What is Deal Sourcing?
Deal sourcing is how PE firms find companies to invest in. While some deals arrive through investment banks (intermediated or “auction” processes), the most attractive opportunities often come from proprietary sourcing — finding and approaching companies directly before they formally come to market. Firms that source their own deals typically pay lower prices and face less competition.
Sourcing channels include intermediary relationships (investment banks, brokers), proprietary outreach to founders and CEOs, industry conferences, executive networks, and CRM-driven relationship tracking. The best PE firms treat sourcing as a systematic, repeatable process rather than ad-hoc networking.
Command
/source [sector or criteria, e.g. 'industrial services in Texas $10-50M']
deal-sourcing skill and runs a 3-step pipeline: discover target companies, check the CRM for existing relationships, and draft personalized founder outreach emails.
With criteria
With sector only
Without criteria
/source industrial services in Texas $10-50M revenue
/source B2B SaaS in healthcare
Claude will ask for sector, size, geography, and deal parameters. What It Produces
- Company shortlist — 5-8 target companies with name, description, estimated revenue, location, and founder details
- CRM check — searches your email and Slack for prior correspondence, flags existing relationships or prior passes
- Founder outreach drafts — personalized cold emails to founders/CEOs, 4-6 sentences, with a specific hook referencing each company
Claude will never send outreach emails without your explicit approval. All drafts are presented for review first.
How to Customize
Edit the deal-sourcing skill to adjust your firm’s intro language, investment criteria defaults, and outreach email tone and style.
See the Deal Sourcing skill for the full pipeline, email guidelines, and example interactions.
