Looking to Exit Your Small Business? OffDeal’s $4.7M Funding Could Be Your Ticket to a Big Sale

Small business owners looking to sell their companies have long faced a frustrating dilemma: lack of access to the same top-tier advisory services that big corporations enjoy. While Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs specialize in helping large businesses secure optimal deals, small businesses are often left to navigate the complexities of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on their own. That’s where OffDeal comes in, aiming to change the game with the help of AI.

1/ Thrilled to announce that @tryoffdeal raised $4.7M in seed funding! 🥳

We're building an AI-native investment bank, offering small business owners a faster, cheaper way to sell their companies at premium prices.

Full breakdown below 🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/TXZB9eLzYc

— Ori Eldarov (@leveredvlad) September 12, 2024

OffDeal, a Y Combinator Winter 2024 startup, recently raised $4.7 million in seed funding, led by Radical Ventures. This funding marks a key milestone in the company’s mission to offer smaller businesses the same M&A expertise typically reserved for major corporations, all powered by AI-driven automation. OffDeal’s AI agents streamline the often tedious and expensive tasks of identifying potential buyers and creating deal pitches, allowing the company’s human advisors to focus on strategic interactions.

Unlike traditional M&A firms, OffDeal automates the grunt work usually performed by analysts—like sorting through data, identifying acquisition targets, and building pitch decks. Its AI agents can comb through small business websites, analyze financials, and generate lists of hundreds of potential buyers in a fraction of the time it would take a human analyst.

But OffDeal isn’t just another fully automated service. Co-founders Ori Eldarov, a former investment banker, and Alston Lin, an ex-Meta engineer, are adamant that human interaction remains essential for closing successful deals. “The biggest mistake other firms have made is trying to automate everything with code,” said Eldarov in an interview. “When it comes to major transactions, human expertise is still critical.”

By combining AI efficiency with human insight, OffDeal is able to offer small businesses a solution that can compete with larger, more expensive investment banks—at a fraction of the cost. The company charges between 5-10% of the transaction value, similar to what traditional M&A advisors charge, but with the added advantage of AI enhancing the process.

The market potential for OffDeal is enormous. Baby boomers currently own nearly half of America’s small businesses, and as they head toward retirement, an estimated $10 trillion worth of companies will change hands by 2030. Despite this, over 80% of small business sales occur without professional advisory support, often resulting in lower sale prices and drawn-out negotiation cycles. OffDeal’s founders see this as a huge opportunity to help owners realize the full value of their businesses.

OffDeal’s AI agents are already making waves. In one demo, Eldarov demonstrated how their platform can take a company’s basic information—like website, revenue, and number of employees—and produce a tailored list of 150 potential buyers within minutes. The agents even provide details on past acquisitions, making it easy for advisors to quickly connect with prospective buyers.

Despite its technological backbone, OffDeal is clear that its platform is not designed to replace human brokers entirely. Instead, it aims to empower them, offering tools that make advisory work faster, more accurate, and more scalable. With institutional buyers already under contract and a waiting list of over 250 more, the demand for this hybrid model is evident.

Looking ahead, the $4.7 million seed round will help OffDeal expand its team, hiring more advisors and engineers to support its rapidly growing client base. While the potential for AI “hallucinations” (errors in processing) remains a concern, OffDeal’s CTO, Lin, notes that improvements in models like OpenAI’s GPT-4 have significantly reduced the risk. Still, the company emphasizes that its AI serves as a copilot, not a standalone decision-maker.

OffDeal’s vision is to become the go-to M&A firm for small businesses, providing them with the same caliber of service that’s typically reserved for larger corporations. The startup is already proving that it’s possible to blend AI and human expertise in a way that benefits both buyers and sellers—and the $4.7 million in fresh funding signals that investors believe in that vision too.

As they prepare for a busy fall, OffDeal is actively hiring across several roles, including engineering and M&A. With AI poised to revolutionize sectors far beyond M&A, OffDeal is positioned at the forefront of a new era in financial services, ensuring small business owners can finally access the tools they need to make their big exit.