Case study – M&A advisory
More than four times the buyer reach, screened one firm at a time.
Across two live sell-side mandates, a Southeast-based M&A advisory firm held 584 buyer contacts of its own. Agents screened 1,028 sponsor firms and read 9,835 company pages and portfolio holdings to source 2,602 more, returning roughly 1,330 hours in nine weeks.
Results
A nine-week run across two live sell-side mandates.
- 4.5x
- buyer reach added
- 2,602 sourced against the firm's own 584
- 1,028
- sponsor firms screened
- each one read, not pulled from a database
- 9,835
- pages and holdings read
- company web pages and portfolio companies
- ~1,330h
- hours returned
- 3.7 full-time people over nine weeks, modelled
The challenge
Mandates won faster than buyers could be found for them.
A top-producing M&A advisory firm with a strong brand and a full pipeline, where buyer coverage ran through the managing partner's own network and conference calendar. Every mandate reached the buyers he already knew, however the buyers outside that network went unreached.
- Buyer coverage concentrated in one partner's relationships, so qualified buyers outside it were never identified
- Buyer lists assembled alongside live deal work rather than by a dedicated research function
- Under that resourcing, depth suffered – how wide the buyer universe reached, and how closely each name was screened
What went live
Agents that screen the way an analyst would, at a volume an analyst cannot reach.
A screening framework before any names
Each mandate starts from the teaser with a documented framework: buyer groups, criteria, scoring stages and the rules applied. It is written down before screening begins, so a verdict can be defended to a seller months later.
Screening at the level of evidence, not a database row
1,028 sponsor firms screened individually across the two mandates. 9,835 company pages and portfolio holdings were read and recorded against the firm they came from, so every verdict traces back to a source. Where the evidence was thin, the file says so rather than presenting it as solid.
A routed funnel, not a list
Every screened firm comes back with a verdict and a reason: on the call list, reachable only through a platform they already own, a real buyer for a different mandate, an operating company for the strategic list, or screened out.
Outreach built and run behind the firm's brand
A named contact for every shortlisted firm, screened against the firm's CRM before anything is sent. A first touch and two follow-ups written to each company rather than one template to everybody. Outreach runs on separate authenticated domains, warmed before use, so the firm's own domain is never exposed.
The two mandates
A bathroom remodeling business and an HVAC platform.
| Mandate | The firm's own contacts | Sourced by AI agents | What was delivered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bathroom remodeling | 464 | 1,142 | 1,606 contacts enrolled across three campaigns, including a 146-firm sponsor shortlist |
| HVAC | 120 | 1,460 | 1,300 contacts enrolled across 21 markets, plus a 160-firm sponsor call list |
| Total | 584 | 2,602 | 4.5 times the reach the firm held on its own |
The same reach split by buyer type:
| Buyer type | The firm's own list | Sourced by AI agents |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic operators | 537 | 2,296 |
| Financial sponsors | 47 | 306 |
| Total | 584 | 2,602 |
The sponsor figures are the shortlists that survived screening, not the full set of firms considered. 1,028 sponsor firms were screened to arrive at them.
Screening
What the screening removes.
Of the 843 sponsor firms screened on the HVAC mandate, 160 reached the call list. The other 683 matter just as much: firms nobody now has to spend time on, and that would not otherwise have been ruled out.
| Outcome | Firms | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Call list | 160 | Real buyers for this mandate |
| Add-on route only | 105 | Reachable through a platform they already own |
| Wrong mandate | 92 | Real buyers, but for a different deal |
| Operating companies | 44 | Rerouted to the strategic list |
| Screened out | 442 | Each with a reason recorded against it |
The outcome
Time returned.
The honest measure of this engagement is not a reply rate. It is the work a research function would have had to absorb.
| Line | Hours | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Bathroom remodeling mandate | 548 | Sponsor screening, portfolio evidence, contact build and sequence writing |
| HVAC mandate | 763 | Source page evidence, screening verdicts, market definition and sequence writing |
| Shared across the engagement | 50 | Framework design, deliverability management, send monitoring and reporting |
| Gross in-house hours | 1,361 | Sum of the three lines above |
| Less: hours the firm still spends | (33) | List and script approval, lead release, status calls, interested buyers |
| Total net hours returned | 1,328 | About 148 hours a week, or 3.7 full-time people |
Where the hours sit:
- Reading and extracting evidence from company pages and portfolio holdings, 492 hours. The largest line by some distance, and the hardest to fit alongside live deal work
- Writing personalised sequences across both mandates, 436 hours
- Screening verdicts, scoring and tiering on 1,028 firms, 131 hours
Method
How the 1,328 hours is calculated.
- Volumes are actuals, taken from the delivered buyer list files, the screening workbooks and the outreach platform
- Per-unit times are Analyst3 estimates of what the work takes in-house. They are not figures reported by the firm
- The figure is net of the time the firm still spends, and at plus or minus thirty per cent on every estimate the range is 919 to 1,736 hours
Hours are modelled, not client reported. Full assumptions, volumes and formulas are available on request, and every input is editable.
Why it matters
What the firm is left holding.
A buyer universe that holds up
Every name traces back to a source, and every firm that was ruled out carries the reason why. The universe can be walked through with a seller months after it was built.
Scope that grows with trust
One mandate became three, then calling, then valuation.
See what a defensible buyer universe looks like on your live mandates.
We start from your teaser, build the screening framework, and come back with the buyer universe and the evidence behind every name.