M&A Awards 2021

18 Acquisition International - M&A Awards 2021 Most Innovative M&A platform 2021 smartmerger.com is a young, Swiss/German company specialising in M&A solutions. What sets smartmerger. com apart is its innovative approach to managing the entire M&A cycle, from identifying targets through to post- merger integration. The cloud-based smartmerger.com M&A platform replaces the traditional virtual document room with a real data room that manages structured data rather than entire documents, reducing the manual overhead dramatically while improving transparency and implementing stringent access control. In light of the company’s M&A Awards success, we got in touch with founder and owner Michael Klawon to learn more. martmerger.com delivers its M&Aplatform to clients of any size: from small M&A boutiques to multinational enterprises. It is the only M&A platform in the market offering fully digitalised data management while interlinking all phases of an M&A process, from target screening to integration management. To make the platform user-friendly, smartmerger.com has created a dedicated suite of individual web applications focused on helping users overcome specific challenges. These apps, many of which come pre-loaded with templates and checklists, combine to form a comprehensive, ready-to-use M&A software ecosystem. smartmerger.com was established in 2010 and has main offices in Zurich, Switzerland and Munich, Germany – countries with strict compliance standards for data protection and financial-grade security. Security is therefore part of the DNA of smartmerger.com. The company applies these standards consistently around the globe. Until last year, smartmerger.com generally sold its platform as a white-label product, enabling clients to implement a fully digitalised M&A process under their own brand. smartmerger.com has become a trusted partner of many companies, learning from each transaction and incorporating these lessons in its apps. This year the company will reposition; it plans to step out of the shadow and launch its online service under its own brand to become more visible to the M&A community. The white-label option will continue to be available though, says smartmerger.com founder and owner Michael Klawon: “As of February, our new online store will provide immediate subscription access to preconfigured, ready-to-use online applications. But one of the greatest benefits of our solution is that smartmerger. com fully integrates with other partners or data sources. For example, we offer APIs to single-sign-on providers, file storage providers, or connectors to market data.” smartmerger.com applies the concepts of “Industry 4.0”, the fourth industrial revolution (4IR), to provide access to a data lake of all relevant M&A S Dec21155 data in one single and trusted source. M&A is on the edge of a paradigm shift, Michael tells us: “Today’s M&A is based on documents and data rooms, or more precisely “virtual document rooms”, so it requires a considerable amount of manual work, coordination, and project overhead – all under the traditional assumption that documents are the only way to maintain security and confidentiality. But 4IR has demonstrated how much efficiency one can gain by connecting data across all parties, from customers and production to the suppliers, without sacrificing confidentiality, security and data integrity.” smartmerger.com thinks differently, says Michael. “We challenge the status quo of how M&A works. We believe that technology is made for humans and should be user-friendly and beautiful. We are convinced that people with enough passion can change the world for the better. Our team consists of M&A experts and technology enthusiasts, and all our products are designed and built natively for M&A in order to make M&A work easier and more efficient.” “We do not believe in false hierarchy but in the power of the idea. As a result, our team fosters a culture of trust, friendship and mutual support. We see the highest value of our company in people, and we care about each other, helping when needed, working as a team, and growing together.” A human-centric company, smartmerger.com is making the M&A world more human – by creating great software and digital solutions meant to be used by people! Looking towards the future, smartmerger.com will be all about connecting data and people on one platform. Michael says, “We want to become the preferred platform for M&A where clients can find everything they need to run an M&A successfully. This includes growing our network of partners who are experts bringing in their domain expertise. As digitalisation evangelists, we are open to integrating more technologies, applications, or data sources in our platform. We want M&A professionals to be able to work in their preferred environment of applications and data sources.” Company: smartmerger.com Contact: Michael Klawon Email: [email protected] Website: www.smartmerger.com