Am I on the cutting edge, or am I buying into the hype? Do I have enough tech for my team to compete but not so much that data becomes dispersed and unusable?
These are questions that every leader in almost every industry is asking themselves, and corporate development is no exception.
Shreyans Parekh, Director of Strategic Initiatives and Corporate Development at a Fortune 200 commercial real estate firm, strives to strike the right balance between two extremes he’s experienced in in his years of investment banking and corp dev.
“One side is too much technology, with no strategy for how to use it,” Parekh said. “The other, a resourceful team with too little technology to analyze the larger market picture.”
We interviewed corporate development directors from teams working on 1 to 10 deals per year with the help of Office Hours, a research tool connecting professionals through on-demand, expert interviews.
Why Do Corporate Development Teams Need M&A Software?
Modern corporate development teams operate in an environment where competition for high‑quality deals is more intense than ever. With private equity firms increasing their investments in technology to accelerate sourcing capabilities, corp dev teams must also adopt purpose‑built M&A software to keep up and win the right opportunities.
Here are 5 reasons why deal teams need corporate development software:
- To compete for deals in a tech-driven landscape
- To streamline their own sourcing and target identification
- To centralize information and improve pipeline management
- To strengthen relationships and improve win rates
- To reduce manual work and accelerate execution
5 Key Features of Corporate Development Software
Corporate development teams rely on technology that helps them move faster, see the market more clearly, and execute deals with greater confidence. While tools vary, the best platforms share five core capabilities.
- Advanced Deal Sourcing & Market Mapping
- Pipeline & Opportunity Management
- Executive Contact Intelligence & Relationship Tracking
- Integrated Market Intelligence & Real‑Time Monitoring
- Diligence, Documentation, and Cross‑Team Collaboration
Top M&A Software Used by Corp Dev Teams
We asked what technology helps corporate development experts compete in the market and close more deals. Here's what they had to say. But first: two important notes before we dive in.
1. These interviews are snapshots of corporate development software tech stacks. For an in-depth look at corp dev trends, we recommend reading Aaron Polack’s 2024 Corporate Development Trends and Compensation Report.
2. This table does not include company-wide software like Slack or Microsoft Teams. In this article, we focus specifically on M&A tools that help increase deal flow.
Corporate Development Software for Sourcing
Corporate Development Software for Pipeline Management
For due diligence, corp dev teams rely most heavily on information from Gartner Reports 451 Research, Forrester, GLG Research, and Coleman Research.
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M&A Software for the Team of One (1 deal per year)
Corporate development directors may often be a lone wolf (see here and here).
It becomes even more crucial for these solo leaders to divide their time wisely. While these individuals may not need the most elaborate deal funnel management tool, they still can’t afford to spend hours on manual tasks. For deal teams of any size, time is best spent developing a thesis, building integration roadmaps, and cultivating relationships.
One expert offers this advice: before you can assess if a software is the right fit, you need to “know the area that you want to operate in, the product category and how it's defined.”
“What's the formal name and what are analysts or other companies calling that category? You want to start identifying the different keywords that are related to it,” says the senior director of a publicly traded software company.
The sourcing tools mentioned most frequently for one-person teams were Pitchbook, Crunchbase Pro, and Grata.
Grata is a private‑market intelligence platform that helps Corporate Development teams move faster by giving them comprehensive visibility into strategic adjacencies, white‑space opportunities, and high‑fit private‑company targets — long before they surface through traditional channels.
Grata supports both sourcing and screening by consolidating private‑company fundamentals, financial benchmarks, intent signals, and competitive positioning into one searchable workflow, enabling teams to identify opportunities earlier and evaluate them with greater conviction. Grata also strengthens relationship development by helping teams track executive engagement and coordinate outreach, allowing strategic acquirers to enter processes sooner and execute deals more confidently. According to George Gould, SVP of Corporate Development at Azul Systems Inc., Grata eliminated their need to hire a dedicated sourcing employee.
Pitchbook was mentioned as a must-have resource for corp dev directors when it comes to late-stage sourcing and due diligence.
The prospecting available within Crunchbase software was described “as a useful first step,” though it had shortcomings. “Our team and the product managers use Crunchbase,” an anonymous director said. “It’s a good starting point for a search but does not give us all of the accurate information we need to make a decision about a company."
M&A Software for Medium Teams (3+ deals per year)
In 2024, a survey by Lion Equity Partners found that 62% of corp dev teams relied primarily on Excel to track deal flow.
When you’re no longer a team of one, project management comes to the forefront. As corp dev teams grow, they find the Excel no longer cuts mustard.
For medium-sized teams, we talked to corp dev leaders who invested in a myriad of project management tools: Asana, Atlassian’s suite of products, Midaxo, and Smartsheet and DealCloud.
Midaxo and DealCloud are project management software built specifically for M&A to track the deal lifecycle.
Regardless of which project management tool used, a common thread of advice started to appear with teams conducting 3 or more deals per year:
“Your tool is only as good as your team,” says the VP of Corporate Development at a publicly traded software company. “The biggest problem with tech tools is the data entry. There has to be a carrot and stick approach to new technology to make sure you’re getting the most out of it.”
In addition to project management software, medium-size corp dev teams were using a combination of sourcing tools like Pitchbook, Grata, LinkedIn Professional, and Crunchbase Pro.
M&A Software for Large Teams (5+ deals per year)
For large teams, market research can quickly become the largest part of the budget.
For large teams, market research can quickly become the largest part of the budget.
“Most of my budget is spent on information resources rather than project management tools,” says the VP of Corporate Development at a publicly traded software company. “I have my team budget and then an IT budget that is about $100k and it is all spent on deal sourcing research and tools.”
Resources like the 451, GLG Surveys, Gartner, and Forrester were commonly found alongside deal sourcing platforms like Pitchbook, Crunchbase, and Grata.
Another fee that large corp dev teams budgeted for was integrations. Corp devs need to be ready to grow subscriptions as the team expands.
“Integrations become more and more necessary over the years, especially with CRM usage,” says the Director of Corporate Development at a Fortune 200 company. “You need your fact and data sets to work seamlessly.”
Learn more about how Alex Fries, Director of Corporate Development at Progress, uses Pitchbook, Grata, and DealCloud in tandem to scope the middle market and engage executives.
Internal Communication Around M&A
Corporate Development directors not only have to track external communication, but internal as well. How do you disseminate information and build excitement company-wide about M&A efforts?
Here’s what that looks like at Progress.
Internal communication processes between sales, engineering, and product are crucial to finding the right targets. It’s important to harness your team’s knowledge of competitors and collaborators in the industry.
For a small team, the occasional slack message or email to the corp dev director is manageable. For larger corp dev teams, it’s much easier for important target information to get lost in an email or in a direct message. To keep information organized, the corp devs we spoke to often used a Google form where coworkers in sales, product, and engineering could submit target recommendations.
The form may be as simple as “name” and the company’s URL, or it might include more in-depth questions around how the target fits into the company’s overall M&A strategy.
How Grata Supports M&A Corporate Development Workflows
Grata supports M&A Corporate Development workflows by giving teams comprehensive visibility into private markets and helping them discover high‑fit targets earlier.
Grata surfaces strategic adjacencies, white‑space opportunities, and emerging private companies using market indicators, private‑company data, and intent signals — allowing teams to identify and enter opportunities before bankers or competitors do. It then centralizes key evaluation data, including private financials, funding history, revenue ranges, trends, and competitive positioning, enabling faster and more confident screening and strategic fit assessment.
Beyond sourcing and evaluation, Grata strengthens relationship development by helping teams track executive‑level engagement and coordinate outreach touchpoints through robust CRM integrations. The platform also supports early diligence with consolidated market‑fit insights, giving acquirers the intelligence needed to prioritize deals and move them through the pipeline more efficiently. By unifying discovery, evaluation, and early diligence into one workflow, Grata reduces reliance on fragmented tools and helps Corporate Development teams act sooner and execute deals with greater conviction.
Choosing the Right Software for Your Deal Pipeline
Technology can help corp devs find more targets and stay organized – both of which increase deal flow. But technology alone doesn’t define a winning acquisition strategy. Many teams complement their tooling with structured Corporate development consulting to refine investment theses, formalize evaluation criteria, and align pipeline decisions with long-term strategic priorities.
One corp dev expert told us that one of his key responsibilities is keeping a detailed record of not only companies that were approved and moved forward into due diligence, but also the companies they accessed and did not move forward.
“Make sure your past research is easily accessible,” says the VP of Corporate Development at a publicly traded software company. “One thing that corp devs absolutely hate is if we are caught by an executive or a board member that says, ‘Hey, we just saw that X Company went out and bought Y Company.’ As corp dev leaders, we need to be able to concisely share 1. Yes, we knew the company and 2. Here’s why we didn’t move forward.”
Schedule a demo today to get started with Grata.
FAQ: M&A Corporate Development Software
What is corporate development software?
Corporate development software helps teams find acquisition targets, analyze strategic opportunities, and manage early‑stage M&A workflows using private‑market data and market insights.
How does M&A software help with sourcing?
M&A software surfaces high‑fit private‑company targets using market indicators, intent signals, and private‑company data — helping teams find opportunities earlier than traditional channels.
What are the best tools for M&A corporate development?
Tools that provide deep private‑market intelligence (like Grata) are most effective because they unify sourcing, screening, and early diligence in one platform.
Who uses corporate development software?
Corporate development, strategy, and M&A teams in growth‑oriented companies use these platforms to discover opportunities and act faster in competitive markets.
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