Enquirer Consulting Group

Reachable Buyer Map

Prepared for Nik Wottge · Incentrum · September 2026
Incentrum advises owners on the biggest transaction of their working lives, and is paid on success. So this map covers the owners worth that risk: founder-led companies in medical devices, pharma, and the gas detection and air quality niche where you closed a sale last year, in the US and developed Europe. For each group it shows who makes the call and roughly how many companies there are. It maps the market, not your business, and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
Who makes the call, and where they sit
Seven groups. Some overlap, so read each number on its own and never add them together.
US medical device makers, 51 to 500 staff
The heart of Incentrum's market. Companies big enough to have built a finance function and a data trail, which is what a buyer's diligence tests and what a success fee depends on.
Who makes the call: the founder or owner-CEO decides; the CFO or controller decides whether the company is ready.
About 1,500
companies, 51 to 500 staff, headquartered in the US.
US medical device makers, 11 to 50 staff
Three times as many companies, and the band you flagged as the risk on a success fee: less institutional backing and thinner numbers. Worth working only where the company can show audited accounts.
Who makes the call: the founder, often without a CFO in the seat.
About 4,600
companies, 11 to 50 staff, headquartered in the US.
Contract manufacturers and specification developers
Two groups on the federal device registration file that sit behind the brands: firms that make devices for others, and firms that design devices and have them made. Worth their own pass for founder-owned names.
Who makes the call: the owner or president.
2,201 and 3,539
US establishments on the federal device registration file, July 2026. Sites, not companies, and they overlap the rows above, so they are not added.
US pharma and pharma services, 51 to 500 staff
The life sciences side of the same market, counted the same way.
Who makes the call: the founder or CEO, with the CFO and often a board that includes the family.
About 1,200
companies, 51 to 500 staff, headquartered in the US.
Developed Europe, device and pharma makers, 51 to 500 staff
The same two markets across fourteen countries, from the UK and Germany to the Nordics. Where a company is family-held, the trigger is often succession.
Who makes the call: the owner-CEO, or the chair who speaks for the family.
About 1,200 and 1,500
device and pharma companies, 51 to 500 staff, headquartered in the fourteen countries listed below.
Gas detection and air quality companies
The niche where you closed a sale last year, so the one where your name already opens the door. Roughly four in ten make instruments; the rest distribute, install or service them.
Who makes the call: the founder or owner, and the peers who already know the deal you did.
About 300
companies, 11 to 500 staff, across the US and developed Europe.
The owner's M&A counsel and outside accountant
Not buyers, but the first people an owner asks before choosing an advisor. One relationship here reaches many owners.
Who makes the call: the partner who handles the owner's corporate work or audit.
No honest public count
Firms that advise private company owners are not separated from the rest of their professions in any public file.
By region and size
Companies by staff band. Each cell is banded on its own. Europe here is the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Belgium, Austria and Ireland.
MarketRegion11 to 5051 to 200201 to 500
Medical devicesUS4,6001,200300
Medical devicesEurope4,6001,000200
PharmaUS3,300950250
PharmaEurope3,3001,200350
Gas detection, air qualityUS100402
Gas detection, air qualityEurope100304

Where the openings are

1
The credential set is small enough to work by name. About 300 gas detection and air quality companies across both regions, and they already know the deal you did. At fewer than ten emails a month, reaching all of them takes more than two years.
2
The 51 to 500 band is where the success fee is safest. About 1,500 US device makers and 1,200 US pharma companies sit there, and about as many again in developed Europe. These are the companies most likely to have the numbers a buyer will ask for.
3
Founder ownership is the filter no database carries. The counts on this page do not separate out companies already backed by private equity or venture money. The step that turns a count into a list worth a partner's time is checking each name and removing those, before anyone is contacted.
Built from company profiles and a public federal file, read on 28 September 2026. Staff bands are as companies report them, and a profile proves a company exists, not that it is founder-owned or ready to sell. Counts are banded deliberately: under 20 exact, then rounded. Nothing about Incentrum was used beyond our conversation.
ENQUIRER CONSULTING GROUP
enquirerconsulting.com