What is the term for a small, specialized investment bank?

The term for a small, specialized investment bank is a boutique investment bank.

Boutique investment banks usually focus on a limited part of investment banking rather than offering every major service under one roof. Common specialties include mergers and acquisitions advice, corporate finance, restructuring, private capital raising, or work within a particular industry such as technology, healthcare, or energy.

Compared with large full-service or bulge-bracket banks, boutiques generally have fewer offices, smaller teams, and narrower product offerings. Their appeal can include senior-level attention, industry expertise, and perceived independence in advisory assignments. Many boutiques advise on middle-market transactions, although some have become internationally recognized and work on very large deals.

The label is not perfectly standardized. “Boutique” can describe a genuinely small regional firm, an independent advisory firm that mainly provides M&A advice, or a sizable specialist that remains smaller and less diversified than a bulge-bracket bank. A shadow bank is a different concept: it is a non-bank financial intermediary, not simply a specialized investment bank.