Traditional sourcing methods are no longer sufficient in today’s volatile and crowded global markets, encompassing over 400 million private companies and an ever-expanding array of subcategories. These methods — slow, manual, and heavily reliant on static databases — are poorly suited for today’s fast-moving market. Inven, with its AI-native platform, reimagines deal sourcing by continuously mapping and analysing a network of over 21 million companies across 160+ countries and millions of data sources.
Today, the Finnish technology company announces the closing of a $12.75 million Series A round to advance its AI-native deal sourcing platform for the global private market. Ventech and Vendep Capital led the round. Angel investor Risto Siilasmaa, founder of F-Secure and former Chair of Nokia, participated alongside existing backers Lifeline Ventures and Joint Effects, bringing total funding to approximately $14.3 million.
With this fresh capital, the company plans to double or triple its headcount over the next 12–18 months, scaling its AI engineering, product development, and customer success teams. It also plans an aggressive expansion across North America and into key financial hubs globally, aiming to establish Inven as the default platform for private market deal sourcing.
Helping private equity firms, investment banks, and consultants discover high-potential private companies
Established in 2022 in Helsinki, Finland, by former McKinsey and BCG consultants Niilo Pirttijärvi, Ekku Jokinen, and Tommi Kupiainen, Inven addresses one of the private markets’ most significant challenges: sourcing high-quality deals.
The founders experienced firsthand the manual workload and inefficiencies in deal sourcing while working at private equity firms, investment banks, and consulting firms like McKinsey and BCG. They recognised that traditional methods were slow, labour-intensive, and overly reliant on static databases, failing to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving and increasingly complex global market.
Inven was created to transform the financial industry, particularly in the M&A sector. AI and NLP automate and enhance the identification and analysis of private company targets. With exclusive data on 21 million companies and sophisticated algorithms, the platform enables M&A teams to discover, analyse, and connect with the right opportunities ten times faster. Trusted by over 700 private equity firms, investment banks, consulting firms, and VCs, including several top-20 global PE funds, Inven ensures no opportunity goes unseen.
“At Inven, we’re building the AI backbone of global deal sourcing. Deal sourcing has traditionally been labour-intensive and inefficient, especially in private markets where opportunities are dispersed and often hidden. AI makes the process faster, revealing once-invisible opportunities, giving M&A professionals a competitive edge. This new funding fuels our mission to reimagine how the world’s best deals are found, evaluated, and closed”, said Niilo Pirttijärvi, CEO and Co-founder of Inven.
Behind Inven: blend of deep, AI-driven data analysis, and proactive intelligence
Inven is built as an AI-native platform, with artificial intelligence integrated into every layer of its architecture, not just as a feature or add-on. The platform uses advanced transformer-based NLP models to process unstructured data from over a million sources, including company websites, news outlets, and regulatory filings.
This enables real-time analysis of companies across 47 languages, including rare Nordic and Baltic languages, surfacing insights that legacy platforms miss. Inven analyses signals and trends to deliver predictive insights, helping users prioritise opportunities and accelerate deals. For example, its predictive intent modelling flags companies with ageing leadership teams or slowing growth as likely acquisition targets, achieving 93% accuracy in retrospective validation.
“We’re building AI that transforms how high-velocity teams make better decisions. Teams don’t have time to dig through scattered and noisy data in fast-moving environments. They need systems that know what matters and have all the necessary data in one place. That’s why we’re designing Inven as an intelligence layer that filters out noise, and brings the right insight to the surface before it’s even asked for”, said Tommi Kupiainen, CPO and Co-founder of Inven.
Unlike competitors that rely on rigid industry codes or manual tagging, Inven’s AI analyses the actual content of company websites and public data. Users can describe what they want in plain language or provide examples of companies. Inven’s algorithms identify all relevant matches based on what companies do, not just how they’re categorised.
Competitive landscape and recent funding
Inven operates in a fast-evolving space where several competitors have recently attracted significant investment. Gain.pro raised $10 million in March 2024 to accelerate its global growth, while Dealsuite secured €3.5 million in the same month from Value8 to support international expansion. Grata closed a $25 million Series A in February 2022, and Tracxn completed its IPO in October 2022, raising $16.5 million in total.
“From the start, we were struck by Inven’s deeply talented, mission-driven team led by Niilo, Tommi and Ekku, and the perfect product-market fit they’ve already validated with customers. Their undisputed first-mover advantage, built on proprietary AI-powered data extraction, and proven traction position them to transform the $12.6 billion M&A data market. By extending their platform from intelligent deal sourcing into due diligence, investment data and CRM, Inven is set to own the full lifecycle of M&A intelligence. At Ventech, we are proud to work with Inven’s amazing people and support their international growth journey on the Board,” commented Tero Mennander, General Partner at Ventech.
“Having followed Inven’s journey for a while, we became increasingly excited by their deep domain expertise and fast execution across sales and product. Their trajectory so far has been nothing short of exceptional, and we’re thrilled to back such a driven and visionary team as they enter the next phase of their journey”, said Sami Ahvenniemi, General Partner at Vendep Capital.
