DealMarket

DealMarket AG, established in Zurich in 2011, was conceived by private equity professionals Céline Fillistorf and Alex Vukajlovic to enhance transparency and efficiency in the private capital markets. Fillistorf, the founding CEO, and Vukajlovic, who served as Chairman while also leading asset management firm Cape Capital, drew upon their direct industry experience to shape the platform. In early 2012, leadership transitioned to CEO Urs Haeusler, an executive with a track record in scaling internet ventures like amiando and Jamba!, to steer the company's global expansion.

The firm operated a multi-faceted online platform catering to private equity investors, corporate finance advisors, family offices, and investment clubs. Its business model rested on three pillars: 'DealMarketPLACE', a global marketplace for sourcing and promoting investment opportunities with a freemium structure; 'DealMarketOFFICE', a subscription-based, cloud-native tool for managing deal flow and the investment lifecycle; and 'DealMarketSTORE', which provided on-demand access to third-party industry reports and services. This structure allowed clients to not only discover direct and secondary investment deals but also to manage their proprietary deal flow securely.

A significant milestone occurred on January 1, 2017, when DealMarket was acquired by Drooms AG, a European provider of virtual data rooms. The acquisition was a strategic move to create an end-to-end solution for asset transactions. It integrated DealMarket's proficiency in the early stages of deal sourcing and process management with Drooms' core competency in secure due diligence and document exchange. The entire DealMarket team, including CEO Urs Haeusler, was absorbed into Drooms to continue developing the software under the Drooms brand and to manage its Swiss operations, effectively evolving DealMarket from a standalone marketplace into a foundational component of a larger asset lifecycle management platform.

Keywords: private equity platform, deal flow management, M&A marketplace, investment lifecycle, corporate finance tool, family office software, capital raising, deal sourcing, virtual data room, VDR, fintech, Zurich startup, Céline Fillistorf, Alex Vukajlovic, Urs Haeusler, Drooms acquisition, investment management software, secondary investments, deal promotion, asset lifecycle management, financial technology, due diligence process, PE investors