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GrowthPal is rethinking how companies pursue inorganic growth by using artificial intelligence to turn mergers and acquisitions (M&A) from slow guesswork into a faster, data-driven process.
For many organisations, successful acquisitions depend on timing, access, and context. Yet M&A activity in the mid-market and early-stage segments has barely evolved over the years. Deal sourcing still relies heavily on banker networks, static databases, and fragmented research, leaving buyers exposed mostly to on-market opportunities while high-quality off-market targets remain hidden.
GrowthPal was founded to change that reality. Co-founded by Maneesh Bhandari, Shalu Mitruka, and Amaresh Shirsat, the company has now raised $2.6 million to scale its AI-powered M&A copilot designed to improve deal sourcing and execution.
The funding round was led by Ideaspring Capital, with participation from a group of prominent global angel investors. GrowthPal plans to use the new capital to deepen product development and expand across the US and other international markets, as demand grows for faster and more structured approaches to acquisitions.
The raise comes at a time when M&A teams are under increasing pressure. Corporate development units are leaner, deal timelines are shorter, and competition for quality assets is intensifying. While platforms such as PitchBook, D&B, Datasite, and Tracxn have improved access to company data, they largely focus on aggregation rather than insight.
GrowthPal takes a different approach. Its platform applies AI-driven reasoning to help teams identify which companies truly matter, based on strategic fit, sector relevance, and transaction readiness.
“M&A sourcing is where most of the time and effort gets wasted, especially in smaller and mid-market deals,” said Maneesh Bhandari, co-founder and CEO of GrowthPal. “Teams spend weeks researching and chasing opportunities that go nowhere. We built GrowthPal to help buyers focus on high-intent, high-fit targets and move from mandate to meaningful conversations much faster.”
The platform functions as an intelligent M&A copilot. Buyers begin by defining a growth objective, such as entering a new market or acquiring a specific capability. GrowthPal then converts that objective into a structured acquisition thesis. Its AI agents analyse an enriched database of more than four million technology companies, drawing insights from public filings, hiring activity, funding history, web signals, and other indicators.
Instead of long lists of loosely relevant companies, users receive a short, highly targeted set of potential acquisition candidates, many of which are off-market and closely aligned with the buyer’s strategic intent.
GrowthPal was created to address a structural gap in the M&A ecosystem. Although more than a million startups exist globally, fewer than one per cent scale successfully, often due to limited exit options or lack of strategic partnerships. At the same time, many acquirers struggle to efficiently identify the right targets, especially for deals below $70 million, which often fall outside the focus of traditional investment banks.
By making deal sourcing proactive, discreet, and data-driven, GrowthPal aims to connect these two sides of the market more effectively.
So far, the platform has supported over 42 completed M&A transactions and enabled more than 210 letter-of-intent (LOI) stage conversations across North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Its clients include large enterprises, mid-market firms, fast-growing startups, and private equity-backed companies across sectors such as IT services, SaaS, fintech, and vertical software. In one case, a single client completed seven acquisitions within 18 months using GrowthPal.
As M&A becomes a core growth strategy for companies of all sizes, the challenge is no longer a lack of data but the ability to turn information into conviction.
“GrowthPal is tackling one of the most under-optimised parts of the M&A lifecycle,” said Naganand Doraswamy, Managing Partner at Ideaspring Capital. “By using AI to qualify deal discovery and compress timelines, the platform enables a more systematic approach to inorganic growth that traditional tools cannot deliver.”
Looking ahead, GrowthPal plans to extend its capabilities further into the transaction lifecycle, supporting valuation analysis, deal structuring, and negotiation preparation. Its long-term goal is to become a core intelligence layer for M&A teams, helping them make better decisions earlier, with greater clarity and confidence, from discovery through execution.
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