Candor Advisors: A Trusted Advisor for Selling Founder-Led Businesses

Candor Advisors is a boutique transaction advisory firm founded by Kirk Michie, who has over 30 years of experience in the financial and capital markets. The company specializes in guiding founders through the complexities of selling their businesses. Kirk Michie, and by extension Candor Advisors, are well-known as trusted advisors and thought leaders in the industry.

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Kirk’s extensive experience includes participating in over 60 M&A transactions, with a cumulative value exceeding $1 billion, along with raising more than $1 billion in capital throughout his career. This expertise forms the foundation of Candor Advisors' mission: guiding business founders towards better, more fruitful outcomes.

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THE CHALLENGE

Streamlining Buyer List Building

Operating with a lean, but efficient team, Candor Advisors wanted to simplify the process of building out their buyer lists, to include a robust and inclusive catalog of all potential buyers in the market. They required a tool that could help them to expand their buyer universe efficiently, similar to larger platforms but tailored to a boutique firm’s scale. The need was for a solution that had return on investment but was also efficient and easy to integrate into their existing workflow. 

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WHY INVEN

Choosing Inven: Advanced Features with Tailored Focus

With previous experience using Crunchbase, Candor Advisors sought out to see if there was anything similar to that option, that offered more advanced features and focus like other software options such as PitchBook. Inven proved to be just that – exactly what they were looking for.

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The primary feature that led Candor Advisors to adopt Inven’s platform was the AI-driven search functionality and user-friendly interface. Candor Advisors found Inven to provide accurate data and save time, which promised to enhance their deal-making process by targeting the right investors and buyers without the complexities that come with larger, more expensive platforms. 

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Inven is an AI-driven company database that is used for deal sourcing, finding acquisition targets and building buyer lists. It hosts an easy-to-use search, which helps advisors find investors and companies active in specific niches.

inven data

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THE RESULT

50+ Potential Buyers Discovered through Inven

Candor Advisors quickly integrated Inven into their processes. They started using Inven's AI capabilities to refine and expand their buyer list for a fintech/software business deal. This included identifying potential financial and strategic buyers, which helps the firm drive more competitive tension for better valuation and terms for selling founders.

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All that is made possible through the development of a comprehensive and robust buyer universe. Inven’s large company database and intuitive search were critical in this process, allowing Candor Advisors to find a wide range of companies that fit within their search criteria.


Candor Advisors successfully expanded their buyer universe, demonstrating Inven's utility in improving deal opportunities.

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Kirk Michie: "We were able to add roughly 50 potential buyers, both strategic and financial, to our list using Inven. The AI-driven search in Inven was pivotal in refining our buyer list, making the process more targeted and efficient."
"We were able to add roughly 50 potential buyers, both strategic and financial, to our list using Inven. The AI-driven search in Inven was pivotal in refining our buyer list, making the process more targeted and efficient," said Kirk Michie, Managing Partner.

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The ease of use and precise targeting significantly enhanced their reach for potential buyers, a crucial advantage for a small team like Candor Advisors. Their favorite features with Inven are its AI features, like descriptive search, accuracy in matching companies, and the excellent customer service.

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FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS

Candor Advisors' Top Picks: Intuitive Usage and Precision

As Candor Advisors integrated Inven into their operations, they identified  several features and characteristics that stood out, enhancing their effectiveness and efficiency.

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Descriptive Search: Simplifying Company Discovery

One of the favorite features for Candor Advisors has been Inven’s Descriptive search. The descriptive search allows you to search for companies by describing what you’re looking for in your own words. They liked that they didn’t need to figure out the exact search terms, they could just type in exactly what they were looking for, in their own words. 

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Inven's descriptive search

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Advanced Filters: Enhancing Precision and Relevance

With the descriptive search and the advanced search filters, Candor Advisors felt they could find great company matches.

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“The ease of use of the software is great, and I think it really narrows down on companies that make a lot of sense with what we were searching for. In this project, it brought up companies that we already had, so we knew it was very much on point. We were able to identify many other companies to add to our buyer universe. Inven has been very easy to use and has great information,” said Allie Michie, the Director of Operations at Candor Advisors.

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Exceptional Customer Service

Even though Inven is an AI-powered tool, Kirk and Allie Michie truly appreciated the human contact and service they’ve received. "I’ve appreciated how nice everybody is. The fact that we can actually talk to a real person, who is always available, is great and I think is really unique," Allie highlighted.

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TRY INVEN

Want to Try Inven for Buyer List Building?

If you are eager to see how Inven could help you in buyer list building, you can get started with Inven here.

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With Inven, you can

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  • Find financial buyers: With our investor search, it is easy to find private equity and venture capital companies who are active within your niche market.
  • Find strategic buyers: You can search for relevant companies in any industry, globally. Inven hosts data on over 23 million companies, including details like headcount, funding, headquarters, and more.
  • Find new leads: With Inven's advanced filters like intent to sell filter, you can easily search for new leads and companies to sell.

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Get started with Inven

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We guarantee that with Inven you'll find what you would otherwise miss.