The marketplace for private companies

Every serious buyer.
One competitive sale.

Vendu is where private companies and the funds that fit them meet. Owners see who wants to buy and what they’d pay, without anyone knowing they looked. Funds see every company that fits their mandate.

Garde is free for owners · Nothing is shared without your approval

Why a new market

Private companies are sold through a handful of phone calls.

A banker calls the buyers they know. A few look, fewer bid, one wins exclusivity, and the price drifts down from there. The cost is measurable.

Today

A banker calls the buyers they know. Most of the firms that would fit never hear of the sale.

On Vendu

Every fund’s Ryo screens the company against its own mandate. The owner chooses who continues.

Illustrative

15–30%
lower multiples for private companies than for comparable public ones, because a seller with few buyers has no credible alternative.
Officer, 2007
6 of 100
companies a private equity firm considers end in a closed deal. The rest of the effort is search.
Gompers, Kaplan & Mukharlyamov, 2016
1%
of independent private companies drew a second recorded bidder after the first bid, against 8% of public ones.
Officer, 2007

One platform, three parts

An agent for each side, and a neutral market between them.

Garde answers only to the owner. Each fund’s Ryo answers only to its fund. They meet on Agora, which runs the rules and holds no stake in who wins.

PE fundFamily officeSearch fundStrategic buyerGrowth fundSponsorAGORAOne companywith Garde

For owners

Know your number before anyone knows you’re asking.

Garde sorts the buyer emails you already get, checks who each sender really is, and shows what they want. When you’re curious, each fund whose criteria fit prices your confirmed figures with its own model. You see every range. None of them sees you.

For funds

Every company that fits your mandate, with your edge kept yours.

Ryo screens every listing against your criteria and prices it with your own rules. Owners stay anonymous until they invite you, and your model is never shown to anyone else.

When you decide to sell

A sale where the alternatives never go cold.

Agora runs the rules of a competitive sale and never negotiates for either side. Its fee is the same whichever firm wins.

How a sale works
  1. 01

    Sealed offers

    Every invited fund bids without seeing the others. Offers carry full letter-of-intent terms, compared side by side.

  2. 02

    Ranked on your priorities

    Price, certainty of closing, what you roll over, your team's future: you rank them, and every offer is scored on your order.

  3. 03

    The runner-up stays live

    Choosing a buyer keeps the other offers as backups through diligence, so exclusivity doesn't cost you your leverage.

  4. 04

    A price cut needs a reason

    Quotes are tied to verified figures. A cut without a documented finding is flagged, and you can switch to a backup.

Confidentiality

Nothing about you moves until you decide it should.

Owners worry, rightly, that a leak or a sale signal can hurt their company. Every line below is enforced by the product, not promised in a policy.

Who sees what, stage by stage
Only you see them
No fund, buyer or other Vendu user can see the emails that reach Garde or the firms they come from. It's enforced in the database, not just hidden on screen.
Nothing goes out without you
Garde only sorts. A reply is sent only when you click it, only to a firm that already wrote to you, and it never says your company is for sale.
No one learns you use Vendu
Vendu never tells a firm about you. Checking a sender's public website doesn't reveal who asked.
Yours to delete
Email text is deleted after 90 days, and you can delete your address and everything in it at any time.

The thesis

Private equity stops being about buying well, and becomes about owning well.

Vendu grew out of research on why private markets misprice companies: search is expensive, so few buyers ever see a company, and thin bidding hands companies to the wrong owners at the wrong price. AI removes most of the cost of search. Vendu is built for the market that follows.

Read the thesis

Get in touch

Investors, partners, funds and press. We reply by email.

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See who wants to buy your company.

Forward your first buyer email in a minute. Garde sorts every buyer email by firm, and nothing is shared without your approval.