ProxDeal for family offices

Family offices often pursue long-term investment strategies that, alongside conventional financial products, can include direct investments in companies. Finding attractive investments matters, but it is just as important to find stakes that fit the family office’s individual investment profile in terms of culture, strategy and structure. The challenge often lies in systematically selecting companies that are the right fit – and for discreet or long-term investments, fast access to relevant target companies can be the most significant competitive advantage. This is exactly where ProxDeal comes in.

The traditional process

When searching for direct investments, family offices typically rely on their own circles, consult M&A advisors or industry experts, and trawl through public data sources. On top of this comes the laborious process of building deal flow through personal networks, reviewing industry directories and independently screening key company metrics.

Traditional database research can pose considerable challenges for family offices – particularly when they want to invest in niches or less visible markets. Compiling longlists manually also ties up a great deal of time and staff, especially when the team is small or discretion is essential in approaching the market.

A further problem with the traditional search approach is that it often relies on targets that are already well established – while highly attractive companies that stay under the radar are rarely picked up. For exclusive direct investments in particular, this can systematically narrow the range of investment opportunities.

How ProxDeal changes target company selection

ProxDeal complements the traditional approach with a structured, technology-supported method based on AI-powered content analysis and up-to-date data. The concept is built on writing a detailed short description of the target you are looking for, from which a longlist of matching companies is generated. With this content-based strategy, countless websites are searched for relevant information within a very short time – instead of navigating industry codes or standard lists. AI agents analyse all available content automatically, using daily-updated data and drawing on Germany’s largest database.

The search focuses on thematically relevant content – that is, on the products and services specified in the short description. You can make your research even more targeted by also entering the websites of comparable companies. In the results, companies with a similar content fit are prioritised, and selected filters produce a longlist that is not only structured but also transparent and easy to review.

Another decisive advantage is the ability to carry out discreet pre-deal analyses and to identify and evaluate options at an early stage – without having to launch a public market process. In addition, AI-based search reduces cognitive biases in the selection process and opens up new market segments.

Benefits for family offices

Custom search profiles and additional data

A key advantage is the ability to set up very specific, tailored search profiles and define exclusion criteria. This makes it possible, for example, to invest in specialised mid-market (Mittelstand) companies, family businesses or niches that are not visible in traditional databases. ProxDeal supplements the content-based list with essential additional data such as legal form, publicly available shareholder data and a clear company description. Key financial data, including total assets, is compiled directly from reliable sources such as annual financial statements or commercial register (Handelsregister) extracts.

Succession signals and age structures

One particular feature is that ProxDeal takes age structures into account: business owners aged 55 and over often benefit from tax advantages when selling, which means companies facing succession can be identified early. Combining different types of data makes it possible to predict high succession probabilities – for example, when a managing director is also the sole shareholder, is over 55 and there is no authorised signatory (Prokurist) with the same surname. This insight is not available in this form in other applications.

Intelligent prioritisation and outreach automation

Thanks to intelligent prioritisation by content fit, family offices can not only act faster but also weight longlists by relevance at an early stage – allowing valuable screening resources to be deployed more effectively.

Another practical benefit is the integrated outreach automation: it lets you contact a large number of relevant companies quickly and easily. Mail merge letters or emails can be highly personalised and tailored to your corporate design – with flexible customisation of subject lines, copy, logos and signatures.

Using ProxDeal on the sell-side

ProxDeal’s benefits are not limited to the buy-side: AI search can also be used on the sell-side – for example in portfolio restructurings – to identify potential acquirers. This is particularly helpful when preparing confidential transaction processes, as suitable strategic or financial buyers can be identified and prioritised in a structured way based on specific company content.

Conclusion

Family offices are increasingly faced with the challenge of identifying qualified companies for their direct investments successfully and in good time. ProxDeal offers a clear alternative to traditional research: with content-based search and the automated discovery of niche companies, longlist creation reaches a new level of quality. Instead of time-consuming database screening, ProxDeal lets you identify relevant companies faster and contact them with less time and effort – for both buy-side and sell-side searches. This turns traditional manual research into a low-effort, data-driven process – one that is substantially more targeted and faster.

Frequently asked questions