Publish a mandate and review matched deals

Use this when

you're on the buy side and want to see the deals that fit your criteria. You can set multiple mandates if you have more than one thesis.

Your mandate tells us what you want to buy. We bring you the deals that fit, each with one fact worth knowing. Sellers with matching deals can also see your mandate and hand-pick you for their deals.

This guide walks you through publishing a mandate, reviewing matches, and updating your search.

Step 1: Start a new mandate

Open My Mandates and select New Mandate. Paste your investment criteria, or select Attach a file to upload one PDF up to 10 MB. Select Build my mandate. Review the draft before you publish it.

Prefer to enter each field yourself? Select Enter criteria manually. Drafts stay private until you publish.

The My Mandates page with the New Mandate button marked

Mandate intake with investment criteria, Attach a file, and Build my mandate marked

Step 2: Set your criteria

Your mandate is how we find deals that fit, and how sellers decide whether to hand-pick you. Review the extracted fields and any questions about missing or conflicting details. Select Edit on a section to change it, then select Done. Wait for the saved confirmation before leaving.

Deal size. Set both a revenue range and an EBITDA range if you can. Some deals report only one, so setting both means you won't miss a deal that fits.
Deal size flexibility. Choose Yes, No, or Case by case. If you'd consider a deal just outside your range, Case by case tells sellers you're open to the conversation.
Industries. Choose the industries you want to buy in. Then add any you won't consider, such as defense, cannabis, or gambling, to Excluded industries. Exclusions keep off-target deals out of your matches and show sellers you know what you want.
Locations. Name the states or regions you want to invest in. "United States" returns the whole country.
Geography flexibility. If you'd stretch for the right company, choose Yes. Otherwise, a great business just outside your stated area won't show up.
Description. Write it as if you were briefing a banker: business model, customer type, what you avoid, and why you're a good owner. Descriptions need at least 100 characters to publish, but more detail means better matches.

Tip: One mandate per thesis. A firm that buys HVAC platforms in Texas and software companies nationwide should run two mandates. Separate mandates keep each set of criteria focused, so each one brings you the deals that fit it.

Step 3: Publish

Select Publish mandate. The page tells you if a required field is missing.

Matching takes a few minutes. We email you when your matches are ready, and matching runs again as new deals go live. We also email you whenever a seller hand-picks you for a new deal.

Step 4: Review your matches

Select View matches on the mandate to see its matches in the To Review tab, sorted by fit strength. Each row shows a Worth knowing fact, revenue, and EBITDA. Strong matches have a Strong fit label. Select a deal to open it beside the list with the full details.

Every match sits in one of three places:

To Review: new matches waiting for a look.
Pipeline: deals worth pursuing. Select Save on any deal you want to pursue. On a Direct Listing with PrivSource messaging, Save also notifies the seller. The interest notice is not a personal introduction. Still send the seller a message or follow the listing's next steps. Each saved deal has a stage, from Action needed to Closed, so you always know what to do next.
Not a fit: deals you passed on. Select Not a fit to pass immediately. Add an optional note in the deal drawer or the Not a fit list. The AI sourcing agent uses feedback on sourced deals to improve future matches. Sellers don't see your reasons. Open More, then Not a fit to find these deals again.

A published mandate's To Review table with the To Review tab, the Pipeline tab, and the More menu marked

The Pipeline is shared across your firm, so your team can see which deals are already in progress.

Step 5: Let the mandate learn

As you review matches, your mandate picks up learnings: patterns in the deals you saved or passed on, and the reasons you gave. Learnings shape your future matches.

Open My Mandates and find your mandate.

Select the learning count, such as 1 learning found.

Review the patterns. To keep a learning shaping your matches, do nothing. If a learning isn't useful, select Ignore, then confirm. You can open Ignored learnings and select Restore later.

Mandate learnings with the Ignore control

Note: Learnings don't rewrite your mandate criteria. To change your criteria, select Edit on the mandate and update them yourself.

Step 6: Archive when you stop looking

Archive a mandate to stop matches and remove it from sellers' view.

Open My Mandates and find the mandate you want to stop.

Select Archive on its card, then confirm Archive this mandate?

Open the Archived tab to find it again. Select Unarchive and confirm when you want to restore it.

My Mandates with the Archive control and Archived tab

Tip: Publishing a mandate and receiving match emails are free. Membership unlocks matched deal materials and seller contact. A seller message can also unlock that specific Direct Listing for a free buyer.

Manage match emails

Open My Mandates, then Notification settings to choose who receives each mandate’s emails. A teammate who unsubscribed from all mandate emails or whose address bounces cannot receive them. Use Fix to open their account settings.

If no eligible recipient remains, the mandate can return to Drafts. Correct the email settings, then review and publish the mandate again. A link from a match email may show only the deals in that email; return to Active Deals for the full review list.

Frequently asked questions

Can I have more than one mandate?: Yes. Create a separate mandate for each thesis so each one has focused criteria.
Can I set up a mandate as a free buyer?: Yes. You don't need a paid membership to publish a mandate or receive match emails. Free monitoring continues after your preview ends. Membership unlocks deal materials and seller contact.
Which locations should I include?: Choose the states or regions where you want to invest. "United States" includes the whole country.
Do learnings change my mandate automatically?: No. Learnings shape your future matches, but your criteria stay as you set them. Edit the mandate yourself to change its criteria, and ignore learnings that aren't useful.

Do this with Claude

Connect PrivSource to Claude once and run this workflow from a conversation. Same account, same access. Set up the connection

Starter prompt

Full workflow guide →

Copy into Claude

Using PrivSource, help me publish a buyside mandate. We're looking to acquire [type of company] in [geography] with [size range, e.g. $1M-$5M EBITDA]. Draft the mandate, show me what's missing before it can be published, and fill in the remaining fields with me. Publish only after I confirm, then check whether it already has matched deals.

Then try

“Publish a buyside mandate for HVAC platforms in Texas with $1M+ EBITDA”
“Show me this week's matches and save the strong ones to my pipeline”
“What do my mandate learnings say I should change?”

Agent instructions

The skill file PrivSource publishes for this workflow. Give it to any agent that supports skills, or read it to see exactly what the tools do.

Raw SKILL.md

Show the full instructions

PrivSource Buyside Mandates

Buyside mandate tools are buyer-side. They manage the authorized buyer account's own acquisition mandates — the criteria sellers browse when looking for buyers — and the deal matches PrivSource finds for published mandates. Drafts are private; publishing makes a mandate visible to seller accounts.

Workflow

Call privsource_whoami if unsure whether the account has buyside-mandates access.
Call list_buyside_mandates to find existing mandates before creating a new one. Filter with status (draft, published, archived).
Call create_buyside_mandate with a title to start a draft. Add criteria in the same call or later with update_buyside_mandate.
Call get_buyside_mandate and check publishable and missing_fields before publishing.
Call publish_buyside_mandate only when the user asks to publish and missing_fields is empty. Publishing makes the mandate visible to sellers, so confirm intent first.

Reviewing Deal Matches

PrivSource matches live deals against published mandates. Each mandate from list_buyside_mandates includes match_count, strong_match_count, to_review_count, and in_pipeline_count — use them to pick which mandate has matches worth reviewing.

Call get_buyside_mandate_matches with the mandate id. Matches come back ordered by fit with a score, a fit_band (strong or possible), an explanation, and a review_state. Filter with review_state (to_review, in_pipeline, not_a_fit); meta.review_state_counts shows the split.
If meta.matches_first_time_finding is true, PrivSource is still building the mandate's first matches — say matching is in progress rather than reporting that nothing matched.
Each match includes a deal summary. available: false means an engaged stale match remains visible for history but the deal is no longer on the market. direct_listing: true means the seller shared it directly; shared_by identifies that seller, and Direct Listings lead their fit band.
Pass an available match's deal.id to get_deal for full details; send_deal_outreach works on contactable deals.
Use update_buyside_mandate_match for Save, Not a fit, and undo, the same actions as the dashboard. It changes only the given match: review_state: in_pipeline saves the deal to the buyer's Pipeline (on a Direct Listing, Save tells the seller), not_a_fit passes on the deal and removes it from To Review, and to_review undoes either. For not_a_fit matches, set feedback_reasons, feedback_comment, or both. The sourcing agent uses them to decide what to bring back next.
Saving to pipeline and hiding act for the whole buyer account, so confirm intent before changing review states in bulk.
Use bulk_review_buyside_mandate_matches to apply one review state to up to 50 matches of one live mandate, like the dashboard bulk action. If one match is locked or not on the mandate, nothing changes.
Paid buyers can pass sort (revenue or ebitda) with direction for to_review, and deal_type (all, direct_listing, sourced) outside in_pipeline. These are paid dashboard filters.

Not a fit reasons are too_small, too_big, wrong_location, wrong_industry, wrong_business_model, and already_seen. They match the dashboard chips. feedback_reasons replaces the stored list.

Pipeline Stages

Each saved match has a pipeline object. It is null for matches that are not saved.

stage: action_needed, waiting_on_seller, connected, cim_received, signed_loi, acquired, or closed. stage_label is the dashboard name.
closed_reason: passed, off_market, or under_loi when stage is closed.
editable: false when the deal is off market. Only signed_loi, acquired, and Closed off_market remain available then.
follow_up: present while stage is waiting_on_seller. It has waiting_since, available_on, available, requested_at, and report_back_by.

Call get_buyside_mandate_matches with review_state: in_pipeline to list saved deals in stage order. Add pipeline_stage to list one stage. meta.pipeline_stage_counts gives the count for each stage.

Move a deal with update_buyside_mandate_match and pipeline_stage. This is the same as the dashboard stage menu. Closed needs closed_reason: passed when the buyer is no longer interested, or off_market when the deal is no longer available. Save and set a stage in one call when the buyer already reached out: review_state: in_pipeline with pipeline_stage: waiting_on_seller.

send_deal_outreach moves saved Action needed matches to Waiting on advisor. A seller reply moves a Direct Listing to Connected. When a deal goes off market, PrivSource closes it. PrivSource never moves a deal to Signed LOI or Acquired; only the buyer does.

When follow_up.available is true, call request_buyside_mandate_match_follow_up if the buyer asks PrivSource to follow up.
This is the dashboard Nudge the advisor action. It needs a paid membership.
On a Direct Listing, the nudge emails the advisor a follow-up from the buyer at once.
Sourced deals, including relay deals and synced listings, use staff follow-up.
Each nudge needs a buyer request. The second nudge becomes available five business days after the first.
A repeat during the same wait returns the current state and sends nothing. The limit is two nudges per saved deal.

Use report_buyside_mandate_match_progress for the dashboard report buttons:

reached_out: the buyer contacted the advisor outside PrivSource. An unsaved deal is saved first.
connected: the advisor replied.
signed_nda: the buyer signed the NDA outside PrivSource. All saved matches for the deal record it.
passed: the buyer is no longer interested.

A report that already applies changes nothing.

Free accounts see their unlocked sourced deals. Other sourced matches appear as meta.sourced_deals counts with an upgrade_required action, not match rows.

Mandate Learnings

When the account has mandate learnings, get_buyside_mandate includes learnings and archived_learnings arrays from the buyer's match feedback. Each learning has these fields:

id: the identifier for update_buyside_mandate_learning.
dimension: the observable deal attribute (sector, geo, size, business_model, customer, or characteristic).
direction: the ranking effect (exclude, penalize, or boost).
rule: one declarative matching rule.
evidence_type: explicit for comments or implicit for behavior.
event_count: the number of supporting feedback events.
status: pending for a one-event signal or active after two or more supporting events.
observations and evidence_match_ids: the evidence summary and referenced matches.

learnings_analyzing is true while a refresh is running. Treat a pending learning as a weak signal.

Review active learnings before editing a mandate. Apply agreed changes with update_buyside_mandate.

Ignore a learning with update_buyside_mandate_learning and archived: true. Restore it with archived: false. These are the same actions as the dashboard.

Field Meaning

All criteria describe the companies the buyer wants to acquire.

min_revenue / max_revenue and min_ebitda / max_ebitda: target company financials in whole US dollars. Revenue bounds run from $10K to $500M and EBITDA bounds from $10K to $100M. Use the no_min_* / no_max_* booleans when the mandate explicitly has no bound, including a maximum above these limits; a minimum of 0 means no minimum. min_ebitda cannot exceed max_revenue.
industry_groups: the primary industry must come from the PrivSource mandate taxonomy (enumerated in the tool schema); each group takes optional sub_industries and a free-text niche. The array replaces the mandate's existing groups.
locations: PrivSource location names such as countries, U.S. regions, U.S. states, or Remote. The array replaces the mandate's existing locations.
industry_agnostic / no_geographic_preference: set these instead of industries/locations when the mandate has no preference.
description: the investment thesis; must be at least 100 characters before publishing.

Publish Requirements

Publishing requires a descriptive title, a 100+ character description, industry preferences (groups, agnostic, or exclusions), at least one revenue or EBITDA value, and geography (locations or no preference). Resolve missing_fields from get_buyside_mandate first.

Error Handling

Use archive_buyside_mandate and restore_buyside_mandate with id. Restore archived mandates before publishing.
If a tool reports validation errors, fix the named fields and retry rather than guessing new values.

Feedback reasons and notes are only available for not_a_fit matches. Set the state and the feedback together, or edit existing feedback. pipeline_stage needs a saved match with full deal access.

Exports

Call get_buyside_mandate_matches_export with the mandate id.
The response returns the file directly in export.content. No browser sign-in is needed.
If encoding is base64, decode content to bytes. If it is utf-8, use the text directly.
Save the result using filename and content_type, or analyze the CSV text in the agent.
Check ready first. Unavailable exports return unavailable_reason without file content.
The CSV includes all dashboard review states and fixed columns. Paid buyer and Deal Network access are required.
dashboard_url is optional context. It is not required to get the file.

update_buyside_mandate rejects archived, including requests that also edit content.
Use archive_buyside_mandate or restore_buyside_mandate. Send content edits separately.
Refresh the tools or reconnect if your session still shows the old input.

Notifications and firm profile

get_buyside_mandate returns match_emails for each member of a published mandate.
Use set_buyside_mandate_match_emails with enabled to turn match emails on or off. The default member is the signed-in user.
Use get_buyer_firm_profile and update_buyer_firm_profile for the buyer firm profile, the same fields as the dashboard profile page.

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