Private equity firms use three kinds of AI sourcing tools. Company search tools, such as Grata, Inven, and SourceScrub, find owners before a sale. CRM assistants, such as Intapp DealCloud and Affinity, work your own relationships. Sourcing agents find live deals from brokers and advisors. Bain found that more than 60% of the PE firms it interviewed use at least one AI tool for sourcing, screening, or diligence. Pick by the job.
Compare the tools
| Tool | Kind | What it finds | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grata | Company search | 22M+ private companies, with seller intent signals | Not published |
| Inven | Company search | 65M+ companies in 160+ markets | Not published |
| SourceScrub | Company search | 17M companies from 290,000 sources; merging into Grata | Not published |
| PitchBook | Database with AI | Natural-language questions inside PitchBook | Per user; not published |
| Intapp DealCloud | CRM assistant | Target lists from your firm's data plus market data | Not published |
| Affinity | CRM assistant | Relationship data, AI chat, and agents | $2,000 to $2,700 per user a year |
| PrivSource | Sourcing agent | Live deals from brokers, M&A advisors, and bankers | Free mandate; $299 a month |
Sources: each vendor's site, checked October 3, 2026. PitchBook's AI tool is described by SiliconANGLE. Affinity publishes its prices.
How many firms use AI to source?
Most. Deloitte's 2025 survey of 1,000 U.S. corporate and PE leaders found 86% had put generative AI into their M&A work. Of those, 35% use it for target identification and screening.
Bain's 2025 report found more than 60% of interviewed PE firms use at least one tool for sourcing, screening, or diligence. Adoption is no longer an edge. How you use the tool is.
Company search finds owners, not sellers
Grata, Inven, and SourceScrub find companies by what they do. That is how you build an add-on list in a niche that has no industry code.
Most of those companies are not for sale. Grata says its seller intent signals flag companies 6 to 12 months before they come to market. Test that claim on your own sector before you sign: ask for last year's flags, and check how many sold.
Datasite owns both Grata and SourceScrub and is merging SourceScrub into Grata. Our Axial vs Grata vs SourceScrub comparison covers what that means for a contract renewal.
CRM assistants work the network you have
DealCloud and Affinity make your own data more useful. They find who at your firm knows an owner, and they track every banker relationship. They do not find a deal no one at your firm has heard of.
Buy one when your firm already has the relationships. Buy company search or a sourcing agent when it does not.
Check the vendor is still running
AI tools come and go. Cyndx, an AI company search tool, now shows a notice on its homepage that the company will wind down and dissolve. Ask any vendor for a two-year roadmap and a data export clause.
Five questions for any AI sourcing demo
- Show me 10 companies in my niche that are not already in my CRM.
- How many of them are for sale now, and how do you know?
- Where does each record come from, and when was it last checked?
- Can I export everything, or connect my own AI agent to it?
- What is the price per seat per year, in writing?
A tool that cannot answer the second question is a database, not a deal source.
For the wider field of AI tools beyond sourcing, see the best AI tools for M&A.
Where PrivSource fits
PrivSource gives buyers an AI sourcing agent that searches broker, M&A advisor, and banker sites for live deals that fit your mandate. Advisors also send us private deals for matched buyers. Each deal comes with why it is worth pursuing and where it may be a stretch.
You can connect your own AI agents to search deals and flag interest. Apply for buy-side access at no cost.
