Our Story - Sceptyr - Where Legacy Meets Strategy

Our Story. Your Journey.

Sceptyr was built on thirty years of experience in finance and commerce which led to a simple observation: throughout history, enduring wealth has never been accidental. It has been designed, protected, and transferred deliberately — across generations, not market cycles. While much of modern finance focuses on products, speculation, or short-term performance, Sceptyr was founded to restore an older discipline: structured capital, rational risk, and stewardship that outlives any single lifetime. Our story begins with the belief that wealth is not merely accumulated — it is engineered, governed, and preserved with intent.

Your journey with Sceptyr is not about following trends or just chasing great returns. It is about clarity, structure, and alignment. We work alongside clients to transform income into capital, capital into enduring systems, and systems into legacy. Whether you are building, protecting, or passing forward what you have created, Sceptyr exists to serve as a steady hand — guiding decisions today so they remain sound decades, and even generations, from now.

Our History

The evolution of Sceptyr from vision to reality

1995

The Beginning

Our Founder, Josh Tolley begins providing financial and business advisory services to business owners in the mid-west, quickly reaching the top 3% in the industry but starting to recognize systemic problems preventing capital maximization and structure.

2010

Industry Recognition

With an ownership track-record of over a dozen business across multiple industries, Josh Tolley becomes a best-selling author and sought after speaker regarding producing returns beyond typical financial service providers, building marketing campaigns, and maximizing profits for families and businesses alike.

2017

Shyft Capital Launch

We launch Shyft Capital, a private placement insurance company to protect capital for generations to come while providing tax-free liquidity for clients.

2018

M&A Excellence

Our M&A service subsidiary develops a track record of eight-figure exits and leading to more expansion in that industry.

2019

Government Advisory

Our founder starts advising county, state, and national governments on economic development and capital preservation.

2021

Kingsbridge Formation

Kingsbridge is born with a growing focus on M&A services, insurance products, business and investment portfolio turn-arounds, metal diversification and alternative currencies.

2025

Private Equity & Trust Services

We launched our first private equity fund open to outside investors and within months of our first acquisition created double digit returns for our investors. We also launch our trust and estate protection services, answering the need of people with trusts and estates to provide oversight, guidance, and protection surpassing the limitations of lawyers, CPA's and Trustees along with helping design financial legacy structures for those who haven't built out a proper system yet. Sceptyr is born! By focusing all of the efforts for the multitude of sister companies and subsidiaries our goal was to create one of the most complete providers of finance and commerce services, creating one of the first true houses of commerce in the past 200 years.

2026

Revolutionary Products

We launch Sceptyr Opal Fund, a fixed income contractually obligated note with a 13.22% APY paying cash payments monthly and putting the retail side of the financial services industry on notice that providing sub-acceptable returns hidden behind the myth of security is no longer acceptable for investors who seek wealth creation and protection. Sceptyr begins offering our once private service, Balance Sheet Bankroll©, helping business and non-profits maximize profitability well beyond just increasing sales, this revolutionary service is once again allowing Sceptyr to impact the world in ways typical retail financial service and advisory firms simply cannot.

The Sceptyr Philosophy

Stewardship Over Speculation

The First Principle: Access Is a Moral Question

The most powerful tools of wealth creation and protection are not scarce by nature — they are restricted by design. Throughout history, advanced financial instruments were created by stewards, for stewards: families, guilds, city states, and institutions responsible for continuity across generations. The injustice of modern finance is not volatility, but exclusion masquerading as protection. Sceptyr exists to correct this imbalance — not by lowering standards, but by elevating access through structure, education, and discipline.

The Second Principle: Modern Finance Extracts, It Does Not Steward

The prevailing financial services model is optimized for fees, complexity, churn, and the monetization of fear and hope. The public is taught to chase upside without structure, endure drawdowns without understanding, and accept underperformance as normal. This is a system designed for extraction, not preservation. Sceptyr rejects this model entirely. We do not exist to entertain capital. We exist to govern it.

The Third Principle: Truth in Finance Is Ancient, Not Innovative

Finance obeys timeless laws: Contracts matter more than narratives. Cash flow matters more than valuation. Structure matters more than optimism. Risk is controlled, not avoided. Wealth is built deliberately, not dramatically. These principles predate modern markets and were understood by merchant banks, trade houses, and dynastic stewards. Sceptyr refines these truths rather than innovating recklessly.

The Fourth Principle: Wealth Is a Duty Before It Is a Privilege

Wealth is not a trophy. It is a responsibility. Those entrusted with capital are obligated to preserve it, deploy it productively, protect it from erosion, and transfer it intact. Speculation is optional. Stewardship is not. Sceptyr favors contractual clarity, defined outcomes, and disciplined restraint over excitement.

The Fifth Principle: Houses Endure, Firms Fade

Most financial firms are built to grow fast, sell, or collapse quietly. Houses think in generations, value reputation over revenue, and protect their name as fiercely as their balance sheet. Sceptyr is built as a modern financial House of Commerce— restoring dignity, seriousness, and moral weight to finance.

The Sceptyr Ethos

Access should be earned through education, not denied by obscurity. Capital deserves discipline, not agitation. Truth outlives trends. Structure outperforms speculation. Stewardship is the highest form of intelligence.

Leadership Team

Experienced professionals dedicated to your financial success

Josh Tolley

Founder & CEO

Josh Tolley started Sceptyr as a stand-alone subsidiary of his company; Tolley & Co after twenty-five years of starting, buying, building, selling companies. He was noticing too many people were being underserved by the established M&A business brokerages. Too little experience, too much focus on getting hundreds of listings, and certainly no backend support to help ensure the success of the clients after they buy or sell a company was too much to ignore.

Sceptyr is an independent company but also part of the Tolley & Co Business Group meaning that the Sceptyr clients are supported by and have access to a number of other companies and resources that can be deployed to assist in buying, selling, and growing your business empire.