We provide unique perspectives, differentiated advice and outsized impact for clients navigating disruption and uncertainty.
The race to AI Leadership is a Defining Moment. We advise leading companies as they capture transformative opportunities against the backdrop of disruption and uncertainty.
We partner with clients to address key challenges and advise great companies on deftly navigating critical inflection points.
Lead Financial Advisor to Cisco on Acquisition of Splunk
March 2024
Lead Financial Advisor to ServiceNow on Acquisition of Armis
December 2025
Financial Advisor to ServiceNow on Acquisition of Moveworks
March 2025
Financial Advisor to Bloom Energy on Upsized Convertible Senior Notes Offering
November 2025
Exclusive Financial Advisor to OpenGov on Sale to Cox
February 2024
Financial Advisor to Commvault on Upsized Convertible Senior Notes Offering
September 2025 Financial Advisor to Bloom Energy on Upsized Convertible Senior Notes Offering
May 2023
Exclusive Financial Advisor to Dedrone on Sale to Axon Enterprise
October 2024 Financial Advisor to Bloom Energy on Upsized Convertible Senior Notes Offering
May 2024 Financial Advisor to Fastly on Upsized Convertible Senior Notes Offering
December 2025
Exclusive Financial Advisor to Humane on Transaction with HP
February 2025
Financial Advisor to Bloom Energy on Exchange of Green Convertible Senior Notes
May 2025
Exclusive Financial Advisor to ServiceNow on Acquisition of G2K
July 2023
Exclusive Financial Advisor to Uniphore on Acquisition of Infoworks
December 2024
Exclusive Financial Advisor to Uniphore on Acquisition of ActionIQ
December 2024We are experienced M&A experts with a deep knowledge of the technology industry, geopolitical influences, and AI.
David Handler has over three decades of investment banking and strategic advisory experience, representing clients on many of the largest and most transformative transactions in the Technology sector. In August 2022, Mr. Handler co-founded Tidal Partners, a strategic M&A advisory firm headquartered in Palo Alto. Since its founding, David has led the firm’s business, culture and talent development, establishing Tidal Partners as a respected and sought-after brand in Technology M&A advisory. Before Tidal, he was a Partner at Centerview Partners and Founding Head of its Technology Group from 2008-2022.
Mr. Handler is a trusted thought partner to CEOs and Boards as they navigate the rapidly changing and increasingly complex technology industry. His experience spans hundreds of billions of dollars of landmark Technology transactions, building a foundation of long-term success on behalf of repeat clients such as Cisco on more than $40 billion of acquisitions, including its $28 billion acquisition of Splunk; ServiceNow on its $7.8 billion acquisition of Armis and its $2.9 billion acquisition of Moveworks; Qualcomm’s record-setting defense of Broadcom’s attempted $130 billion hostile takeover and its $43 billion announced acquisition of NXP; the $18 billion acquisition of Toshiba Memory (Kioxia); and Motorola’s Strategic Review, its $1 billion sale of its Network Business to Nokia, its $9 billion Motorola Mobility spin-off, and subsequent $12 billion sale to Google.
Mr. Handler is Chairman of PENN Entertainment, where he has been a member of the board since 1994.
Mr. Handler is a Trustee of New York University. He also serves as a Member of the Executive Board of the Stern School of Business, where he earned his B.S. in Marketing and M.B.A. in Finance.
David Neequaye has spent his 25+ year career advising companies on a broad range of strategic and M&A matters, including buy-side, sell-side, spin-offs, special committee assignments, capital allocation, strategy development, investor messaging and shareholder activism. Mr. Neequaye co-founded Tidal Partners, a strategic M&A advisory firm, in August 2022.
Mr. Neequaye focuses on the technology sector and has advised on over $175 billion in transactions. Selected transaction experience includes advising Cisco Systems on over $43 billion of transactions including its acquisitions of Splunk and AppDynamics, and the divestiture of its SPVSS division; ServiceNow on over $10 billion of transactions including its acquisitions of Armis, Moveworks and G2K; Bloom Energy on various capital raises totaling over $3bn; Mixpanel on its $200mm Series C funding from Bain Capital; Informa Plc on over $8 billion in transactions, including its $5.5 billion acquisition of UBM plc; Convergys on over $5 billion of transactions including its $3 billion sale to Synnex; Itron on over $4 billion of transactions, including its $1.0 billion acquisition of Silver Spring Networks; Motorola Inc. on its $9 billion spinoff of its Mobility & Connected Home businesses and the $1 billion divestiture of its wireless infrastructure business to Nokia-Siemens Networks; Motorola Mobility on its $12 billion sale to Google; SonicWall on its LBO by Thoma Bravo and subsequent sale to Dell; Huawei Technologies on the divestiture of its interest in H3C to 3Com and its proposed $2.2 billion acquisition of 3Com in conjunction with Bain Capital.
Mr. Neequaye was previously a partner and founding member of the Technology practice at Centerview Partners.
Mr. Neequaye is a member of the Board of Directors at MoAD.
Mr. Neequaye holds a BSc. from the London School of Economics and an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management.
Brett McGurk has decades of nonpartisan experience at the highest levels of U.S. foreign policy and national security, with extensive expertise on geopolitical risk, cross-border dynamics, and the global forces shaping technology markets. His diplomatic career spans four presidential administrations, most recently as Deputy Assistant to President Biden and White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa regions. In this role, he spearheaded responses to some of the most complex diplomatic challenges of our time, including the negotiation of two ceasefire and hostage lease deals in the Gaza conflict, as well as coordinating the defense of Israel against Iranian missile attacks.
Throughout his career, Brett has been at the forefront of modern diplomacy’s evolution – from championing new technology and energy corridors between India, the Gulf states, Israel, Jordan, and Europe, to witnessing firsthand how AI and computing infrastructure have become essential to maintaining strategic partnerships and global influence. He also has a first-hand understanding of how breakthrough defense technologies employed by U.S. military forces can deter future conflicts, as long as the United States maintains its leading technological edge.
As Special Presidential Envoy for both Obama and Trump, Brett built and then led a global coalition of more than 80 countries, together with local forces on the ground, to defeat ISIS and prevent future attacks into Europe as well as within the borders of the United States. He also led secret negotiations with Iran to secure the release of American hostages, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaein, later receiving the James Foley Freedom Award for hostage diplomacy. As a senior White House official under George W. Bush, Brett was an early advocate for a change in war policy and helped develop “the surge” to better align the ends and means of U.S. strategy.
McGurk is a Global Affairs Analyst for CNN and a Distinguished Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center and the Atlantic Council. He is also a partner at Lux Capital, and a Special Advisor for International Affairs at Cisco.
He received a J.D. from Columbia Law School and a B.A., Honors Program from the University of Connecticut. After law school, he served as a law clerk for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Elizabeth Hyon is Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer at Tidal Partners, where she oversees the firm’s operations, legal, and compliance functions. She has extensive experience in regulatory and enforcement matters, as well as complex litigation involving M&A and financial services.
Prior to joining Tidal Partners at its founding, Liz spent more than a decade at Barclays, most recently serving as Americas Head of Investment Banking Litigation. Earlier in her career, she was a litigation associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.
Liz holds a J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School and an A.B. in History from Dartmouth College.
Matt Stoner joined Tidal Partners at its inception as a Partner and has nearly 20 years of investment banking experience. Over the course of his career, he has advised clients on transactions exceeding $100 billion in aggregate value across technology and other sectors. His technology experience includes advising Cisco Systems on approximately $45 billion in transactions (including its acquisitions of Splunk, AppDynamics, and SourceFire), Qualcomm on its $4 billion topping bid for Veoneer and carve-out of Arriver, Bloom Energy on nearly $4 billion of convertible notes transactions, OpenGov on its $1.8 billion sale to Cox Enterprises, Commvault on its acquisition of Clumio and its $900 million convertible notes offering, and Humane on its transaction with HP Inc. Across other industries, Matt has advised on notable transactions including the $8 billion sale of Blue Buffalo Pet Products to General Mills, Air Methods’ $2.5 billion take-private by American Securities, and Elizabeth Arden’s $900 million sale to Revlon, among others.
Prior to joining Tidal Partners, Matt spent more than 10 years with Centerview Partners in both the New York and Palo Alto offices.
Matt is a Board Member of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he serves on the Audit and Finance Committees; a Board Member of The Van Cliburn in Fort Worth, Texas, where he serves on the Finance Committee; an Advisory Board Member of the Hoover Institution 1919 Society; and a Member of the Tuck Deans’ Council for the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Matt holds an M.B.A., with honors, from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where he was an Edward Tuck Scholar and a B.A., cum laude, from Rice University. Matt resides in Fort Worth, Texas, with his wife and three children.
Rajeev Singh-Molares has built a 30+ year career across venture capital, global operating leadership, and strategy consulting. He joined Tidal Partners as a Partner in 2023.
Mr. Singh-Molares is Co-Founder and was a General Partner of Mundi Ventures, a technology VC firm which invested in AI, enterprise software, logistics and digital health. As lead investor in the first two technology funds and board member, he drove exits including Returnly’s sale to Affirm (NASDAQ) and RubiconMD’s sale to Oak Street Health/CVS (NYSE). He remains on a variety of venture Boards in Europe and the US.
Previously, Mr. Singh-Molares served as CEO of DHL Global Forwarding’s EMEA region ($6 billion P&L, 60+ countries), where he restored top-line growth after years of decline. At Alcatel-Lucent (now Nokia), he was President of the Asia-Pacific region and previously Head of Global Strategy He led a $3.5 billion business with 27,000 employees to become the company’s fastest-growing and second most profitable region, including its operations in China where he resided for four years.
Mr. Singh-Molares was a Senior Partner at Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte), advising over 100 companies on strategy and growth for more than 15 years, serving on the firm’s worldwide Board of Directors, and leading its global TMT practice. He has chaired the WEF ICT Agenda Council (Davos) and the GSMA Mobile World Capital Advisory Board and received the 2012 Shanghai Magnolia Award from the city of Shanghai, PRC. He holds an M.A. from Yale University and a B.S.F.S. (Magna Cum Laude) from Georgetown University.
Bill Shope has nearly three decades of experience at the intersection of technology and finance. He spent nearly two decades as a leading Wall Street analyst covering names such as Apple, Dell, EMC, and IBM, most recently as Managing Director and Deputy Head of Technology, Media, and Telecom research at Goldman Sachs. After serving as Deputy Head of US Equity Research at Goldman, Mr. Shope spent several years as a founder, CEO, CFO, and investor in emerging growth startups.
Mr. Shope remains active in the startup and broader AI community and publishes content exploring the economic and business implications of AI technology.
Mr. Shope holds an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Anand Sankaralingam advises founders, boards, and private equity investors on strategic transactions across software, AI, and technology infrastructure. Over the course of his career, he has advised on more than $50 billion of transaction value spanning mergers and acquisitions, capital raises, take-privates, and other complex strategic situations.
Before becoming an investment banker, Anand worked as an engineer at Netflix and Yahoo!, experience that continues to shape his analytical and operator-oriented approach to advising technology companies. He is particularly focused on helping management teams navigate periods of strategic change, rapid growth, and market inflection.
Selected transaction experience includes Tesla’s $6bn acquisition of SolarCity, Palo Alto Networks’ acquisition of Demisto, Aruba’s $3bn sale to Hewlett Packard Enterprise, CommerceHub’s $1.1bn sale to GTCR, Silver Spring Networks’ $1.0bn sale to Itron, Checkmarx’s $1.2bn sale to Hellman & Friedman, Embark Trucks’ sale to Applied Intuition, OTPP’s $1.7bn acquisition of Mitratech, ZeroFox’s take-private by Haveli and subsequent divestiture of its IDX segment, Intapp’s investment from Temasek, eSentire’s financing transactions, Bitglass’ sale to Forcepoint, NetMotion’s sale to Absolute Software, and Instart’s sale to Akamai.
Prior to joining Tidal Partners, Anand was a Managing Director at Evercore, where he spent over a decade advising technology companies and financial sponsors on strategic and financial transactions.
Anand is a Board Member of Bullis Charter School, where he serves on the Audit and Finance Committee
Anand received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and an M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University at Buffalo.
© Copyright 2026, All Rights Reserved by Tidal Partners LLC
