- Proprietary deal flow
- Deal opportunities a firm sources itself, directly from a founder or owner, rather than through an intermediary running a competitive process. Because no broker has shopped the opportunity to other buyers, proprietary deal flow typically means less competition and more room to shape terms before a formal process begins. See proprietary versus intermediated deal flow for the full comparison.
- Intermediated deal flow
- Opportunities that reach a buyer through a broker, investment bank, or advisor running a sell-side process on the owner's behalf. The seller has typically already engaged an advisor and may be talking to multiple buyers at once, which usually means a more competitive, more structured, and more expensive process for the buyer.
- Deal origination
- The ongoing work of finding, qualifying, and opening conversations with acquisition or investment targets before a transaction process exists. Origination is distinct from deal execution (diligence, negotiation, closing), which begins once a target is identified and engaged.
- Off-market deal
- A transaction opportunity that has not been formally marketed or run through a competitive sale process. Off-market deals are usually sourced proprietarily, directly from an owner who has not yet engaged an advisor.
- Sell-side mandate
- An engagement where an advisor or bank represents the seller, running the process to find and qualify buyers. See how the origination engine works for how the same infrastructure applies on the sell side.
- Buy-side mandate
- An engagement where a firm is actively sourcing acquisition or investment targets that fit a defined thesis: sector, size, geography, and ownership profile.
- Thesis-driven sourcing
- An origination approach that starts from a firm's specific investment criteria, rather than a generic list, and maps the market to that thesis before outreach begins. The opposite of buying a generic list and hoping it fits.
- Market mapping
- Building the full universe of companies that fit a given thesis, typically from multiple data sources plus direct research, so a firm can see its whole addressable market rather than a partial list. See the origination engine, layer by layer.
- Add-on acquisition
- A smaller acquisition made by an existing portfolio company (the platform) to expand its capabilities, geography, or customer base, as part of a buy-and-build strategy.
- Buy-and-build
- A strategy where a firm acquires an initial platform company, then grows it through a series of add-on acquisitions, rather than through organic growth alone.
- Deal sourcing platform
- Software or a data subscription that surfaces potential acquisition targets, typically as a list or database. Distinct from origination infrastructure, which also handles the outreach, qualification, and conversation-booking that turns a name on a list into an actual conversation.
- Business development associate (BDA)
- An in-house hire, often junior, tasked with researching and reaching out to potential acquisition targets. The traditional alternative to outsourced origination infrastructure, and the comparison most firms make before deciding how to build sourcing coverage.
- Qualified conversation
- A direct conversation with a founder or owner who fits the stated thesis and has shown genuine interest, as distinct from a cold reply, an out-of-office, or a gatekeeper response. The metric that matters more than raw outreach volume.
- Founder-led company
- A business where the original founder is still the owner-operator or a controlling decision-maker. Founder-led companies typically require a different outreach approach than businesses run by professional management, since the founder is both the seller and the emotional stakeholder.
- Succession-driven exit
- A sale motivated by the owner's need for a succession plan, most often near retirement, rather than by financial distress or an unsolicited offer. One of the clearest "why now" signals in deal origination.
- Broker book
- A pitch document or teaser prepared by a broker or advisor and circulated to a list of potential buyers as part of a sell-side process. By the time a firm sees a broker book, other buyers have typically seen it too.
- Auction process
- A competitive sale process, run by an advisor, where multiple buyers bid for the same asset. Auctions tend to compress timelines and push price toward the ceiling of what the market will bear, the opposite dynamic of a proprietary, off-market conversation.
- Warm outreach
- Outbound contact to a prospect who has already shown some relevant signal, such as a succession event, hiring pattern, or growth indicator, rather than a cold, undifferentiated list. See how signals are detected.
- Cold outbound
- Outreach to a prospect with no prior signal or context, sent purely because they fit a broad criteria such as industry or size. Origination infrastructure is designed to reduce reliance on cold outbound by targeting signal-qualified prospects instead.
- Deal flow velocity
- The rate at which qualified opportunities or conversations enter a firm's pipeline over time, typically measured weekly or monthly. A useful proxy for whether a sourcing effort is a one-off push or a standing, repeatable system.
- Total addressable market (TAM) for M&A
- The full set of companies that fit a firm's acquisition or investment thesis, before any filtering for readiness or signal. Knowing the TAM is the starting point for market mapping, since it defines the ceiling of what proprietary sourcing can ever surface.
- Signal-based sourcing
- An origination approach that prioritizes outreach to companies showing a specific trigger, such as an ownership change, a leadership hire, or a growth inflection, on the premise that timing matters as much as fit.
- Origination coverage
- How completely a firm is actually reaching its addressable market, as opposed to how large that market is on paper. A firm can have a large TAM and near-zero coverage if nothing is actively monitoring or reaching it.
- Deal pipeline
- The set of opportunities currently in progress, ordered by stage, from first qualified conversation through to close. Distinct from deal flow, which describes the ongoing rate of new opportunities entering the pipeline.
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