How do investment bankers, venture capalists, private equity partners, etc find deals?
I've always been curious how #investment-banking professionals, #venture-capital professionals , #private-equity professionals find deals? Their entire premise seems to be based on having #relationships within certain industries but how do they start building these? #deal #deal-closure #sourcing #finance #capital
3 answers
John’s Answer
Hrishi’s Answer
Hey Daniel! Great question. As you mentioned, the deals environment is very much fuelled by the relationships the various parties have established in the past. Therefore, networking actively becomes a key part of this business. This may involve attending conferences, networking events, product launch events, or any such events where you have an opportunity to meet professionals and business owners. However, networking can also happen anywhere else - like at the gym, or coffee shop. It's all about building a network of connections as you never know where the referrals may take you. Keep in mind though that you should be genuinely interested in meeting people first, and seek to build trust in the relationship, as this will lay the foundation for them to reach out to you when they have a deal that you could help or be involved with down the road.
Ofcourse, the other alternative is to market your skill-sets/previous successes which would attract parties looking to enter into deals, and would want your help.
Stephan’s Answer
Hi Daniel, this is all about contacts, but most of the time clients are already customers in various departments of institutions and will be just passed on to the investment dep. Not saying that there are independent consultants involved as well, but all started in the financial industry at some point. In 2000 one of my companies in Germany went public and the process was handled by an independent consultant , who was introduced by a business friend of the CEO, and he brought in as investors , local banks, global financial institutes and insurance comp. etc. before going public.