About/Press and media
Press and media
For journalists and researchers
DealSource Systems runs outsourced deal origination for private equity firms and M&A advisors, and publishes what it measures: how business owners actually respond when a buyer or an advisor writes to them. Every figure on this page links to the page it comes from, with the method shown. You are welcome to use any of it with a credit and a link. For a comment, a sector cut that is not published, or an interview, email Frederik Jakobsen at frederik@danishleadco.io.
Quotable findings
Owner response rates by sector (October 2026). Across 288,294 acquisition and exit emails to business owners in 12 sectors, sent between 19 June and 11 October 2026, 1.2 owners per 1,000 emails said yes to a conversation. Health tech owners were the most open at 4.9 per 1,000; home services owners the least at 0.1, and 38% of the home services owners who replied asked not to be contacted again, the highest share of any sector. Full table and method.
Deal origination benchmarks (September 2026). On DealSource Systems' PE and M&A mandates, an interested owner replied a median 1.5 hours after the email they were answering, and a campaign's first positive reply arrived in about a day and a half. Across 1,748,403 outreach emails on the wider Danish Lead Co platform in 90 days, the reply rate was 1.07%, and the median campaign produced 3 positive replies in its first 60 days. Full benchmarks and method.
How to cite
Suggested citation: DealSource Systems, "Owner response rates by sector", October 2026, https://dealsourcesystems.com/blog/owner-response-rates-by-sector/. For the benchmarks: DealSource Systems, "Deal origination benchmarks from 1.7M outreach emails", September 2026, https://dealsourcesystems.com/blog/deal-origination-benchmarks/. Please link the page rather than this press page, so readers can see the method.
We never name the buyers, advisors or business owners behind the data, and no figure on these pages can be traced to one. Please do not attribute a figure to a named client.
Founder bio
Frederik Jakobsen is co-founder and CEO of DealSource Systems, which runs outsourced deal origination for PE firms and M&A advisors: proprietary deal flow through direct conversations with business owners, before brokers and auctions. He is also the founder of Danish Lead Co, a B2B outbound agency that has served more than 110 businesses and booked more than 10,000 meetings, and of SourceRank AI, which gets B2B companies recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI. He is based in Aarhus, Denmark. Author page and articles.
About DealSource Systems
DealSource Systems builds AI-assisted deal origination infrastructure for private equity firms, M&A advisors and boutique investment banks. It maps a market, reaches business owners directly, and hands the client qualified founder conversations, before a banker or an auction is involved. Pricing is published: a flat $4,000 a month per thesis, with no success fee. DealSource Systems is part of Danish Lead Co and is based in Aarhus, Denmark.
Logo and links
Logo mark (SVG): dealsourcesystems.com/favicon.svg. Please keep the mark on a light background with clear space around it.
LinkedIn: DealSource Systems, Danish Lead Co, SourceRank AI. Websites: dealsourcesystems.com, danishleadco.io, sourcerankai.com.