I'm Jack Vander Leeuw, and I recently left institutional private equity and private credit to build Token Capital Group as an independent sponsor. After 19 years, 42 closed transactions, and more than $2.7 billion in enterprise value across the lower middle market, going independent wasn't a small decision. I made it because I became convinced of something the traditional platforms I worked in were not built to act on. The lower middle market is entering a period of real operational change, driven by AI. Most of the businesses trading today have no plan for it, and most acquirers have no thesis for how it reshapes the companies they buy. They close the deal and run the same playbook they've used for twenty years. I built Token Capital Group around a different premise: acquire businesses with enduring demand, the essential, non-discretionary kind where the physical world still requires physical products, physical movement, and physical work, and then deploy intelligent automation to compound their margins and widen their moat. The demand protects the floor. The automation raises the ceiling. I didn't believe I could build that firm from inside a traditional structure, so I left to build it myself. I also wanted the firm itself to be the first proof of the thesis. Token Capital Group is AI-native by design, not by label. Over the past several months I've built an automated environment that takes an initial CIM all the way through to a drafted LOI: screening, financial analysis, diligence, deal structuring, and a first cut at terms. I'm keeping the mechanics to myself for now, but the effect is real and it's already running. It compresses work that used to require a team into a process I can run largely on my own, which means sellers and intermediaries get institutional-quality analysis quickly, and I can go deeper on the businesses that earn a closer look. I've spent most of my career on the capital side, structuring and closing lower middle market deals alongside sponsors, independent sponsors, and lenders. I'm looking forward to being on this side of the table now, and to learning from the operators and searchers who've been building here for years. If you work in essential, demand-resilient industries, or you think about how AI actually changes operations in these companies rather than in the abstract, I'd enjoy comparing notes.