Dan Ives, one of Wall Street’s most recognizable technology analysts, recently left Wedbush Securities after eight years to co-found Yorkville Ives & Co., a new merchant banking firm formed in partnership with Yorkville Securities. The new firm combines investment banking, equity research, institutional trading, and principal investing, with a strategic focus on artificial intelligence, technology, industrials, energy transition, and infrastructure.
The Launch of Yorkville Ives & Co.
Yorkville Ives will offer debt and equity capital raising in public and private markets, M&A advisory, capital structure consulting, institutional trading and execution services, and equity research coverage. The firm also plans to commit its own capital alongside clients and partners, which is the defining characteristic Ives cites as the distinction between a merchant bank and a conventional investment bank. Roger Briggs serves as Chief Executive Officer, with Ives taking the role of Partner and Senior Managing Director.
Ives, who spent more than 25 years covering technology stocks, built a large investor following for bullish calls on Apple, Tesla, and NVIDIA. He described the strategic rationale for his move to start Yorkville Ives & Co. in a statement saying, “The fourth industrial revolution is here, and it needs a new kind of bank, a modern merchant bank. Research, banking, trading, and capital, all under one hood, all pointed at the biggest transformation the markets have ever seen.”
The firm traces its conceptual model to Thomas Weisel and early-1990s Jefferies, outfits that published research and also put their own capital into transactions. That model largely disappeared from Wall Street over the following three decades. Large integrated banks such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan have the balance sheets but operate under post-2008 Volcker Rule constraints on proprietary risk-taking. Boutique advisory firms including Evercore, Lazard, and Centerview built strong franchises by deliberately shedding their balance sheets. The gap Yorkville Ives is targeting sits between those two poles: a firm that can write the research note, advise on the deal structure, and commit its own capital from the same address.
Yorkville Ives is also explicitly targeting clients that larger banks overlook. Mega-cap AI names such as NVIDIA and the major hyperscalers are already extensively covered. The firm aims to serve mid-market and smaller public companies that, as Ives put it, are “in the corner” while the golden-child names cannot pick up the phone. The firm launched with 10 to 20 employees and was actively recruiting across research, sales, trading, and banking functions.
One wrinkle worth noting: a Yorkville Americas subsidiary serves as investment adviser to the Truth Social Funds, a suite of “America First” ETFs tied to Trump Media. Ives has stated that the relationship predates that work and has no connection to Yorkville Ives or Yorkville Securities, adding that he has known the Yorkville principals “for decades personally.”
About Yorkville Securities
Yorkville Securities, the broker-dealer partner behind the formation of Yorkville Ives & Co., is a U.S.-based institutional brokerage firm focused on serving the needs of asset managers, hedge funds, family offices, banks, and other professional investors. The firm provides a broad range of institutional capital markets services, including equity execution, sales trading, investment research distribution, corporate access, and capital markets advisory. By emphasizing high-touch client service and access to differentiated investment insights, Yorkville Securities has positioned itself as a boutique alternative to the largest global investment banks.
The firm’s core business centers on institutional equity trading, where experienced sales traders work closely with clients to execute orders efficiently while minimizing market impact. Yorkville also supports institutional investors through providing customized trading strategies, market intelligence, and access to liquidity across U.S. and international equity markets. In addition, the firm assists corporate issuers by connecting them with institutional investors through non-deal roadshows, investor introductions, and other corporate access initiatives.
A key component of Yorkville Securities’ offering is its investment research platform. Rather than relying solely on proprietary research, the firm has built relationships with a diverse network of independent research providers, enabling institutional clients to access specialized analysis across a wide range of sectors and investment styles. This model allows investors to supplement traditional sell-side research with differentiated perspectives, particularly in niche industries and emerging investment themes. Through these partnerships, Yorkville helps clients discover unique investment ideas while supporting the broader independent research ecosystem.
Our Take
The merchant banking model Ives is reviving went out of fashion for reasons that have not entirely changed. Post-2008 regulation constrained the large integrated banks, and the boutique advisory shops that emerged in their wake competed on independence precisely because they had no capital to offer. Yorkville Ives is betting that the AI financing cycle has created enough deal flow below the mega-cap tier to sustain a model that combines all four functions. That is a reasonable thesis, but the mid-market AI financing space already has credible competitors, and being research-famous is not the same as being a trusted capital partner.
For buy-side clients, one key concern is likely to be the firm’s conflicts of interest. A firm that publishes equity research, advises on transactions, and invests its own capital in the same companies faces significant disclosure and separation challenges. Ives has pointed to a Chinese wall but maintaining that separation in a 10- to 20-person firm—where research, banking, and principal investing teams share the same address—is a clear disadvantage compared with the institutional safeguards claimed by dedicated research boutiques or larger advisory firms. Buy-side research heads evaluating Yorkville Ives’ coverage will need to determine whether the research is truly independent or effectively serves as marketing for the firm’s banking and investing businesses.
It will also be interesting to see whether Yorkville Ives develops a track record of principal investing deals that validates the merchant bank thesis or whether the firm evolves into a more conventional technology-focused boutique investment bank with a high-profile research brand attached. Ives’ name will open many doors, however, the firm’s capital deployment and deal quality over the next two to three years will determine whether it can establish a market niche and pressure firms like Needham, Roth Capital Partners, and B. Riley to sharpen their own mid-market AI coverage and financing capabilities.
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