Deal Sourcing Guide: Strategies and Best Practices
Customize alerts for critical deal milestones, new messages, and document changes. These features combine to create a seamless, secure, and user-friendly experience for all parties involved in the M&A process. If you would like to target a wide-ranging audience and form a broad customer base, we would recommend you go for both options. We have already mentioned several good solutions related to each investment app category. But now, we want to dissect two of them in detail because they can serve as great examples and inspiration material for you. Let's take a closer look at each of them and see what makes each great.
Fortunately, the climate of economy-wide deal flow stagnation appears to be lifting, as experts project an uptick in PE exits in 2024 and beyond. Overdue deals that should have happened in (if not sooner) are going to happen, and the industry figures to get back on track. It’s tempting to think of deal flow like a sales funnel, and there are certainly similarities between the two.
Advent saw a clear opportunity to buy and build within the sector, but it knew that Morrison would need some shoring up first. Advent brought in a CEO with 20 years of experience in the building supply industry, and he recruited a new executive team. The CEO rebranded the company as MORSCO and set it up as a holding company that could easily absorb newly acquired distributors. The new, more efficient holding company structure accelerated the M&A cadence and transformed MORSCO into one of the fastest-growing companies in the industry. After six large acquisitions and a slew of smaller tuck-ins, in 2018 Advent sold the company for $1.44 billion to an enthusiastic corporate buyer, Reece Group. A leading Australian distributor of plumbing, waterworks and HVAC products, Reece sees MORSCO as its ticket to expand in a US market that is growing twice as fast as Australia’s.
For PIPEs specifically, pair with a refresher on PIPE investments to align structure and disclosure expectations. However, deal terms outside filings can be thin, private market depth is still secondary, and field-level construction requires diligence that introduces audit risk. Pricing is reported around $27,660 per user per year as of Nov-2023, and redistribution of raw data is restricted, which raises both cost and compliance considerations.
The platform focuses on Delaware Statutory Trusts (DSTs), a legal structure that enables fractional ownership of institutional-grade real estate. If you're not familiar, a 1031 exchange allows you to sell an investment property and use the proceeds to buy another — deferring capital gains taxes in the process. To private equity date, more than 270,000 investors have funded over $2.2 billion through the platform. Groundfloor allows you to invest in real estate-backed loans — typically short-term financing for residential fix-and-flip or renovation projects — with minimums as low as $100 per note.
Although the basic investment case for private equity is strong, gaining access to such deals outside the institutional sphere is not so straightforward. New entrants to the market have increased the access non-institutional investors have to private equity funds. However, for experienced investors, accessing these investments through a deal-by-deal approach, such as offered by private market specialists such as Maven Capital Partners, has several advantages. Data analytics and market insights help firms turn deal signals into deal sources. Modern deal sourcing software improves deal flow by helping you identify promising opportunities faster.
When we talk about the crypto market hitting $2.53 trillion in 2026, we’re not tossing around buzzwords, we’re talking about market capitalization in action. As per Investopedia, market cap is the total value of an asset, like a cryptocurrency, calculated by multiplying its current price by the total number of coins in circulation. CFI is the global institution behind the financial modeling and valuation analyst FMVA® Designation.
We've aimed to include as many options as possible that don't impose this restriction. Every firm has different sourcing channels that drive success depending on their investment process and thesis. The best dealmakers can dive into their deal sourcing strategies to identify channels with the greatest potential for success. One of the best platforms for private capital and VC deal sourcing is Affinity.
After “gravity-defying” deal flows in 2021, many experts speculated that the pipelines would slow down. And that’s exactly what happened, as 2022 saw deal flow grind to a near-halt. In its 2023 Private Markets Review, McKinsey notes how rising inflation eventually took a toll around mid-2022. As dry powder inventories spiked, deal flows went low and have stayed there since. However, it’s important to note that deal flow is a measure of how much rather than how many.
In first half 2025, global venture capital investment in generative AI surged to $49.2 billion. This unprecedented funding wave reflects how AI and machine learning are transforming deal sourcing strategies for both investors and startups. To build a strong startup investment deal flow pipeline, prioritize networking, develop focused sourcing strategies, and leverage technology to efficiently manage and evaluate opportunities. Building a strong reputation is essential to standing out in the competitive capital markets.