About
We acquire established scrap and auto recycling yards across 15 states. We buy them directly, with our own capital, on our own balance sheet. No fund cycle. No external timeline pressure. No broker between us and you.
Nelson Research Ventures LLC is a private acquisition firm focused on the scrap metal and auto recycling industries. We are a principal acquirer — meaning we buy businesses for our own portfolio rather than representing other parties or finding buyers for sellers.
Our principals have decades of combined experience operating, investing in, and partnering with scrap metal and auto recycling businesses across North America. We have spent careers in the trade. We know what a slow February looks like. We know how mill orders shape the back-end of a quarter. We know which downstream contracts matter and which ones don't.
We are not a business broker. We are not a marketplace. We are not a listing service that connects sellers with a pool of buyers. We do not work on commission. We do not represent the seller in any capacity.
If you are working with a broker or M&A advisor — that is perfectly fine, and we work with them too. We are simply telling you who we are: the buyer across the table.
Most acquisitions we complete come through a confidential, off-market conversation that starts with a single call. We do not run auctions. We do not put yards on the open market. We do not produce a pitch book of your business and shop it to competitors.
When a deal moves forward, it does so under a mutual NDA, on a timeline that fits the seller's life — not ours. The fastest deals we have closed went from first call to wire in under 90 days. The slowest took two years because the seller had children to consult and a mother whose health was changing. Both were the right pace for those sellers.
We are long-term holders. We are not flippers. The yards we acquire stay in our portfolio indefinitely and continue to operate.
For most acquisitions, the existing team stays in place. Employees keep their jobs. Customers keep their accounts. Vendors keep their relationships. We bring capital for equipment upgrades, environmental remediation where needed, and growth — and we leave alone what is working.
Sellers usually have a transition period of 6–24 months. Some founders stay on as advisors. Some retire entirely after a 60-day handoff. Most fall somewhere in between. That conversation happens early in the process and is documented in the purchase agreement.
We talk to owners considering a sale — whether that is six months or six years away. We talk to operators thinking about succession. We talk to families navigating the next generation. We talk to absentee owners deciding what to do with an asset they no longer want to manage.
Most of these conversations do not result in a transaction, and that is fine. The right time to sell is the seller's decision. The right time to start talking is now — because the conversation itself helps clarify what you actually want.