How IGC Partners tripled qualified buyers per mandate with Inven

From global giants to niche mid-market buyers

For years, IGC Partners, a Brazil-based M&A advisory and investment banking firm, relied on traditional platforms like S&P CapitalIQ and Mergermarket to research potential buyers. While these tools worked well for large, publicly listed companies, they made it difficult to uncover less visible mid-market players — especially outside the US and Western Europe.

"Traditional platforms showed the obvious large buyers, but missed the mid-market and international players. That meant lost opportunities," says Rafael Frugis, Partner at IGC.

Building a complete buyer list often required three to four months of thorough research across multiple databases and news sources.

Testing Inven for the first time

Within just a couple of weeks of testing Inven, the team discovered companies that had never appeared in any of their other tools, including new prospects in their home market of Brazil.

The quick results convinced Partner Rafael and his colleagues to expand usage. Today, Inven is used across multiple sectors — from IT services to chemicals — several times a week to scan markets and find buyers.

Finding new buyers

With Inven, IGC Partners consistently discovers buyers that don't appear on other platforms. Many are mid-market companies backed by private equity: ideal acquirers for their sell-side clients. "With Inven, we can target niche companies from countries we had never spoken with before," says Rafael.

For example, they have expanded their reach in cross-border deals, finding buyers in South Africa, Austria, and Italy that they would never have considered before.

Faster prep, more buyers, stronger outcomes

By adding Inven alongside other AI solutions, IGC Partners completes buyer list preparation twice as fast as before.

On a typical project, the team now identifies 4–6 additional qualified buyers versus just 1–2 with traditional platforms. Many of these are mid-market or cross-border players they would not have found otherwise.

Most importantly, these new buyers directly impact outcomes: "Inven doesn't just make us faster — it helps us grow revenue by finding buyers we wouldn't reach otherwise," says Rafael.

The benefits of using AI for deal sourcing

For IGC Partners, using AI for deal sourcing has meant faster preparation, broader buyer reach, and new opportunities:

• Broader buyer lists across more geographies, including mid-market and cross-border acquirers
• Faster preparation times for every mandate, with buyer lists ready in half the time
• Stronger outcomes for clients, with more competitive processes and higher chances of a successful sale
• Inven has become a key driver of IGC Partners' success, helping the team deliver better results for every mandate.