Christi Loucks·May 2, 2024

How to Buy a Canadian Business as an American | Christi Loucks Interview

Christi Loucks, a former sales enablement and operations leader in cybersecurity tech, bought Revenue Accelerator — a Canadian B2B outbound cold email and sales agency — in August 2023 for approximately CAD $2.75M (USD $2M). The business, founded and grown by Gabriel over six to seven years to roughly USD $1M in annual revenue with 63% gross margins, was listed on acquire.com, where Christi found it after two prior traditional blue-collar deal attempts fell through. The cross-border nature of the acquisition made financing exceptionally difficult: the primary bank lender pulled out at the eleventh hour, SBA financing was unavailable for a Canadian target, and the deal ultimately closed via a private lender (~USD $800k), a seller note (~USD $415k), and a friends-and-family equity raise (~USD $1M) — leaving the capital structure roughly 50% equity. The most severe post-close challenge was losing 55% of clients in the first five months, requiring an urgent pivot to client replacement over growth; by February 2024, Christi had replaced the lost revenue and begun growing beyond it. As of recording (May 2024), she runs the business solo as CEO, with her husband Alex (who led the deal process) having transitioned back to a corporate CFO role, and she is navigating impending maternity leave with a capable, long-tenured global contractor team.

Deal facts

purchase price: CAD $2.75M (~USD $2M)
sde ebitda: SDE ~CAD $750k (~USD $550k) for 2021-2022
revenue: CAD $1.4M (~USD $1M) in 2022
financing structure: Private lender debt ~USD $800k + seller note ~USD $415k + equity raise ~USD $1M (friends and family); no SBA available for cross-border deal
notes: Cross-border (US buyer, Canadian business). Bank pulled out at 11th hour; pivoted to private lender via acquire.com. SBA refinance attempted post-close but blocked due to insufficient financial history of new US entity. Closed August 2023. 63% gross margin noted. Buyer and husband also contributed ~USD $200k of personal capital into equity raise.

Why this business

Christi came from a decade in high-growth tech and cybersecurity, primarily in sales enablement and sales operations. After two traditional blue-collar deals fell through, she pivoted to look on acquire.com for something more in her wheelhouse. She found Revenue Accelerator and recognized the business from having lived in that world — she knew cold outbound sales, the tech stack, and the B2B buyer. She also saw strong margins in a digital business and felt she could grow and modernize it. On a deeper level, she and her husband were seeking more ownership over their time and lives after a period of personal loss and professional dissatisfaction.

What's working

High gross margins (~63%) in a digital/agency business provided financial cushion even during a difficult early period
Long-tenured contractor team (many 3+ years) spread across Canada, US, Spain, Ireland, India, and Philippines — team largely self-sufficient and capable of running without owner
Christi's personal network in tech and sales generated new client acquisition after the initial churn crisis
Successfully replaced all lost clients and grew revenue on top within roughly four months of the 55% client loss
End-to-end proprietary outbound infrastructure (domain management, deliverability monitoring, data sourcing, copy) differentiates from basic tools like Outreach or SalesLoft
B2B client base across multiple industries provides diversification; service complements in-house sales teams

What's hard

Lost 55% of clients (and roughly 55% of revenue) in the first five months post-close — far beyond expected transition churn
Had to immediately pivot from growth focus to stabilization and replacement of lost revenue
Discovered the business was underresourced and underfunded across personnel, process, and tech — required significant reinvestment immediately after close
Cross-border financing was far more difficult than anticipated: primary bank lender pulled out at the last minute, forcing a rapid pivot to a private lender at a higher interest rate and shorter term
SBA refinance plan could not be executed immediately post-close due to insufficient financial history of the new US entity
Equity became heavily weighted (~50%) due to debt shortfall, meaning higher equity dilution to investors and longer payback period
Two sets of attorneys (US and Canadian), cross-border tax complexity, and currency conversion added cost and complexity to the deal process
Managing the business solo as new CEO while pregnant, navigating maternity leave planning with an owner-operator-dependent business

Notable quotes

We hit this existential wall I guess you could say in 2022 both of us at the same time — speaking very candidly I had just gone through a long kind of abnormal miscarriage and at the same time we had an immediate family member with terminal cancer so we were faced with this loss component in our lives and then simultaneously we were both just truthfully we were just tired of our work.

In the first really so August to December call it — so the first five months or four months whatever of owning the business — we lost 55% of our clients. And that was a very strong moment of contention for me.

By February of this of 2024 we had replaced and then stacked on top so I'm really proud of that because that was really hard and scary in the moment.

The financing piece of this as a crossborder deal was surprisingly more difficult than we thought it was going to be — and by that you mean just finding somebody who is willing to finance it or the logistics of moving a big slug of cash across a border and doing all the currency conversion — I think all of it.