You do the talking. We do the finding.
DealSmart is the origination engine behind your search. We build your target universe from UK company data, run structured outreach under your own name, and bring you owners who are open to a conversation — so your time goes into the calls that matter.
A search is one person doing the work of five.
Sourcing, screening, list-building, contact research, outreach, follow-up, pipeline admin — and, somewhere in there, the actual conversations with owners that decide whether a search succeeds.
Only the last part requires you. Everything preceding it is process work: exacting, repetitive, and entirely delegable to someone who does nothing else.
That is the arrangement we offer. You hold the relationships and the judgement. We hold the machinery that puts qualified owners in front of you.
Four reasons good searches lose momentum.
A list is not deal flow
Exporting a thousand companies takes an afternoon. Reducing them to a shortlist worth approaching takes weeks of judgement against criteria only you hold.
Outreach consumes the calendar
Identifying the decision-maker, finding a route to them, writing something worth reading, following up properly. Multiplied by several hundred companies.
Brokered processes erode returns
Once a business reaches an intermediary, you are bidding against others into a formed price expectation. Proprietary access is where the advantage sits.
Volume decides the outcome
Response rates on cold approaches are low by nature. Sustained, consistent volume is what produces conversations — and it is precisely what one person struggles to maintain alone.
Your thesis, executed with discipline.
You remain the principal throughout. Owners hear from you, correspond with you, and meet you. Our work sits entirely behind your name.
We define the mandate
A working session on your investment criteria — sector, size, geography, margin profile, ownership situation, and the characteristics that would rule a company out. The output is a written screening specification you approve before any work begins.
We build the target universe
A bespoke list assembled from UK registry and market data, then filtered by hand against your specification. You see every company and the reason it qualified — not a database export sold to five other searchers in the same sector.
We approach owners in your name
Outreach runs from a dedicated sending domain established for your search and warmed properly, so your primary domain is never exposed to deliverability risk. Owners receive a considered approach from a principal intending to buy and lead the business.
You take the conversations
Owners who respond with genuine interest are qualified against your criteria and handed to you with a brief on the business. Your pipeline sits in one managed system — every company, contact and reply — maintained on your behalf.
What you receive each month.
Four deliverables, consistently. No dashboards for their own sake, no metrics that flatter the work rather than describe it.
A maintained target universe
Your screened list, extended and refined as the search develops rather than delivered once and left to age.
Outreach run end to end
Sequences written, sent and followed up in your name, with sending infrastructure configured and monitored throughout.
Qualified owner conversations
Interested owners, checked against your criteria and briefed, handed over ready for you to take the call.
A pipeline you own
One managed system holding every company, contact and response — yours to retain, whatever follows.
We are not the right partner for everyone.
We take a limited number of mandates at a time, because the work is manual and the quality is visible in the output. It is worth being direct about where we add value.
A strong fit
- Funded or self-funded searchers acquiring UK companies
- Enterprise values of roughly £1m–10m
- Independent sponsors requiring proprietary flow
- You have defined criteria and need reach, not advice
- You would rather spend the week in diligence than in outreach admin
Likely not
- You are looking for brokered opportunities from an existing pipeline
- You are targeting £25m+, where advisers are already engaged
- You want a data licence rather than managed execution
- You need a transaction adviser or corporate finance house
- You expect signed heads of terms within a month
What searchers ask first.
Yours. Owners respond to principals rather than intermediaries, so every approach is sent under your identity from a sending domain established for your search. We operate it; you own it. DealSmart is never presented to a target company.
A database provides the same records to everyone who subscribes and leaves the work with you. We build a universe around a single thesis and then carry out the outreach, follow-up and pipeline management ourselves. The deliverable is a conversation with an owner, not a file.
Because we source UK company data properly, and one market covered well is worth more than five covered superficially. UK filing requirements make ownership and succession signals unusually legible.
Realistically, week four or five. The first three weeks cover the mandate and the universe; sending domains then require proper warming before outreach reaches volume, which is what keeps messages out of spam folders. A provider promising owner calls in the first week is either sending from a domain about to be burned, or from yours.
No. We provide research and origination services on a retainer basis. We do not advise on transactions, negotiate terms, or represent either party in a sale. You run your own deal.
Mandates are priced monthly, according to the size of the universe and the outreach volume required. We are currently onboarding a founding group of searchers on terms that reflect their role in shaping the service — we will discuss figures on the first call.
Tell us what you are looking for.
Send us your thesis — sector, size, or whatever you have already written for your investors. We will come back with an honest assessment of the universe and whether we are the right fit. No deck, no pitch.