Francesco
Piai
Over twenty years running operations, product, and international teams in hands-on industries — and I build the automation myself. I've run the messy middle of real businesses. Now I'm looking to acquire one under-digitized company in Brazil, straighten out its operations, and scale it with a partner toward an exit.
01 / Why me
I'm not a developer who learned the business. I'm an operator who learned to build.
My work starts where the value is actually made — production lines, dispatch, the back office where margin quietly leaks. I'm a named inventor on published patents in the US and Italy. So when I automate something, it's because I ran the process by hand first and know exactly where it breaks.
Most owners hire the operator and the builder separately, then hope the two agree. I'm both, in one person. The plan is deliberate and narrow: buy one real business, get it running right, automate it end to end, and scale it with a partner who backs the deal.
02 / Operated
Two decades of operating leadership across three continents — with full P&L ownership, not a seat at the table.
From the factory floor to Amazon — real operations, at real scale.
13 years inside a €500M industrial group (500 people). Rose from R&D engineer to Executive Manager running R&D and procurement across five companies, reporting to the president.
Built a €15M plastics-injection plant from scratch in northern Italy — P&L, hiring, ramp, mine to own.
Relocated a manufacturing plant from China to Romania.
Led the group's lean transformation and a carbon strategy that saved €1M in emission certificates. Several products I industrialized became bestsellers.
Amazon, 7 years. On the team that launched what was then Amazon's largest sort center in Europe — 500+ people at peak, 1.3M packages a week — then launched Alexa and Fire TV across France, Italy, and Spain.
At AWS, a founding member of a new automotive-virtualization service (BMW, Mercedes, dSPACE) — where I'm a named inventor on a published US patent.
Right now: standing up an Italian manufacturer's first North American plant — a fixed-term mandate I'm already winding down.
03 / Why Brazil
Conviction, not a coin toss.
I didn't pick Brazil off a map. My partner is from São Paulo; I've spent about a month a year in Brazil since 2016. I studied "Doing Business in Brazil" at FGV, did my Yale Global Network rotation there, and have built a network of owners and operators across São Paulo and Rio. I speak the language — Portuguese, and the Italian cultural wiring Brazilians recognize on sight. A market I know from the inside, not one I'll discover on your capital.
04 / The thesis
Buy-and-build
Acquire. Automate. Scale.
The target is unglamorous on purpose: a hands-on business in Brazil's Southeast — industrial services, distribution, light manufacturing, trades — with a retiring owner, loyal B2B customers, recurring revenue, and growth stalled because the systems never left the analog age. I bring the pairing that fixes that: hardware and software automation, plus the operating discipline to make both stick.
Why now
A generation of owners is retiring with no succession plan — by an estimate from FGV's Brazilian Institute of Economics (IBRE), over 70% of the country's small and medium businesses are boomer-owned and nearing retirement — right as automation gets cheap enough for a single operator to rebuild a company end to end. Two curves crossing. A rare window that won't stay open.
05 / The box
What I'm hunting — a disciplined search, already moving.
Where
Brazil's Southeast: São Paulo first, then Minas Gerais and Rio.
Size
US$5–30M enterprise value; revenue above US$5M; EBITDA above US$1M; cash-flow positive for years, not quarters.
Shape
A retiring owner, concentrated ownership, loyal B2B customers, recurring revenue, a fragmented market, growth stalled because the systems are stuck in the analog age.
Horizon
Buy, rebuild, and scale toward an exit in 3–5 years.
How I source
Direct to owners, in Portuguese and Italian. I've already opened an advanced, owner-to-owner conversation in São Paulo — the proprietary kind, not broker listings.
06 / The ask
Partnership-led
An investor, family office, or independent sponsor backs the acquisition; I operate and transform the business day to day; we grow it toward a private-equity exit. You're not backing a first-timer learning on your capital — you're backing an operator who's run P&Ls in Italy and North America, and plant operations across Asia.
All-in
I go full-time the day the right deal closes — one deal, not a portfolio of side projects.
Skin in the game
I put my own capital into the deal alongside you — meaningful enough that I feel the downside. My upside is operator equity earned against performance, not a salary to search on.
07 / A fleet, shipped
Eight real businesses, six capability areas — all built.
Systems I designed and shipped — documented, monitored, transferable. Not slideware. Production.
Finance & Accounting
Files Spanish VAT & payroll models (303/111/190) and issues invoices for a live business, with AI validation and a deterministic cross-check before anything is submitted.
Legal & Contracts
Contract review in 8 languages, cross-checked across three AI models before a verdict.
Document Intelligence
Turns handwritten timesheets, receipts, and field forms into structured data.
Content & Marketing
Brief → published across LinkedIn, Instagram, and blog, on-brand and deterministic.
Field Operations
WhatsApp/Telegram capture for attendance, shifts, machinery startup, and reject-causes, live on real factory floors.
Workflow Automation
Over 100 production workflows, documented, monitored, and self-healing.
08 / About
A builder, not a pitch deck.
Mechanical engineer from Conegliano, in the hills above Venice. Two decades from the factory floor to Amazon and AWS — a Padua engineering degree, an IE MBA, patents to his name in the US and Italy — and lately the software to make all of it run itself.
An inventor's originality, an operator's eye, a builder's speed — with taste. If it can be automated, measured, or made to think, I build it.
09 / FAQ
Straight answers.
Is this a search fund?
No. The classic search fund backs a first-time, full-time searcher. I'm a seasoned operator — this is an operator-led acquisition (ETA), structured with a partner or independent sponsor who backs the deal while I run and rebuild the company.
Are you full-time on this?
I'm winding down a fixed-term plant mandate — currently about half my time — and I go all-in the day the right deal closes. One deal, not a portfolio.
What are you looking to buy?
An under-digitized, hands-on business in Brazil's Southeast — industrial services, distribution, light manufacturing, or trades — usually at a succession moment, with real B2B customers and stalled growth. US$5–30M enterprise value, revenue above US$5M, EBITDA above US$1M.
How is the deal structured?
Partnership-led: an investor, family office, or independent sponsor backs the acquisition; I operate and transform it day to day; we grow it toward a private-equity exit in 3–5 years. I put my own capital in alongside.
What do you bring that a first-time buyer can't?
The hard parts, already done. I've built a €15M plant from scratch, relocated a factory across countries, helped launch one of Amazon's largest European operations, and I'm currently standing up an Italian manufacturer's first North American plant — the operating scars a first-time buyer is years from earning.
What's your edge in an under-digitized business?
Most operators outsource digitization to consultants. I build it myself — the automation, the data plumbing, the tooling — the same systems that already run eight real businesses. That's weeks, not a six-figure integration project, and it compounds from day one.
You clearly build software — why buy a business instead of scaling that?
Because software and consulting are solo games — no floor, no crew. What I'm best at, and what I want, is to lead a team and run a real operation — to build wealth for myself, my investors, and the people who work alongside me. brisapartners.com proves the automation is real. A tool has no team. An under-digitized company is where that automation compounds and where I do what I do best — lead the people who run it.
What if the owner isn't ready to sell?
Then we find another shape. Some owners want to step back without letting go — keep the name, the people, the legacy intact. I can come in as GM with equity, run and modernize the business, and grow it alongside them. Succession doesn't have to mean a sale. It has to mean the right hands.
10 / Contact
Let's talk.
For investors and family offices weighing an operator, owners thinking about succession — whether they want to sell or simply hand the day-to-day to someone who'll protect the legacy — and funds that need someone to actually run the business, not just diligence it. I read every message. Fewer conversations, deeper ones.