$80-$180/hr corporate development and M&A work, on your schedule
Review a model's deal models and valuations the way you'd review them before an investment committee. Flag the synergy that's fiction, the multiple that's wrong, the risk diligence missed.
Trusted by top research companies
Hi, we're Zac and Jack, the founders of Terac. We want to talk to you directly, because you are the most important part of what we're building.
Terac is a community of experts. People who have spent years getting good at something specific and hard. The world is about to need more of you, not less. As AI takes on more of the world's work, the bottleneck shifts to the people who actually know what they're talking about.
Expert labor is the rarest resource in the world right now, and it is shockingly hard to find. The companies that need a corp dev lead's eye on a deal model that won't close spend weeks chasing people, paying placement fees, and settling for whoever is available. Meanwhile thousands of qualified people are sitting with knowledge that no one ever asks for.
That gap is what we're here to close. Every project that lands on Terac is routed to the people who actually know the answer, on their schedule, paid fairly, and only when the work is verified. No middleman taking a cut of your time. No vague gigs. No chasing checks.
We care about every single person in this community. If you join Terac, you're not a row in a database to us. We read the feedback. We answer the emails. We will fight for you when a customer is being unreasonable, and we will be honest with you when something on our side is broken. The quality of this panel is our entire company, and we owe you a serious bar.
If you've made it this far, here is what we're asking: claim your profile. Put your expertise on the record. Let the world's most ambitious teams come find you for the work only you can do.
Corporate Development questions
Still curious? Write to us at support@terac.com.
Both profiles are valuable, and sell-side specialists are often more useful for specific tasks. The work often involves evaluating AI deal narratives, CIM drafts, and positioning analyses, where sell-side pattern recognition is exactly what's needed. Buy-side integration experience is drawn on separately for synergy modeling and 100-day plan review.
Both: qualitative strategic rationale and quantitative artifacts like DCF structures, contribution analyses, and accretion/dilution logic. You're not auditing a live Excel model but judging whether the AI's reasoning and structure reflect how a practitioner works. Familiarity with precedent transaction and public company comparables methodology applies directly.
The CFA charter is recognized. Verification looks at the combination of credential, work history, and domain screening, so a CFA paired with M&A experience qualifies with no banking license. A FINRA Series 79 or a licensed fairness opinion background also qualifies and may unlock additional task types.
You're never asked to input, reference, or disclose information from any current or past client engagement. All tasks use synthetic deal scenarios, public company data, or anonymized hypotheticals. You evaluate AI reasoning in isolation, which does not implicate client confidentiality or your duty of care in a live advisory relationship.
Sector depth is a feature. Healthcare services, tech, industrials, and others each have distinct regulatory, valuation, and structure norms generalist reviewers can't reliably assess. You may be matched preferentially to tasks where that context matters, like reviewing AI EBITDA normalization logic or regulatory approval risk in your vertical.
Why your expertise matters
Today's M&A AI produces deal logic and valuations that look authoritative but fail basic diligence. Corp dev judgment is hard to simulate: knowing when a DCF assumption is defensible versus window-dressing, when an integration thesis is realistic versus aspirational. That practiced skepticism is what these tools need before anyone trusts them in advisory work.
How pay works
Top of the band reflects deal-specific depth: large-cap buy-side M&A, cross-border deals with CFIUS or FDI experience, or carve-out complexity commands a premium. All work is remote and paid on verified task completion, not hours tracked. No retainer, no minimum, so you can take work between deals.
What the work looks like
A sample of the corporate development and M&A work you would pick up. Every project is scoped, remote, and paid on verified completion.
- Review a model's LBO build and flag where debt sizing, interest coverage, or exit multiple logic wouldn't pass a credit committee.
- Evaluate an AI-drafted letter of intent and mark up the exclusivity, MAC definition, and reps scope where the language creates undue acquirer risk.
- Score machine-written precedent transaction comps for relevance, noting where the model picked inappropriate peers on size, geography, or structure.
- Build a worked carve-out separation cost analysis, identifying the stranded costs, TSA obligations, and one-time dis-synergies a model understates.
- Assess whether an AI synergy bridge sequences cost savings versus revenue synergies correctly and reflects a realistic realization timeline.
- Annotate an AI-drafted CFIUS risk memo, correcting mischaracterized covered business categories, prohibited structures, or mitigation requirements.
Specialties we match
Corporate Development projects span a wide range of focus areas. Tell us where you go deep and we route the work that fits.
- DCF and LBO modeling
- Accretion/dilution analysis
- Fairness opinion review
- CFIUS and HSR filings
- Carve-out and divestiture structuring
- Integration planning (Day 1 / IMO)
- Purchase price allocation (ASC 805)
- Precedent transaction analysis
- Synergy modeling
- Data room management (Intralinks, Datasite)
- Earnout and contingent consideration structuring
- Leveraged buyout financing
