquisitions are actually more difficult. The companies' accounting, financials, and legal matters are not as organized, so these deals are more 'hairy.'"
Those 'hairy' deals are what the Embarc Advisors team lives for. They continue to build their brand and help an ever-expanding roster of clients find success in the small to medium business space.
