The founder of advisory firms Arma Partners and DAI Magister and two other senior bankers have launched a boutique investment bank called Artis Partners to advise US and European technology companies on boosting valuations and potential sale. A core part of its advisory work is tapping into the rise of artificial intelligence to increase efficiency.
Artis has been launched by Victor Basta, Steve Bachmann and Dorian Maillard. Basta previously founded in 2012 tech advisory firm Magister, which was majority bought by DAI in 2020 to become DAI Magister, and Basta was CEO. He previously founded and was managing partner of Arma Partners, now owned by Mediobanca, and spent 12 years at Broadview, including as global co-head, before it was sold to Jefferies in 2003. Artis said Basta has advised on more than 130 transactions and will be a managing partner of the new firm.
Basta said Artis is effectively a spin-out from DAI Magister after the parent of that firm chose to focus on advisory for emerging markets, so Artis has hit the ground running with an existing book of business and clients in the US and Europe.
Divij Ruparelia, co-head of DAI Magister, told IFR the firm decided in late 2024 to focus on advising growth companies in emerging markets on capital raising and M&A. He said as a result of the strategic shift it has focused on retaining the EM specialists.
Basta said Artis started operations at the start of the year and its bankers advised on IG Group’s purchase of UK digital investment platform Freetrade for £160m, which was announced last week, and has two other advisory deals near to completion. DAI Magister officially advised on the Freetrade transaction, and it said it will complete the transaction but some of the team on the deal had left.
Bachmann is also from DAI Magister and Basta said other senior dealmakers will move over.
“We expect to be at 10 to 15 professionals before mid-year,” Basta told IFR. “The core is from DAI Magister, but we are also recruiting mid-level and junior positions.”
Bachmann was co-head of Europe and head of the US for DAI Magister and was previously a managing director of Atlas Technology Group, a software M&A shop based in California, and a managing director at Broadview. Bachmann is also managing partner at Artis. Maillard has 15 years’ experience in M&A advisory, private equity and consultancy, and is a partner at Artis.
AI "hyper-efficiency"
Basta said having a staff of 15–20 people would be a sweet spot for Artis, as having 20 to 50 people can lead to inefficiencies before an advisory firm hits greater scale.
“The idea is we want to create a very profitable or hyper-efficient advisory business that is going to be around 20 people, and then make a strategic decision on do we aim for a multiple of that or not. Do we operate at the level of super-efficiency, or do you graduate out the other side?” he said.
The use of artificial intelligence in operations has reduced work for junior staff on preparation of pitches and presentations or sector analyses, lifting productivity.
“Today, a team of 15 or so high-quality professionals can embed AI into their work and leverage it to operate as effectively as a 50-person firm, so we can scale much faster without adding nearly as many people,” Basta said. “That’s part of the hyper-efficiency and part of being able to do a significant amount of revenue per employee. Two years ago we couldn’t say that.”
The new firm’s timing is also good because M&A activity is at the start of a revival, he said. “The M&A market is on a clear rebound. People are primed to do deals. The timing for this is really positive, we’re already seeing it.”
Artis said preparing companies for exit is at the core of its advice. It is targeting US and European companies that have typically completed a Series C or Series D fundraising and are probably still growing by 25%–50% a year. Their typical market value is between US$100m and US$1bn.
Many of those firms are seeing an uplift in profitability from AI too, which Basta said is driving up value across the tech sector as growth companies leverage it to grow and improve margins.
“This trend is not innovation driven, it is adoption driven, which is very different,” he said.