About
Simon Lexén
Founder & Principal, LXN Merchant Banking
I am the founder and principal of LXN Merchant Banking. I work with owners of established companies on the decisions that shape their future: whether to sell, raise capital, acquire or keep building. I advise, I invest my own capital where I believe in the company, and I work inside the business alongside the people who run it.
Based in Lugano, Switzerland · Working across Europe and North America
Biography
About Simon
Simon Lexén is the founder and principal of LXN Merchant Banking, based in Lugano, Switzerland. He works with owners of established, owner-led companies across Europe and North America as an adviser, an investor and a hands-on operator.
Simon started young as an entrepreneur and went on to spend around ten years in sales and revenue leadership, including roles as chief executive and chief sales officer. He has built and led sales organisations and taken responsibility for how companies grow: their commercial strategy, their partnerships and the revenue engine behind them.
Over time his work moved from leading to owning. As an active owner and commercial operator across a portfolio of companies, he has worked through the board, alongside management, and in interim commercial leadership roles inside the business, taking responsibility for revenue, the sales organisation and commercial direction.
His work combines investment with direct operating involvement. In the companies he works with, he strengthens operating structure, documented processes, reporting, decision-making, accountability, commercial execution and market expansion.
Simon's focus is to build companies that are more structured, scalable and less dependent on individual founders or key employees. The result should be clearer management accountability, faster execution, stronger operating control, and a better foundation for continued growth, a fundraise or a future sale.
Through LXN Merchant Banking, he leads transactions, principal investments and operating partnerships personally, from preparing a company for investment or sale to running the process that follows.
What I Bring
Experience owners can use
Commercial strategy
How a company goes to market, where it competes and how it prices. Strategy the organisation can actually carry out.
Revenue engines
The people, process and rhythm that make sales repeatable, so growth does not depend on one person.
Partnerships
Opening and developing commercial partnerships and distribution that extend a company's reach.
M&A preparation and processes
Getting a company ready for a transaction and running the process with discipline, from positioning to closing.
Capital raising
Building the investment case and finding partners whose capital fits the company's next stage.
Hands-on operating
Taking operational responsibility inside the company, on the team, the structure and the results.
Why LXN
Why I founded LXN Merchant Banking
Again and again I saw owners assemble help from different places: an adviser for the sale, a bank or investor for the capital, consultants for the strategy. Each saw part of the picture, and few stayed for the result. I wanted to offer something different.
Merchant banking is an old idea: you advise a company, and you are willing to put your own money behind your view. LXN brings that together in three connected parts. In Transactions, I help owners sell, raise capital and make acquisitions. In Principal Investments, I invest my own capital alongside owners I believe in. In Operating Partnership, I step inside the business and help build it.
The aim is always the owner's own long-term goal: a successful exit, a well-placed fundraise, or a strong, cash-generating company that is good to own for many years.
An exit
On the right terms, to the right owner.
A fundraise
Capital that fits the next stage.
A healthy business
Strong, cash-generating and good to own.
How I Work
How I work with owners
Inside, not outside
I work inside the companies I am involved with, alongside the owner and management, rather than advising from a distance. I take responsibility for the commercial side of the business: how it sells, how it prices and how it keeps its customers.
Team and structure
I work on the team and the structure as much as on the results: who owns what, how decisions are made, and how the company can run with less dependence on any one person.
Candour and discretion
I tell owners what I see, including when the right answer is to wait or to build first. Everything we discuss stays between us.
Staying for the result
I stay involved after the advice is given, through execution and beyond. A company should be stronger after our work than before it.
"I have spent my working life on the inside of companies, selling, building and owning. Merchant banking is how I want to work with owners: with honest advice, with my own capital when I believe in what they are building, and with my sleeves rolled up."
Base
Lugano, Switzerland. Europe and North America.
I am based in Lugano, in the south of Switzerland. It is a calm, international place to think clearly and a practical base for working across Europe.
I work with owner-led companies across Europe and North America, and I travel to wherever the company and its people are. Good work with owners happens in person, at their table.
Structure
LXN Merchant Banking is the trading name of the LXN group. The website is operated by LXN Holding AB. Our Swiss company, LXN Global Sagl, is in formation in Lugano.
Advisory, investment and transaction activities presented under the LXN Merchant Banking name may be undertaken through separate affiliated or dedicated legal entities. The relevant legal entity is identified in the applicable engagement or transaction documentation.
Let's talk
A first conversation is personal, discreet and non-binding.