Paul Bowen starts Bowen Advisors as an M&A and strategic advisory firm focused on communications technology
Completes first transaction – Tut Systems acquires video infrastructure provider Videotele
About Us
As a firm started by a solo entrepreneur over 20 years ago, we have firsthand knowledge and experience with the challenges and opportunities that founders and investors face when building their companies. This growth mindset fuels all aspects of our firm.
We thrive on continual improvement and reinvention, seeking not only to provide corporate finance services and strategic advice to meet our clients’ current needs, but to strategize and anticipate their future ones as well. While our business is built to maximize transaction outcomes, our advice is relentlessly focused on one principle: growth.
Our banking teams have deep industry knowledge and transactional skills. We understand both nascent and established markets with equal clarity. Our calling card is clients who seek to disrupt and disintermediate existing markets with novel and innovative solutions.
Bowen’s industry knowledge and focus on the future allows us to continually reinvent for excellence and positions us to be true strategic partners to our clients. We believe in developing long-term relationships to meet the different needs of the lifecycle of firms in growth tech.
In the end, our greatest successes have been accomplished by people – people who build great teams and people who provide great leadership. This is our entrepreneurial edge – it is easy for us to identify – because it is who we are.
We are the growth tech boutique investment bank with an entrepreneurial edge.
Boutique means specialized and focused. It is this specialization that allows us to consistently do things that others can not. We not only strive to be an entrepreneurial firm, we are literally a firm comprised of entrepreneurs. Nearly all of our Managing Directors have founded or led startup companies throughout their careers.
We bank sectors that move the world forward.
Our bedrock growth sectors – Cloud & CX, Defense, Sustainability – cover two thirds of global GDP and represent the most important issues on our planet and greatest challenges to society. We consider ourselves bankers with a purpose and we choose our sectors with mindfulness.
We are passionate people.
Passionate about our sectors. Passionate about our clients and their strategic ambitions. Passionate about each other. We prioritize the development of our employees through mentoring and empowerment. We cherish competence and excellence. We cherish effort and integrity. We cherish diversity. As a firm, we are constantly building. Constantly re-inventing. Constantly bettering.
We are a firm founded in an attic.
Designed from birth over 20 years ago to cultivate the right balance between a distributed work environment and strong team culture. We maintain centers of excellence where our staff gathers and collaborates, but we will forever be distributed. Within this work environment, we cherish relationships and connectiveness. Our culture thrives upon time spent together even though we are designed to work apart.
We started over 20 years ago with a simple idea.
To be the very best at what we do with a group of diverse people who are tied to a common mission and completely passionate about their work.
Our Vision Statement
Founding Story
Established in 2002 and headquartered in Boston, Bowen has grown from the singular vision of our founder into a premier boutique investment bank focused on growth tech companies.
In 1998, after nearly a decade of service as a Naval Officer stationed in San Diego, Washington D.C and Annapolis, Paul Bowen transitioned to a career in investment banking. He joined Dain Rauscher Wessels, working in healthcare tech, and then Robertson Stephens, where he led the Communications Equipment Group. In the aftermath of the 2002 tech bubble collapse, which saw the absorption of both of these legacy firms, Paul started Bowen Advisors, which focused on the need for strategic advisory services for the venture-backed growth tech economy.
Since those early days in Boston, the founding vision for Bowen has continued to evolve, growing well beyond its early focus on communications technology. The firm now serves 7 growth tech industries and offers 4 banking services. Our clients have had successful transactions in the virtualization of communications, frontier tech advances in the iPhone, and autonomous marine vessels. Our people, our clients and our reach have expanded in both the US and globally. Our vision has remained the same – unrelenting focus on our clients’ best interest to achieve optimal outcomes.
2002
2002
2006
2006
Closes first cross-border transaction – Movaz Networks (US) acquired by ADVA Optical (Germany)
2007
2007
Boston office opens in the Financial District
Surpasses $1 Billion in transaction value
Obtains Broker-Dealer license – adds private capital to firm services
Launches Investment Banking Summer Analyst Internship Program
2008
2008
Survives the Great Recession
First (of 17) buyside transactions for BroadSoft
2009
2009
South Shore office opens in Rockland, MA
2013
2013
Completes 50th closed transaction
2014
2014
Surpasses $2 Billion in transaction value
Expands Growth Tech focus to include Healthcare sector
2015
2015
Expands into Energy Tech sector
Launches co-op program with Northeastern University
2017
2017
Expands into Consumer Tech sector
2018
2018
Boston Office moves to the Seaport
Surpasses $3 Billion in transaction value
Completes 100th transaction
2019
2019
Expands into Defense Tech sector
2020
2020
Develops remote employee mentorship program in response to Covid-19 Pandemic
Adds principal investment to firm services
2021
2021
Changes firm name to Bowen and redesigns logo in first major brand update since founding
2022
2022
CELEBRATING 20 YEARS IN BUSINESS
2023
2023
Launches our newsletter ‘From the Front Lines’
2024
2024
Expands into Sustainability sector
Receives two awards from The M&A Advisor’s 15th Annual International M&A Awards