Deal origination for private equity and M&A in the DACH region
CegTec is the outreach agency for PE firms, family offices and buy-and-build holdings in the DACH region that want proprietary deal flow without building an origination team.
PE firms and investment holdings in the DACH region compete in auctions for the same brokered deals, while the succession wave in the Mittelstand creates bilateral off-market opportunities that never reach a teaser. Building proprietary pipeline takes systematic, sector-specific owner outreach, not more headcount on the investment team.
Is outbound a fit for you?
- Defined investment criteria (industry, size, EBITDA)
- Nameable owners or managing directors
- High transaction value
- Purely adviser or intermediary driven
- No defined target criteria
- Tickets that are too small
Ideal customer profile
- Profile
- PE/investment firms, family offices, buy-and-build holdings, M&A advisers
- Fund/deal size
- A defined ticket range with a nameable minimum transaction value
- Thesis
- Clear sector and investment criteria (industry, size, EBITDA)
- Decision makers
- Partner, investment manager, deal team, head of origination
- Cycle
- Long, bilateral, from first contact to LOI over months
- Region
- DACH Mittelstand, with selective international extension
- Trigger
- New fund, buy-and-build mandate, thin pipeline, missing origination team
Challenges in Private Equity & M&A
- 01
No proprietary deal flow
An in-house origination team is expensive and its output uncertain. Without systematic owner outreach, the pipeline stays dependent on intermediaries.
- 02
Auction dynamics inflate multiples
Brokers show the same deal to every fund. Bidding only in auctions means structurally overpaying and losing the bilateral negotiation advantage.
- 03
LP pressure on a thin pipeline
Capital needs to be deployed, but partner reviews see too little visible runway. Origination KPIs are missing from LP reporting.
- 04
Research consumes investment managers
Manual target research and first contact eat most of the week. That time is missing in due diligence and deal execution.
- 05
Add-on sourcing needs sector depth
The interesting buy-and-build targets sit in the long tail: family-run, below the broker radar, with no adviser relationship. Generic lists never find them.
- 06
Integration crowds out sourcing
As soon as an add-on is being integrated, sourcing bandwidth disappears and the pipeline dries up. Feast-and-famine instead of continuous deal flow.
Our approach
Data analytics identifies off-market targets within your sector thesis via firmographic and succession signals, and prioritizes the relevant owners instead of blindly screening tens of thousands of companies.
- Target mapping in the long tail: family-run, below the broker radar
- Succession and firmographic signals prioritize the right owners
- Data-driven identification along industry, size and EBITDA criteria
AI sales agents run sector-specific, peer-to-peer owner outreach via email and LinkedIn, tailored to your investment thesis, with qualified owner conversations as the output instead of raw contact lists.
- Per-owner personalization in sector vocabulary, not templates
- Email and LinkedIn direct outreach orchestrated, long bilateral follow-up
- No in-house origination team, no CRM integration to start
Replies are qualified against your investment criteria on a data basis and handed over with full context; analytics drives continuous optimization and scaling to additional sectors and platform mandates.
- Qualified handoff, every owner contact runs under your name
- Reporting and messaging tests, data-driven, origination KPIs for LP reporting
- Proven motion scales to additional sector theses and add-on mandates
How we work
- 01
Thesis sharpening
We translate your investment criteria, industry, size, EBITDA, into a precise target profile, instead of starting with generic company lists.
- 02
Target mapping
Data analytics screens the long tail for off-market targets: family-run, below the broker radar, prioritized by succession and firmographic signals.
- 03
Owner identification
Per target we identify the actual owner or managing director as the decision maker, not a generic list of job functions.
- 04
AI-powered owner outreach
Sector-specific, peer-to-peer multi-channel sequences via email and LinkedIn, at eye level, not researched by hand.
- 05
Qualification
Replies are qualified against your investment criteria; only relevant owner conversations within your thesis go to the investment team.
- 06
Iteration and reporting
Monthly reporting, messaging tests and continuous optimization; the proven motion scales to additional sectors and add-on mandates.
Typical occasions
- Building proprietary off-market pipeline without an in-house origination team
- Add-on sourcing for an existing platform investment (buy-and-build)
- Opening up a new sector thesis or a new fund mandate
- Bilateral owner outreach alongside the broker and intermediary channel
- Continuous deal flow instead of feast-and-famine between integration phases
- LP/investor outreach and visible origination runway for partner reporting
What you get
Predictable proprietary deal flow
Instead of dependence on auction processes, a systematic, signal-based flow of bilateral owner conversations within your thesis.
Investment managers stay on the deal
The AI sales agents take over target research and first contact; your team only runs the pre-qualified owner conversations and due diligence.
Bilateral negotiation advantage
Off-market outreach opens up targets that never enter an auction, less multiple pressure, more room up to the LOI.
Full data ownership
All owner contacts, replies and relationships stay with the fund, the engine runs under your name, with no CRM lock-in to start.
Compared to your current approach
Case study from Private Equity & M&A
ProSeller AG — B2B pipeline scaling DACH
How CegTec reached over 2,700 decision makers at resellers, distributors and manufacturers in the DACH region for ProSeller AG in 6 months, with a 28.7% reply rate and 41 qualified sales leads.
The campaign funnel in numbers
Source: linked case study.
Common questions
Does direct outreach even work for M&A deal sourcing?
Yes, when it is run peer-to-peer. Owners do not respond to generic prospecting, but they do respond to sector-literate, respectful succession conversations at eye level. That is exactly what our sequences are built for.
We already work with M&A advisers and brokers. Why add outbound?
Brokered mandates reach every fund at the same time. Direct owner outreach opens bilateral off-market conversations that never enter an auction process. It complements the intermediary channel rather than replacing it.
Do the owner relationships stay with us?
Completely. We initiate conversations, you lead them. Every contact runs under your name, and all relationships, data and follow-up processes remain with the fund.
How sector-specific can you source?
The narrower the thesis, the better. Instead of screening tens of thousands of companies, we identify the relevant targets in your segment and address their owners in sector vocabulary, not templates.
Does this replace our investment team?
No. Your investment managers receive pre-qualified owner conversations instead of doing cold research themselves. Their time goes into due diligence and deal execution, where it generates returns.
Is direct owner outreach GDPR-compliant?
Yes. We exclusively use business contact data from publicly available sources, document the legal basis for every contact and consistently apply opt-out mechanisms.
What results are realistic?
As a reference for the engine: in a multi-segment campaign for ProSeller AG we contacted 2,777 decision makers, reached a 28.7% reply rate and generated 41 qualified conversations. In an M&A context we define the success metric together: qualified owner conversations within your sector thesis.
Terminology
- Off-market
- A transaction initiated bilaterally, without an auction process or broker mandate.
- Deal origination
- The systematic identification and first contact of potential acquisition targets.
- Add-on
- An acquisition for an existing platform investment as part of a buy-and-build strategy.
- LOI
- Letter of Intent, a non-binding declaration of interest preceding a transaction.
Make pipeline in Private Equity & M&A predictable
30 minutes to walk through your vertical, your stack and realistic outcomes, and an honest take on whether outbound is a fit for you.
Book an intro call →Further playbooks for Private Equity & M&A
The perfect outbound stack
Tools plus process for predictable lead generation.
Data-driven outbound playbook
Make campaign decisions with data instead of guessing.
Objection handling for B2B
Handle objections so they close deals instead of losing them.