For private equity
Screen and benchmark acquisition targets faster
The constraint on a deal team is rarely the number of names. It is how many can be examined properly before the process moves on. NeuraCap builds the peer set, the KPI benchmark and the transaction record for a target in the time it takes to read the teaser.
- Triage a long pipeline honestly
- Benchmark against real peers
- Test the entry multiple early
- Map bolt-ons around a platform
- Arrive at IC with the evidence
The current state
What slows this down today
Sourcing produces more names than anyone can diligence
Two hundred names in the pipeline and a team that can properly look at a dozen a quarter. Triage ends up being done on a teaser, a sector hunch and whoever shouted loudest on the Monday call.
A private target has no comparables until someone builds them
The memorandum gives you three years of adjusted EBITDA and a narrative. Testing whether the ask is sane needs a peer set and a deal record nobody wants to build for a name you may pass on.
The entry multiple argument arrives too late
By the time the comps exist, the name has been talked into the pipeline and capital has been spent on it politically. Evidence that would have killed it in week one now has to kill it in week six.
Bolt-on mapping is done from memory
A buy-and-build thesis rests on knowing who else sits in the sub-sector and what the last ten deals cleared at. That map is usually one partner’s recollection rather than a record.
The change
How NeuraCap changes the workflow
Target screening
Triage that survives the Monday meeting
- The problem
- Which names get worked on is decided from a teaser, because a proper look costs a week of associate time each.
- Why it matters
- A pipeline triaged on instinct spends the expensive resource — diligence capacity — on names that were never going to clear.
- In NeuraCap
- Enter the target, public or private. NeuraCap builds a comparable set from business substance, benchmarks the KPIs against it and shows where the company sits in the distribution.
- What you get
- A structured profile, a peer table with medians and percentiles, and a KPI benchmark that says where the asset is strong and where it is not.
- The decision it enables
- Which names get diligence capacity this quarter, and which get a pass with a reason attached.
Entry multiple evidence
Whether the ask sits inside the record
- The problem
- The vendor multiple arrives with a story attached and no quick way to test it against what comparable assets changed hands for.
- Why it matters
- Overpaying is decided at entry. The evidence that would have made the case is usually assembled after the price has been anchored.
- In NeuraCap
- Screen a structured record of precedent transactions by sub-sector, period and size band. Each figure is confirmed against two independent sources, and plausibility gates keep broken multiples out.
- What you get
- A precedent table with announcement dates, structures and multiples, and a football-field range showing where the ask sits against it.
- The decision it enables
- What to open at, what to walk away from, and which comparable deal you cite when IC asks why.
From a teaser to an IC-ready view
Put the target in
Public candidates are looked up by name or ticker. For a private target, enter what the teaser and the data room give you and NeuraCap enriches it.
Build the peer group
A comparable set is proposed from business substance rather than a sector code. Adjust it, and the medians, percentiles and KPI benchmarks move with it.
Test the ask
Screen precedent transactions for the sub-sector, period and size band, and see where deals cleared and which buyer types paid the premium.
Frame the range
A sector-appropriate primary valuation basis, cross-checked on EV/Revenue and plotted as a football field. Implausible multiples are gated out, not absorbed.
Write it up
Export to PDF or PPTX for the screening memo, and use report Q&A for the follow-ups that come back from the deal team.
The pieces behind each step: private company evaluation for targets without filings, M&A intelligence for the transaction record, valuation analysis for the range, and industry intelligence for the sector the asset has to grow in.
The deliverable
What you take into IC
- A structured profile of the target, public or private
- A comparable set with medians, percentiles and KPI benchmarks
- Precedent transactions, with what was excluded and why
- A football-field valuation range across methods
- A read on the sector the asset sits in
- An export to PDF or PPTX for the screening memo
Sell-side teams on the other side of the same process work from the same evidence base. If you also run a banking mandate, see NeuraCap for investment banking.
Proof
Judge the method on published work
Industry Sector Outlook
The structure of a sector, the valuation spread across it, and the deal record that explains the spread.
Industry Events & M&A Update
Announcements and deal activity across the sectors we cover, on a fortnightly cadence.
Sectors and sources
Which sectors are covered, which source classes stand behind a figure, and where the limits are.
Straight answers
The objections deal teams raise first
- Does NeuraCap source deals for us?
- No. It does not run your pipeline and it does not introduce proprietary opportunities. It evaluates the names you put in front of it, fast enough that triage can be evidence-led rather than anecdotal.
- Is this a substitute for diligence?
- No. It is pre-diligence work: enough evidence to decide whether a name deserves diligence and what the entry argument looks like. It is not a quality-of-earnings review, a formal appraisal or a fairness opinion, and it creates no fiduciary relationship.
- How reliable is the data on a private target?
- Private-company data is user-provided and then enriched, and is labelled that way throughout. The benchmarks come from public-company fundamentals in SEC EDGAR filings where applicable, consensus estimates for revenue, EBITDA and EPS, market price data and a structured M&A transaction record. Multiples, medians and percentiles are calculated from those inputs.
- Will it tell us what to pay?
- No. NeuraCap frames a range and shows the evidence in calibrated language rather than asserting causation. Nothing it produces is a recommendation to buy or sell a security. The bid is your decision, on your assumptions about the hold and the exit.
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