Oneteam, a Singapore-headquartered SME acquisition platform focused on succession solutions, has secured a dedicated M&A financing facility from Polaris, the alternative financing arm of GB Helios, to fund its second acquisition, completed in September 2025.
The facility is designed to help Oneteam scale its approach to what it describes as long-term stewardship of profitable local SMEs, with an initial push into essential services within the built environment.
Also Read: Oneteam nets US$2.6M funding to revolutionise SME succession planning in Singapore
The bigger story here is not simply “startup raises money” but that a non-bank financier embedded in Singapore’s SME ecosystem is backing an acquisition-led operator with a model that aims to keep businesses alive after founders retire, without defaulting to trade sales, shutdowns, or fire-drills inside the family.
Financing the “missing middle” of SME M&A
Polaris’s facility introduces a dedicated financing structure for SME acquisitions with annual revenue below about SGD 10 million (US$7.4 million), a segment that Oneteam and its partners say is often underserved by traditional M&A lenders.
That gap matters because many succession-driven deals sit in an awkward band: too small and operationally messy for conventional acquisition finance, but too important to the real economy to be left to chance. In practice, the hardest part of SME succession is rarely “finding a buyer” but structuring a deal that is responsible, financeable, and operationally survivable once the founder steps away.
GB Helios, which has supported local enterprises through multiple economic cycles and is a Participating Financial Institution under Enterprise Singapore’s Enterprise Financing Scheme, is betting that Oneteam’s platform can turn succession from a cliff-edge into a repeatable process.
How employee ownership tackles the succession crisis
Oneteam’s core pitch is an employee ownership succession model: it acquires profitable SMEs from retiring owners and transitions them into employee-owned entities, with a focus on developing next-generation leaders from within the company rather than flipping the asset for a short-term exit.
This addresses several structural failure modes that show up repeatedly in SME succession:
- Continuity risk: When a founder exits abruptly, institutional knowledge often walks out the door. Transitioning ownership and leadership to internal talent reduces operational shock.
- Talent retention: Employee ownership can turn key staff into long-term stewards, not flight risks. In labour-tight sectors, that can be as valuable as a new sales pipeline.
- Alignment over extraction: Traditional buyouts can incentivise aggressive cost-cutting to service debt. A permanent-ownership approach is positioned as prioritising durability, service quality, and compounding operational improvements.
- “No heir, no sale” dead-ends: Many SMEs are not easily sold to competitors (who may dismantle teams) or passed to family (who may not want the business). Employee ownership offers a third route.
Matthew Pay, CFO of Oneteam, framed the constraint bluntly: “Access to financing options is one of the biggest missing pieces in local SME succession. This partnership with GB Helios gives us the ability to scale our acquisition strategy prudently, while continuing to invest in people, systems, and long-term value creation.”
What Oneteam has done so far, and the growth it is claiming
Over the past 12 months, Oneteam — which in November last year secured US$2.6 million in seed funding — has completed two acquisitions of profitable businesses within the facilities and property management ecosystem, part of a broader strategy to build a suite of services for Singapore’s built environment sector.
The company has not disclosed broader pipeline numbers or a run-rate of acquisitions beyond these two completed deals. However, it said the portfolio companies have delivered double-digit growth since acquisition, which Oneteam is using to argue that its operating playbook is more than financial engineering.
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That matters because acquisition platforms live or die on post-deal execution: upgrading systems, professionalising processes, retaining frontline teams, and maintaining customer satisfaction while leadership changes hands.
Joel Ang, Principal at Wavemaker Ventures, said: “From day one, our conviction in Oneteam was built on its mission-driven approach and disciplined execution. Seeing GB Helios come onboard as a strategic financing partner validates both the model and the long-term opportunity. This is exactly the kind of ecosystem collaboration needed to strengthen Singapore’s SME backbone.”
Strategic synergies with the GB Helios ecosystem
The Polaris facility is the headline, but the partnership is also setting up practical synergies that matter in the unglamorous, day-to-day reality of SME operations.
According to the release, the collaboration can extend into:
- Working capital support, which is often the difference between a smooth transition and a cashflow crisis
- Operational financing and equipment leasing, especially relevant for facilities and property management businesses that rely on vehicles, tools, and equipment uptime
- Human resource management solutions, to standardise hiring, retention, and performance processes across a fragmented sector
For Oneteam, this can compress the time needed to stabilise an acquired business post-transition. For GB Helios, it creates a pipeline of SMEs being professionalised and digitised — a healthier credit and operating profile over time, rather than one-off lending.
Global alternatives: not a new idea, but a local execution game
Globally, Oneteam’s model resembles a few well-established approaches:
- Search funds/entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA): common in the US and increasingly elsewhere, where operators buy a “boring but profitable” business and run it long-term.
- Employee ownership trusts (EOTs) and ESOP-style transitions: used in markets like the UK and US to move ownership to employees while preserving business continuity.
- Permanent capital holding companies: such as Permanent Equity (US) and other long-term hold buyers that prioritise durability over quick exits.
- SME roll-up platforms: some tech-enabled acquirers focus on standardising operations across many small businesses, though not all are explicitly employee-ownership-led.
Also Read: From admin headache to AI-driven insights: How Earlybird AI empowers SME founders
The difference in Southeast Asia is the operating terrain: fragmented industries, uneven digitisation, and a financing landscape that can leave sub-scale deals stranded. That is why the Oneteam-Polaris partnership is worth watching. It is trying to make succession financeable at the size band where most real businesses actually live.
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Image Credit: Oneteam.
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