TAE Europa, a boutique M&A firm based in Barcelona specializing in agri-food transactions across Europe, turned to Valu8 by Grata to modernize a deal process built on fragmented data sources. By replacing manual research across SABI, Google, LinkedIn, and press coverage with Valu8's Similarity Search and ownership data, Managing Partner Alvaro Raventos Rodenas and his team cut buyer list-building time by 75% and slashed corporate group verification from 30 minutes to just 2 — freeing analysts to focus on closing deals rather than chasing data.
Founded in 2014, TAE Europa is a boutique M&A firm based in Barcelona specializing in the agri-food industry across Europe. The firm focuses on lower middle market transactions, covering the full value chain from field to supermarket with an emphasis on food processing and distribution. Its deals typically range from half a million to 10M euros in enterprise value.
Approximately 70% of TAE Europa's business involves a Spanish buyer or seller, with the remaining 30% spanning France, Italy, the Benelux region, and beyond. The firm is actively expanding into Latin America, having completed one cross-border deal each year over the past few years with Latin American buyers entering Europe. The firm plans to open a dedicated LATAM office by 2027.
Alvaro Raventos Rodenas, Managing Partner at TAE Europa, shared how the firm leverages Valu8 to support its highly specialized deal flow.
Before adopting Valu8, TAE Europa relied on a patchwork of sources to fuel its deal activity. For Spanish company financials, the team depended solely on SABI (Iberian Balance Sheet Analysis System), Spain's official corporate database. Prospecting was based on accumulated industry know-how, TAE’s existing CRM, trade shows, and specialized agri-food press coverage.
This fragmented approach created a bottleneck when building target lists. Whether assembling potential acquisition targets for a buy-side mandate or identifying likely buyers for a sell-side engagement, the team had to stitch together results from Google searches, LinkedIn, CRM records, and press releases. That process could consume several hours per list. "We lacked a tool to compile a comparative and specific list of targets matching particular criteria," Alvaro said. Without a centralized platform, verifying even basic details, such as whether a company was a subsidiary of a larger group, could consume 20 to 30 minutes of manual research per entity.
Access to fresh data was a persistent hurdle for TAE Europa. "For international data, we encountered significant issues in finding information, and that's where we've seen the most improvement with Valu8," Alvaro said.
Valu8’s Similarity Search feature quickly became the team's go-to capability. The workflow is straightforward: when TAE Europa wins a sell-side mandate, the team asks the client to describe one or two profiles of an ideal buyer, then runs those companies through Valu8’s Similarity Search to surface comparable businesses across Europe. "Creating a long list for potential buyers for a sell-side mandate used to take about 4 hours. Now, it just takes 1 hour,” Alvaro said.
Reducing list-building time by 75% frees analysts to focus on deal execution rather than manual research. Corporate group verification, previously a 20- to 30-minute task per company, now takes just 2 minutes using Valu8’s ownership data.
Beyond time savings, Valu8 has shifted how TAE Europa organizes its pipeline. The team now creates and maintains shared lists directly in the platform, capturing new ideas as they emerge so potential targets are ready when the right mandate materializes.
"It’s easy to use and I would highly recommend Valu8 for prospecting and data collection,” Alvaro said.
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