Jacob Mullins, Yale ’05, built his company to fill a gap he saw in the marketplace: a successful, confidential sale of a start-up. His company, Exitround.com, brokered its first sale in July.

After college, Mullins returned home to the San Francisco Bay area to begin working in the tech industry. While at Yale, he formed a nutritional supplement company with a classmate. This company was labor and product intensive, and it gave him a newfound appreciation for the simplicity and scalability of a software or internet-based company.

Mullins said being a founding member at our Yale chapter was instrumental in his success. As vice president of recruitment he learned the importance of finding quality partners. Also his alumni mentor, Bill Tragos, Washington in St. Louis ’56, pushed him to be tenacious and reject mediocrity for himself and his recruits.

After a short time at startup and venture capital blog VentureBeat.com, Mullins moved to Microsoft’s BizSpark division, which focused on small and emerging companies. That gave him the corporate exposure he needed to work on the investment side of the start-up equation.

Mullins went to Shasta Ventures, where he saw the dynamics of the venture capital market, where start-ups face limited options after exhausting their initial capital. They could raise more capital, go out of business or be acquired by a larger company with more capital resources.

In the case of acquisitions, a large company would decide to acquire a company in a particular field, create a list and approach prospects confidentially, one at a time. Mullins said the key to the tech industry is networking, but the acquisition process requires confidentiality.

He identified a gap in the market—a third party must insulate the companies, while allowing them to connect and discuss terms.

From this, the entirely web-based marketplace, Exitround, was born. The company provides start-up founders potential acquisition allowing them to focus on building the best possible product. Exitround provides a confidential place to meet.

Mullins said he knew there were few resources available on this process, and he sees his new company as a way to avoid reinventing the wheel. To that end, he asked a group of CEOs, merger and acquisition professionals, attorneys, bankers and others to work with Exitround to make this process smoother and easier.