How to lateral from Corp Dev to IB?

I have 3 years FP&A exp. + 1 year Corp Dev exp. at a PE-backed tech company. So far have 3 deals under my belt (ranging in size from $50M to $200M revenue) and am heavily involved in all aspects of the deal process - due diligence, financial modeling, deal thesis, execution, and integration. We haven't used bankers on any of these deals and I'm the only junior person on the team, so I'm really doing it all and have a close working relationship with the PE deal team.

I really enjoy M&A and would like to lateral into IB because of the compensation and faster career progression. But I don't have any banker relationships and the market's not great, so I'm not sure where to start. Would appreciate any feedback assessing my odds of lateraling within the next year given the current environment, plus any advice on outreach and networking. Worst case, I can go the MBA route and apply for 2024 matriculation but that's less ideal.

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I'm very open to PE as well but didn't know that was a feasible option. We do look at deals through an LBO lens so my modeling skills are also transferable.

My two follow-up questions would be, 1) Is the way to make this happen through headhunters? I don't think I have any PE relationships to leverage [aside from the deal team who owns us - they're a top MF so I assume they wouldn't hire me] 2) What size funds would I be competitive at?

 
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