Wilmington startup IQExit is aiming to change the way banks prepare for business ownership transitions by surfacing exit signals years before a company is sold.
At its core, IQExit is an advisor-introduced exit readiness platform: The bank introduces IQExit to its business owner clients as a complimentary service. Once that’s done, an owner can complete a brief assessment, and the bank receives an Exit Readiness Record that tells the relationship manager not just that a transition may be coming, but what’s standing in the way of a successful one, how long there is to fix it, and which advisors in the owner’s circle need to be in the room.
The company is entering the market amid a coming wave of business ownership transitions. A McKinsey report estimates that roughly six million small businesses will need new owners by 2035, while Principal Financial Group projects that approximately $14 trillion in business wealth is expected to change hands over the next decade.
Despite the scale of the opportunity, many businesses struggle to complete a transaction. Industry data suggests that only 20-30% of businesses brought to market through an intermediary ultimately sell.
The idea for IQExit grew out of Ryan’s decade in mergers and acquisitions, during which he regularly helped business owners sell their companies. Ryan noticed in the course of this work that banks and advisors often had little visibility into an owner’s plans until a transaction was already nearing completion.
“The bank typically finds out a sale is happening a week or two before closing,” Ryan said. “By the time they know, they don’t have time to react.”
That lack of advance notice can cost banks both operating deposits and potential wealth-management relationships. At the same time, many business owners enter the sale process unprepared, with issues such as owner dependency, unrealistic valuation expectations or incomplete financial records reducing their chances of completing a transaction.
With this context, the IQExit team—Founder and CEO Tully Ryan, a veteran M&A advisor; COO Jason Rowe, PhD, Director of the Bureau of Business Research at East Carolina University; CTO Erik Taylor, PhD, an ECU management professor with a background in financial services; and Chief Partnerships Officer Jesse Stone, a senior M&A advisor—set out to make business transitions more viable for owners and financial institutions alike.
The IQExit product
IQExit’s core innovative solution is the Exit Readiness Intelligence™—and it’s quite simple.
The business owner completes an assessment—introduced by the relationship manager at the bank—about the company, future plans and anticipated transition timeline. IQExit combines that information with existing banking relationship data to generate an Exit Readiness Record.
The record includes a projected future deal value range based on the owner’s intended exit timeline, along with industry benchmarking and a summary of factors, such as EBITDA, discretionary earnings benchmarking, strengths and weakness summaries, that could affect a future transaction. Rather than serving as a one-time valuation report, the platform is temporal by design.
“Once a business owner signs up with us through their bank, IQExit stays with them for the life of the business,” Ryan said.
As the owner updates their information, the platform continuously refreshes projections and readiness indicators. It adjusts for market shifts, comparable transaction changes, sector multiple movement, and evolving buyer appetite.
“We’re not telling the business owner what they need to do to get ready,” Ryan said. “That’s up to the banker, advisor, the exit planner or the business broker. All we’re saying is a business owner may be within 60 months of an exit, and let’s have a conversation.”
For banks, meanwhile, the goal is to transform what has traditionally been a reactive process into a proactive one. Relationship managers have access to their clients’ readiness records, allowing them to identify potential exits, begin succession planning conversations and coordinate with wealth management teams long before a sale reaches the closing table.
“This is infrastructure, not just a product,” Ryan said. “Every bank should have this knowledge.”
Traction and Future
IQExit officially launched in February 2026 and is already gaining traction. The startup is in discussions with several regional banks as it looks to bring its exit readiness platform into financial institutions across the Southeast.
“To be going through procurement right now with a major large regional bank is incredible,” Ryan said. “What we’ve seen is absolutely an affirmation.”
QUICK BITS
Startup: IQExit
Founder: Tully Ryan
Founded: 2026
Team size: 6
Location: Wilmington
Website: iqexit.com
Funding: Bootstrapped
IQExit plans to aggregate readiness and exit-intent data across participating institutions over time, giving banks broader benchmarking information about trends among business owners and business transitions.
Over the next year, the company plans to continue refining the platform, expanding its banking partnerships and growing adoption among financial institutions.
Long term, Ryan said he hopes IQExit can become a foundational piece of infrastructure within the business transition ecosystem while improving the rate at which businesses successfully change hands.
“The goal is to move the success rate of business transactions from 25% to 35% to 45% by getting banks, advisors and business owners to open up communication and collaboration earlier,” Ryan said.
