Announcing o11's backing from Y Combinator.
Grata vs Cyndx vs o11: Deal Sourcing vs Execution
In Private Equity (PE) and Corporate Development, there are two distinct phases of a transaction:
- Sourcing: Finding the company to buy.
- Execution: Doing the work to buy it (Diligence, Modeling, IC Approval).
Technology has flooded the Sourcing side. Tools like Grata and Cyndx have revolutionized how investors find bootstrapped businesses.
But the Execution side remains surprisingly manual.
The Sourcing Engines
Grata
The “Search Engine for Private Companies.” Grata scans millions of company websites to find middle-market targets that traditional databases (PitchBook) miss.
- Great for: Thematic sourcing (e.g., “Find me all dental software companies in Texas”).
Cyndx
Similar to Grata, but with a heavy focus on “AI Matching.” You feed it a company you like, and it finds “lookalikes” using NLP algorithms.
- Great for: Finding add-on acquisitions for an existing platform.
The “Hand-off” Cliff
So, you used Grata to find the perfect target. You reached out. The CEO is interested. They send you a CIM and some financials.
Now what?
You leave Grata. You open a blank Excel sheet. You open a blank Word doc. And you start typing manually.
This is the “Execution Gap.” The speed advantage you gained in sourcing is lost in the weeks of manual diligence and modeling.
o11: Accelerating Execution
o11 is the partner to your sourcing engine. Once Grata finds the deal, o11 helps you close it.
The Deal Process with o11
The NDA:
- Input: CEO sends their standard NDA.
- o11 Action: “Review this NDA against our firm’s standard terms. Redline any deviations.”
The Teaser / CIM Review:
- Input: 50-page PDF deck.
- o11 Action: “Summarize this business into a 1-page tear sheet for the Monday Morning Partner Meeting.”
The Modeling:
- Input: PDF financial statements or messy Excel dump.
- o11 Action: “Parse these financials into our standard LBO template. Assume a 6x entry multiple.”
The IC Memo:
- Input: All the diligence work above.
- o11 Action: “Draft the Investment Committee memo using this data.”
Conclusion
Grata and Cyndx are essential for filling the top of the funnel. But a full funnel is useless if the bottom is clogged.
o11 unblocks the bottleneck. We turn “Potential Deals” into “Closed Deals” faster and with fewer analyst hours.
