Deal sourcing, particularly direct outbound deal sourcing, can be a time-consuming effort for dealmakers. For the top firms there are even designated roles-- business development analysts-- who are specifically tasked with list creation and executive outreach.
To effectively source deals, dealmakers need in-depth industry knowledge and impressive networking skills. How does AI fit into these aspects of deal sourcing?
AI can't replace years of experience investing in a space, AI can't replace in-person conversations with executives, but what it can do is reduce the amount of time it takes to get in front of your targets.
So what can dealmakers get off their plates so they can spend more of their time building their networks and deal funnels?
That’s where AI comes in.
AI can Help Improve Your Industry Knowledge
See Company Breakdowns (at scale).
AI is built to recognize patterns at a speed humans cannot replicate. No amount of know-how or self-improvement will give a dealmaker the ability to read millions of webpages in seconds, so the top dealmakers are leaning in to what AI can teach them about a space, even a space they've been in for years.
AI can help dealmakers map markets--see the makeup of millions of companies in seconds. How many are based in the US? How many are bootstrapped vs funded companies?
See Other Investors in Your Space.
Private market dealmakers investing in an industry should also know who are the financial sponsors and strategic corporates also investing in that space.
There's no longer a need to "ask around" or snoop on LinkedIn. AI can pull a list of investors based on keywords in seconds.
AI can Help You Find Companies
Search for companies similar to your successful port cos.
Looking to find deals similar to your last successful exit?
An AI-powered deal sourcing platform, like Grata, allows dealmakers to type in the name of a company and with one click generate a list of similar companies.
Advanced NLP algorithms can synthesize investment-related data from highly unstructured websites. ML-based tuning continuously improves the system to achieve diligence-grade data.
With similar company search, you can understand and filter on a company’s industry, business model, size, growth, location, funding, ownership, executives, and competitors in the same list.
Understand a company's core focus without having to read their website.
AI's trained on the “business internet” can understand a company's core focus at scale.
What is the "business internet?"
It's the most robust set of private company information, covering over 10 million private companies, 1.2 billion web pages, and 3 years of historical data. Grata is the only investment-aware language model purpose-built for M&A workflows that consistently outperforms ChatGPT and Google.
You don't have time to review hundreds of websites, let AI do the heavy lifting for you.
AI Powers Grata Search
Find, research, and engage with private companies. Grata is the deal sourcing platform for innovative dealmakers who want a competitive edge in identifying previously undiscoverable companies. Set up a demo to learn more.
