Comparables.ai Raises $6 Million to Find M&A Deals With A.I.
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Anyone looking to buy a company usually sees only a fraction of the possible targets, and the Finnish start-up Comparables.ai wants to close that gap with A.I. The Helsinki-based platform, which gives dealmakers access to data on more than 370 million companies worldwide, has just closed a $6 million (about 5.1 million euros) seed round.
Pragmatech and Araya Ventures Lead the Round
The round is led by Pragmatech Venture Capital and Araya Ventures, joined by Purple Ventures, Gorilla Capital, hi5 Ventures, Somersault Ventures and other investors. Comparables.ai plans to use the money to expand into more markets and strengthen its A.I. engine. According to the company, the platform is already used by more than 50,000 professionals in over 30 countries. One of the Big Four advisory firms is currently extending its deployment to more than 10 countries.
“What gave us conviction was the combination of a strong customer base, including Big Fours, consistent evidence that the product delivers real value in customers’ day-to-day work, and a team with deep M&A expertise,” said Artem Yaremchuk, general partner at Pragmatech. In his view, the market is still dominated by legacy, filter-based tools.
A Market Map in Minutes Instead of Months
Comparables.ai targets corporate development teams, private equity firms, M&A advisors and investment banks, with a focus on the mid-market. The platform combines private company financials, group structures, valuations, past transactions and verified contacts. Instead of stitching together company registries, databases and spreadsheets, users describe the market they are looking for in their own words, and the software returns matching companies along with their financials, ownership structures and decision makers.
A private equity fund, for example, could screen add-on candidates across a dozen countries at once, while an M&A advisory firm could build a complete list of potential buyers without relying only on its own network. “Mid-market M&A has always been a visibility problem,” said co-founder Martin Kangasniemi. “If you cannot see the whole field, you cannot run the best process.” Comparables.ai aims to give any deal team the information advantage of a global bank.
Four Founders From M&A and Research
Comparables.ai was founded by four people. Niko Nalli, Markus Vesala and Martin Kangasniemi bring experience in M&A advisory and financial markets. The chief technology officer, Muhammad Ammad-ud-din, earned a Ph.D. in computer science at Aalto University and did postdoctoral research at the University of Helsinki on machine-learning methods that combine data from many sources. That is exactly what the platform needs to turn patchy company data from different countries and jurisdictions into a single, unified database.
Competition From Data Giants and A.I. Start-Ups
Comparables.ai is up against established data providers such as PitchBook, S&P Capital IQ and Moody’s with its Orbis database, which have long been standard tools at banks and funds. The field of A.I. start-ups is crowded, too: The U.S. company Grata, which specializes in finding mid-market companies, is now part of the data room provider Datasite. And Inven, which also hails from Helsinki, raised $12.75 million last year for its A.I. platform for private market deal sourcing.
