MergerWare, which provides software solutions to aid integration related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A), has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding, a top executive told TechCircle.
The money was raised from Philippe Bouchet, chief executive officer of baggage and freight inspection firm Visiom, and an M&A executive from the US whose identity could not be ascertained.
MergerWare CEO Dharmendra Singh said that the fresh capital will be used to accelerate growth in the US market.
The company, which works out of Boston and Bengaluru, plans to double its headcount for research & development, marketing and sales.
Owned and operated by MergerWare Corporation, the firm has also appointed Richard Martin, a former executive at technology firm Merill Corporation, as its chief business officer.
Martin, who will be based in New York, has more than 25 years of international sales and marketing experience. He has worked with organisations such as Morgan Stanley, Reuters and most recently as head of M&A strategy at Merrill Corporation.
“I’ve spent the last decade helping firms adopt technology that helps them manage one part of the deal process. Now we can facilitate better deal making across the entire transaction lifecycle – from identifying opportunities to successful integrations,” Martin said.
MergerWare had previously raised $210,000 in angel funding across two tranches from a group of angel investors including Bouchet, a former vice-president at Schneider Electric.
MergerWare was founded by Singh in December 2015. He previously led post-merger integration projects for Schneider Electric. It was during this stint that Singh hit upon the idea of utilising machine learning to create a reporting mechanism to help integration teams manage the complexities of the process.
MergerWare’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering is used for management and execution of M&A deals. It allows companies to run systematic deal discovery and due diligence, with a specific focus on post-merger integration within the same platform.
The platform is offered on a subscription-based model. The target customers are companies looking to buy other firms and global consultants who facilitate M&A integrations. It allows customers to define their M&A processes, and deploy and track them on the platform.
“Our platform takes into account cultural differences and makes predictions. With the proper data, a machine learning tool will build on past experiences and provide data that accurately informs the present situation,” Singh said. “It is important to know how a company has done M&A in the past. With that knowledge, MergerWare helps companies better identify new markets, new acquisition targets, and ultimately achieve more successful integrations.”
The startup offers business plan tracking, a feature that allows managers to map out the reasons behind an acquisition, besides tracking and measuring the effectiveness of the acquisition once the deal is completed.
Essentially, it helps companies measure the success or failure of a buyout. It also offers a common reporting and communications structure to large companies and eliminates manual tracking processes.
