About — Uptime Lab Services

A Point Of View

Lab equipment services is a service business.

The most durable lab services companies aren't the ones with the slickest CMMS or the deepest catalog. They're the ones whose field engineers pick up on the second ring. The ones whose customers know the dispatcher by name. The ones who've held a major pharma site for twenty-five years because they showed up, year after year, and made the workhorse instruments run.

It looks the same in a compliance lab or a testing operation as it does in instrument service. The customer is buying one thing: the certainty that the work gets done, every time.

The temptation in this industry is to financialize that. Roll up five regional independents, centralize the dispatch, squeeze the parts margin, exit in three years. We're not interested. The companies worth owning are the ones that built something durable. Our job as the acquirer is to keep what works working.

Leadership & Advisory

The people behind Uptime.

Uptime is founded and led by Aytug Kulaksiz, a life sciences operator with twenty years inside the OEMs that shipped the install base. He's joined by Victor Saad, an advisor who supports the people side of growth: leadership, team design, culture, and succession.

Aytug Kulaksiz

Founder & Operating Partner

Aytug is the founder of Uptime Lab Services and the first point of contact for owners considering a sale or transition. He's spent twenty years inside life sciences companies, leading early-stage launches to managing instrument and service businesses of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. He worked on the manufacturer side of the install base that independent lab services maintain, so he knows what an aging fleet of instruments actually costs the customer, what a pharma quality lead expects from a service partner, and what separates a services company that keeps the contract from one that loses it. He holds a Harvard MBA with a healthcare focus and got his start at a healthcare startup before business school.

Victor Saad

Advisor

Victor is a talent leader, coach, and educator focused on helping owners, leaders, and teams navigate important transitions.

At Uptime, Victor supports the people side of growth: leadership development, team design, culture, succession planning, and the operating rhythms that help technical service businesses scale with clarity and care. He works with owners as they define their next role, supports emerging leaders as they step into greater responsibility, and helps teams grow without losing the trust, precision, and reliability that customers depend on.

Earlier in his career, Victor founded Experience Institute, was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in education, and served as a Lecturer in Design at Stanford's School of Engineering.

How We Engage

What a conversation with Uptime looks like.

Five stages between a first email and a closed transaction. None of them are surprises.

Stage 01

Introduction call

A no-pitch first conversation with Aytug. We want to understand the business, the customer book, the technician team, and what you might want next. If there's no fit, we'll say so on this call.

60 minutes

Stage 02

Site visit

We come to you. Walk the office, ride along on a service call if you'd like, meet whoever you want us to meet. Most decisions about fit are made on this visit, not on a spreadsheet.

One to two days, on your schedule

Stage 03

Letter of intent

A written offer at a real number, not a range. Structure, price, closing conditions, and the transition plan. No longer than two pages. Yours to take to whatever advisor you want involved.

Usually two to three weeks after the site visit

Stage 04

Diligence

Quality of earnings, customer concentration review, contract and service-portfolio assessment, legal. Coordinated to be minimally invasive on your day-to-day. We work to your team's schedule, not the other way around.

Forty-five to ninety days

Stage 05

Close

The day the company changes hands and the start of whatever transition you've designed with us. We focus on stability first, preserve what made the business successful in the first place, and support the team. Some owners step out at close. Others stay on for years. Both are fine.

A single day

How We Move

Funded, patient, and ready when you are.

Uptime has the resources and the ability to transact when the right business and the right owner come along. We're not a search vehicle raising money deal-by-deal, and we're not on a clock counting down. The pace of our diligence will match the pace of your decision.

A long-term institutional partner sits behind Uptime with operating depth across multiple service industries and more than a decade of experience working alongside founders through transitions. They're the reason we can move with patience. They don't pick the businesses we pursue or the operators we partner with. That's Aytug's call, and it always will be.

For Owners

Questions owners ask us.

The honest answers, before you ever pick up the phone.

Are you a private equity firm?

No. Uptime is a single-business acquirer led by an operator, Aytug Kulaksiz. We buy one company and run it ourselves. We're not raising a fund, building a portfolio, or rolling independents together to flip them.

What kinds of businesses do you buy?

Profitable, independent, B2B service businesses with recurring revenue, in three areas: independent lab equipment service, GxP validation and compliance, and routine analytical testing labs. If you keep labs, regulated facilities, or testing operations running, compliant, and on time, we should talk.

What happens to my team after a sale?

We invest in the people and keep the team that made the business work. We're not acquiring you to strip the organization down.

Will you change how we operate?

We focus on stability first. Our job is to understand what made the business successful, protect that, and improve carefully where it helps the company grow. We're not coming in to rebuild what already works.

Where do you operate?

We're based in the Mountain West and search nationally. Geography won't rule out the right business.

Who is behind Uptime, and who decides what to buy?

A long-term institutional partner gives Uptime the resources to transact and the patience to wait for the right fit. They don't pick the businesses we pursue or the operators we partner with. That's Aytug's call, and it always will be.

I'm not actively selling. Is a conversation still worth it?

Yes. The conversations that matter most often start years before a transaction. A first call is just a conversation, there's nothing confidential you need to share, and there's no obligation to do anything afterward.

Founded by an operator who has sat on the other side of the service promise.