Corporate development in the DACH region

Corporate development is one of the most strategically important functions in any growth-oriented company. Its task: to identify, evaluate and prioritise acquisition targets – before the competition finds them. In practice, however, this process regularly falls at two surprisingly mundane hurdles in DACH: the data landscape and the structured longlist.

While corporate development teams in the US and UK have long been working with specialised platforms, many DACH teams still rely on fragmented sources: one-off look-ups in the commercial register (Handelsregister) or isolated point solutions, outdated industry directories and databases, manually maintained Excel lists and the partners’ personal networks (which are, by nature, limited).

The result: longlists that are neither complete nor comparable. Decisions based on patchy information. And acquisition processes that lose speed and accuracy. This article shows how a longlist infrastructure built for the DACH region can change that: complete coverage, precise filtering and instantly comparable company data.

The problem: why target screening in DACH is so difficult

Corporate development teams typically follow a proven process: define the search space, build a longlist, set criteria, derive a shortlist, prioritise targets. On paper, that sounds systematic. In reality, the process quickly reaches its limits in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Fragmented data sources

Anyone who wants to screen the DACH market systematically has to pull together data from dozens of sources: the commercial register, the Federal Gazette (Bundesanzeiger), the Austrian company register (Firmenbuch), Zefix, industry databases, LinkedIn, company websites and press publications. Each source has a different format, different coverage and a different degree of timeliness. Building a single longlist that is consistent across all three countries takes weeks – if it can be done completely and reliably at all.

No filtering options in the primary sources

The official registers – the German commercial register as well as the Austrian Firmenbuch – are built for individual look-ups. You enter a company name and get a single entry back. What doesn’t work is building precise lists. Third-party providers that merely resell register data don’t solve the problem either, because they don’t let you build lists that meet the high standards of corporate development.

Data without context

Even if you have the register data, it only gives you company names, legal form, registered office and share capital. What it doesn’t tell you: what does the company actually do? How has its revenue developed? Who are the beneficial owners? What does the succession situation look like? Is there any M&A activity? Register data alone is not enough for a professional assessment of a company as an acquisition target or potential partner. There are numerous providers that ‘digitise’ register data, but this is of little use for corporate development and M&A.

The analyst bottleneck

Many corporate development teams solve the data problem by assigning analysts to do the research. But that doesn’t scale. If the research is done carefully, a longlist of 200+ targets often means days of full-time work. And that’s per mandate. And with every new search profile, the process starts all over again.

List providers with poor precision: the WZ code problem

Some data providers do offer the option of generating company lists – but the precision of these lists is often insufficient for professional target screening. The main reason: most list providers rely exclusively on WZ codes (the German industry classification, based on NACE) as their industry filter. That sounds systematic, but in practice it is a major problem.

• No content-based company analysis: What a company actually does is not derived from website data, product descriptions or press releases.

1. Outdated classifications: Companies that have changed their business model often still carry the WZ code they were given at founding. Particularly in dynamic sectors such as IT, healthtech or renewable energy, this leads to serious inaccuracies.
2. No plausibility checks: Conventional list providers do not validate whether a company is actually still active, whether the stated size class is plausible or whether the industry classification matches the current business model.

How target screening works with ProxDeal

ProxDeal is an AI-powered company database built specifically for the DACH region. The platform aggregates data from official registers, the Federal Gazette, company websites and other sources, and makes it searchable and filterable through a single interface and API. For corporate development teams, this means a fundamentally different workflow.

1. Define the search space – precisely and in seconds

Instead of weeks of preliminary research, corporate development teams define their search space directly in ProxDeal: narrow down the industry, set the revenue range, choose the region, filter by legal form. The platform searches more than 7 million company profiles and delivers a qualified longlist.

Crucially, the search goes beyond WZ codes and register descriptions alone. While conventional list providers classify companies solely on the basis of static industry codes, ProxDeal additionally uses AI-powered website analysis, product descriptions and other sources to capture what a company actually does. The result: longlists with considerably less noise and far fewer blind spots than pure WZ code filtering.

Example: An industrial group is looking for acquisition targets in building services engineering in southern Germany: GmbHs (private limited companies) with €5–50m revenue. With conventional sources, that means several days of research across various registers and industry directories. In ProxDeal: one filter run, five minutes, a finished longlist.

2. Build the longlist – complete and consistent

The resulting longlist contains not just company names but structured profiles: master data, sub-industry classification, headcount, company description, management, shareholder structure and contact details. All data points follow the same structure – across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

3. Benchmark and prioritise

The real lever for corporate development lies in benchmarking. Once the longlist is in place, teams can compare the targets directly in ProxDeal: balance sheet trends over several years, revenue per employee, margins, regional distribution and shareholder concentration.

This comparability is crucial. Without it, every target remains a black box that is only deciphered during due diligence. With it, corporate development teams can make well-founded prioritisation decisions as early as the screening phase and focus their capacity on the most promising targets.

4. Use signals that others don’t see

ProxDeal provides numerous data signals that are simply not available in conventional databases, including:

• Succession signals: If the managing director of a GmbH has reached the age at which a handover typically takes place and no successors are apparent in the shareholder structure, this points to a potential succession situation – and therefore to a willingness to sell.
• Insolvency proceedings in real time: Daily updated data from the insolvency register makes it possible to identify distressed targets early on.
• Management changes: A new managing director can point to a strategic realignment – and therefore to a willingness to talk.
• Shareholder concentration: Companies whose sole shareholder is also the managing director have different decision-making dynamics from those with a broad shareholder base.
• M&A activity and partnerships: Strategic acquisitions, private equity buyouts, joint ventures and partnerships can be identified with ProxDeal and provide valuable context.
  

→ Put precise longlists and data signals to work with ProxDeal.

Four corporate development scenarios in detail

Scenario 1: buy-side target screening

Starting point: A mid-sized industrial company wants to expand into renewable energy through acquisitions. The search space: Germany and Austria, GmbH and GmbH & Co. KG, €2–20m revenue, industry codes in energy and environmental technology.

Without ProxDeal: The team assigns an analyst to comb through the commercial register, the Federal Gazette, LinkedIn and industry directories. After a considerable amount of time, the analyst identifies 80 companies – but with no consistent data, no signals, no context and no synergy analysis.

With ProxDeal: The filters are set in five minutes. The platform returns 340 companies that meet all the criteria – including total assets, revenue, management and shareholder structure. The team immediately sees the complete target universe, can apply signals and derive a prioritised shortlist from the longlist in next to no time.

The synergies: The longlist is not only larger (340 instead of 80 targets) but also immediately actionable – with contact details for direct outreach and synergy insights for assessing the transaction dynamics.

Scenario 2: industry consolidation and platform strategy

Starting point: A PE fund has acquired a property management company as a platform and is now looking for add-on targets. The criteria: property management companies in North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria, 10–50 employees, positive earnings.

Here, ProxDeal enables not only longlist creation but also industry benchmarking directly on the list: how are property management companies distributed across the federal states? What level of total assets per employee is typical in the sector? Which targets are outperforming financially?

The longlist thus becomes the basis for a data-driven consolidation strategy: the team not only sees which targets exist but can rank them directly by strategic attractiveness – based on comparable, structured financial data.

Scenario 3: competitive analysis for strategic acquisitions

Starting point: A technology company is evaluating an acquisition and first wants to understand the target’s competitive environment: who are the relevant competitors? How big are they? How are they developing?

With ProxDeal, the corp dev team can generate the target’s entire industry as a list in minutes: all companies with the same or a related industry code, a comparable size class and regional overlap. The result is a market map in list form and in various professional visualisation formats – exportable, filterable and usable both for internal evaluation and for board presentations.

The synergy: The same database used for the competitive analysis also provides potential alternative targets. If the acquisition of the original target falls through, a vetted longlist of alternatives is already in place.

Scenario 4: monitoring and pipeline management

Corporate development is not a one-off process. The best teams maintain continuous target pipelines and monitor changes in the market. ProxDeal supports this monitoring with regularly updated data: new annual financial statements, management changes, insolvency proceedings and shareholder changes.

A target that showed no succession or takeover signal six months ago may be a clear candidate today. A company that has just been through a management change might now be open to talks. And an insolvent or highly indebted company in the sector may open up a distressed M&A opportunity.

→ Each of these scenarios in minutes rather than weeks. Put ProxDeal to the test and build your first longlist today.

The data foundation: what makes ProxDeal unique for corporate development

ProxDeal is not a conventional company database that is updated once a year, but a dynamic, high-performance system. The result:

This data foundation comprises five structured categories that can be retrieved individually or as a full profile:

• Firmographics: Company name, legal form, address, industry classification (including WZ code), headcount, products and services.
• Management: Managing directors, authorised representatives, general partners and limited partners.
• Ownership: Shareholder data, shareholding percentages, structures, family relationships.
• Financials: Total assets, revenue, net income for the year, equity ratios, etc. – as a time series over several years.
• Digital & Contact: Website insights and contact details.
  
  All data is accessible in your browser via the ProxDeal platform and can be exported to Excel. For teams that want to integrate data directly into their own systems, the ProxDeal API is available (as a separate product).

Why conventional sources are not enough for corporate development

Many corporate development teams still work with a combination of manual research and standalone databases. A comparison with an integrated solution such as ProxDeal shows their limitations:

The ideal corporate development workflow with ProxDeal

With ProxDeal, a typical workflow for a buy-side mandate looks like this:

1.     Define the strategic search space: Industry, region, size class, legal form – the so-called ‘hunt zone’. The more precise it is, the more targeted the results.

2.     Generate the longlist: Set the filters in ProxDeal, check the results and iterate if necessary. A longlist of 200–800 targets can be built in minutes.

3.     Enrich the data: Add website and M&A insights, financial data, shareholder structures and contact details to the longlist. Financial investors and transaction data are also provided as a separate longlist.

4.     Benchmark and prioritise: Compare the targets and select the candidates for the shortlist.

5.     Export the shortlist: Transfer it to your own CRM/M&A tool as an Excel file or via the API – including contact details for direct outreach.

6.     Activate monitoring: Track changes in the target universe: new annual financial statements, insolvency filings, shareholder changes.

This workflow cuts the time required per mandate from weeks to hours while significantly increasing the coverage and quality of the results.

Why the DACH region requires specialised data intelligence

The German-speaking region has particularities that global platforms do not capture:

• Dominance of the Mittelstand: Most M&A targets in DACH are owner-managed GmbHs from the Mittelstand – the region’s mid-sized, often family-owned businesses – rather than listed companies. Data on these firms is harder to obtain than data on listed companies.
• Disclosure requirements: German GmbHs are obliged to publish in the Federal Gazette – at least in theory. In practice, many delay their filings or take advantage of the exemptions for small corporations. Other countries have different disclosure requirements (which means that sometimes less and sometimes more primary data is available). ProxDeal handles these gaps professionally, so corporate development teams can always draw on the most reliable and comprehensive data available.
• Three countries, three legal systems: The Handelsregister in Germany, the Firmenbuch in Austria, Zefix and the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SHAB) in Switzerland – each country has a different register with different data formats. A cross-DACH analysis requires a platform that integrates all three systems.
• Succession wave: The demographic structure of the DACH Mittelstand is leading to a historic wave of business successions. Hundreds of thousands of companies will face a handover in the coming years. Corporate development teams that spot these signals early have a massive information advantage.
  

Frequently asked questions from corporate development teams