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Roll-up
Not the fruit kind
Dan Entrup
August 11, 2025
We talk about it a lot. Matt Ober even has a newsletter called The Roll-up (link below)
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We discuss hypotheticals,, what-ifs, they-shoulds, best practices, and history, such as GlobalData, IHS, and more. But now we have an active roll-up strategy that has made huge waves in the industry, with acquisitions announced in June, July, and August. For those roll-up lovers, I call to your attention the latest: Datasite.
Founded by Ken and Lorraine Merrill as a typesetting business in 1968, Merrill Corporation rebranded to Datasite in 2020. In 2014, Rusty Wiley joined as CEO from IBM, where he was GM of Banking & Financial Markets. Also in 2020, DataSite was acquired by CapVest an international private equity firm with offices in London, New York City, and Dublin. In June 2025, CapVest announced it intends to invest $500M, organically and inorganically, to further expand Datasite’s intelligence solutions. And invest they have…
August 2025 - Acquired SourceScrub, a private company intelligence and sourcing platform. SourceScrub was founded in 2015 by Tyler Fair and Prescott Nasser. Datasite acquired the business from Francisco Partners, which bought the company in 2021.
July 2025 - Acquired BlueFlame AI, a provider of agentic AI solutions for investment and financial services. BlueFlame AI was founded in 2023 by Raj Bakhry and Henry Lindemann and previously raised a $5M Series A.
June 2025 - Acquired Grata, a private market intelligence and deal sourcing platform. Grata was founded in 2016 by Andrew Bocskocsky and Nevin Raj and previously raised a $25M Series A led by Craft Ventures.
September 2024 - Acquired Sealk, an AI search engine for M&A transactions. Sealk was founded in 2018 by Hugo Le Houarner, Lucas Bennys, Olivier Deguernel, and Ahmed Lazrak and previously raised a €1.5M Seed round led by InReach Ventures.
February 2024 - Acquired Sherpany, a board reporting and meeting management software provider. Sherpany was founded in 2011 by Tobias Häckermann, Roman Bühler, Mathias Brenner, and Nathanael Wettstein and previously raised a Series B led by Candence Growth Capital.
August 2023 - Acquired MergerLinks, a deal information and professional connectivity platform. MergerLinks was founded in 2018 by Bartosz Jaskula.
Why this all makes strategic sense
First, it creates flywheels. AI is only as good as its data, and Datasite now owns multiple differentiated data sources (company universes, deal credentials, user activity around transactions) that can feed BlueFlame’s automations. That should make the product incrementally better with scale, not just bigger.
Second, it compresses time-to-deal. Origination signals (Grata + SourceScrub) and credential context (MergerLinks) feed research (Sealk), which feeds execution (VDR), reducing the swivel-chair problem and cutting license fragmentation in budgets that have been under pressure.
Third, it’s defensible. A combined workflow + data moat is harder for pure data vendors or pure tools to match, especially once cross-product identity, analytics, and templates are standardized.
Finally, it improves monetization. Datasite historically monetized on the back of deals closing or late in the process. Upstream discovery and automation pull ARR forward and smooths cyclical exposure.
What to expect (now that we’re expecting)
CapVest’s $500M investment announcement signals both appetite and a thesis that private markets software will be won by integrated stacks, not point solutions. The transactions and steady growth add credibility that Datasite can absorb and scale what it buys. Expect continued support for organic R&D and selective M&A to round out gaps in the “front office to data room” journey.
Where they could go next
Platforms: relationship intelligence, pipeline management, portfolio monitoring: Don’t be surprised if Datasite leans into CRM-adjacent territory optimized for buyer and banker workflows (think: intros, warm paths, meeting notes, deal management, portfolio monitoring, reporting). Whether that’s a partnership-first approach or a tuck-in of a specialist remains to be seen, but it fits the “start upstream” logic.
73 Strings ($65.1M total raised, $55M Series B led by Goldman Sachs in 2025)
Affinity ($120M total raised, $80M Series C in 2021)
Altvia (backed by Marlin Equity Partners)
Chronograph (raised $20M led by Summit Partners in 2022)
DealCloud (InTapp) (IPO in 2021, $2.88B market cap as of today’s close). Less likely given size, but never say never. Maybe InTapp acquires Datasite?!
Foresight (raised $5.5M Seed round led by NEA in 2025)
Data: company, people, intent, fund: Underlying data assets, particularly those used to generate signals, enable further deeper analysis and broader landscape monitoring. A number of these datasets may already be incorporated into Datasite offerings, enabling more seamless integration in an M&A scenario.
BrightQuery (no funding announced)
CB Insights ($11.7M total raised, $10M Series A led by Pilot Growth Equity in 2015)
Crunchbase ($106.5M total raised, $50M Series D led by Alignment Growth in 2022)
DealPotential (raised $1M Seed round in 2024)
Filament Syfter ($8.9M total raised, $4.8M Series A led by FINTOP Capital in 2025)
Fintent (raised Pre-Seed in 2023)
FullEnrich (raised $2M Seed round led by Flex Capital in 2025)
Harmonic ($30M total raised, $23M Series A led by Sozo Ventures in 2022)
Inven (€12.7M total raised, €11.2M Series A led by Vendep Capital and Ventech in 2025)
Live Data Technologies ($8.2M total raised)
Old Well Labs (OWL) (raised $5M Series A led by Nellore Capital in 2024)
People Data Labs ($55.3M total raised, $45M Series B led by Craft Ventures in 2021)
Revelio Labs ($19M total raised, $15M Series A led by Elephant in 2022)
Specter (no funding announced)
Synaptic (raised $20M Series B led by Valor Equity Partners in 2022)
Other AI native platforms: in addition to BlueFlame, there are a number of other AI-native platforms for private markets investing workflows.
Model ML ($12.5M total raised, $12M Seed round led by LocalGlobe and Y Combinator in 2025)
Primary research providers: expert networks, survey panels, research firms
Not going to list them out here. An acquisition in this area would enable more touch points within the PE diligence workflow.
Private asset classes: private credit, leveraged finance: after all, aren’t we still in the golden age of private credit?
Deal flow platforms: help clients find companies for sale and enable direct connections to executives and M&A advisors
Axial ($33.5M total raised)
Risks to watch
Roll-ups can collapse under their own weight if integration lags the press releases. The bar is high: shared identity, cross-product search, unified data models, and coherent packaging/pricing. Datasite’s Sealk and Blueflame moves imply a plan to unify discovery and automation layers. Execution will determine whether customers see one platform or four logins. Another watch-out: data licensing and provenance. Owning SourceScrub and Grata raises the stakes on de-duping and lineage, though much of this was probably worked out in the deal theses.
The bottom line
With MergerLinks (credentials), Sealk (search), Sherpany (board management) Grata (company graph + origination), Blueflame (agentic AI), and now SourceScrub (deep private company data + sourcing workflows), Datasite is executing a deliberate consolidation of the private-market operating system. It’s a bet that the next phase of dealmaking is less about where you host diligence files and more about how quickly you generate conviction, and that the winner will be the platform that owns both the data and the workflow that turns that data into closed deals. CapVest’s checkbook and patience suggest they plan to see this through.
Who do you think they’ll acquire next? What are some of the other roll-ups you’re watching? This will be posted on LinkedIn - your likes / comments are appreciated.
Views here are the author’s own and not of any employers or companies. The author may be compensated for pieces in this newsletter.