Ania Aliev: Closing An AED Business Deal While in Labor

In deal-making, timing is everything.

For Ania Aliev, the closing of her first acquisition coincided with another life-changing event: the birth of her first child. While most would have postponed one for the other, Aliev managed to navigate both simultaneously, emailing investors from her hospital bed while being induced for labor.

This level of tenacity defines Aliev’s journey from institutional equity sales to becoming the owner and CEO of Life Support Systems (LSS), a niche business in the Automated External Defibrillator (AED) market.

Aliev’s background is impressive: Trinity College, institutional equity sales, and an MBA from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. Yet, in her outreach to business owners, she intentionally downplayed her resume.

"Nobody is going to care that I have a finance background... that doesn't define who I am as a person," Aliev told Will Smith on the Acquiring Minds podcast.

Instead of sending generic, corporate emails, she sent personalized notes: "Hi, this is me. I grew up in this town... I'm super pregnant. Your business looks cool... And by the way, here's my dog." Aliev says this human-first approach yielded a higher response rate than standard templates. It eventually connected her with the owner of LSS, who lived just five minutes away from her in Boston.

The seller wasn't actively looking to sell, but Aliev’s persistence — and perhaps the ticking clock of her pregnancy — created urgency. "I'm really pregnant. I'm doing this. It's now or never," she told him during negotiations.

LSS operates in the AED market, selling defibrillators and, more importantly, providing ongoing maintenance and compliance services.

Key Details:

This service component makes LSS unique. While competitors like Cintas offer similar services as a small part of a massive portfolio, LSS specializes in it. The result is a sticky, recurring revenue stream in a fragmented, growing market.

The Deal Stats:

Upon taking over, Aliev identified a major opportunity to increase Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Historically, the industry treated AED sales and service as separate line items. Aliev flipped the model.

"We're selling the AEDs well below cost, as long as they're purchased with service and for a minimum of two years," she explains.

This "razor-and-blade" strategy does two things:

While this strategy depresses short-term EBITDA due to the lower hardware margins, it drastically increases the long-term value of the business by building a larger base of high-margin recurring service revenue.

Since acquiring LSS, the business has doubled in size. Aliev is now aggressively pursuing add-on acquisitions. In September 2025, LSS acquired CF Medical Incorporated, a company with deep expertise in hospital-grade equipment and public access AEDs.

This acquisition strengthens LSS's presence along the Eastern Seaboard and fits perfectly into Aliev’s "land and expand" strategy: buy smaller competitors, integrate them into LSS’s superior service infrastructure, and cross-sell the high-margin maintenance plans.

Unlike many private equity firms looking for a quick flip, Aliev and her investors are playing the long game. She structured her search fund to allow for an indefinite hold period, prioritizing long-term compounding over short-term ROI.

With a growing market (AED usage is still under-penetrated), a differentiated service model, and a willingness to reinvest profits for growth, Aliev is building a company designed to save lives and generate returns for years to come.

"I would love to be operating this business for decades," she says.