How We Source 100 Acquisition Deals A Day With AI

About this episode

Trisha Gulati and her team at MergeWorks source 100 acquisition targets a day, score every one of them, and book the call before a human ever touches the deal.In this episode of The Revenue Equation, Frederik Jakobsen (founder of Danish Lead Co, danishleadco.io) sits down with Trisha Gulati, co-founder and machine learning engineer at MergeWorks, an AI-first M&A advisory and acquisition firm. Trisha came out of software engineering, closed her own first deal in January 2025, and now builds the back-end systems that let a small team run deal flow at a scale that used to need a private equity firm behind it.What you'll take away:- How MergeWorks sources roughly 100 deals a day and scores each one before a human reads it- Which acquisition triggers actually convert, and why marketplaces beat any clever list- Why sales and marketing is the highest-leverage fix in 80 to 90% of businesses they look at- How AEO, the AI-search version of SEO, is quietly reshaping HVAC and home services- The operating-partner model behind roll-ups: find one expert business that is not selling- What makes a boomer-owned business unsellable, and the 90-day roadmap that fixes it- Why data and memory, not clever prompts, are the real AI advantage in acquisitions- Where AI voice genuinely works today, and where it will cost you the relationshipIf this one lands for you, subscribe to The Revenue Equation and follow Frederik Jakobsen on LinkedIn. More episodes and resources at danishleadco.io.GUEST: Trisha Gulati, co-founder and machine learning engineer at MergeWorksHOST: Frederik Jakobsen, founder of Danish Lead Co (danishleadco.io)CHAPTERS:00:00 - Meet Trisha Gulati, co-founder of MergeWorks00:53 - From software engineering to closing her first acquisition03:34 - Sourcing 100 deals a day with automated agents05:05 - The triggers that actually work (marketplaces, alerts, inbound)06:58 - How to spot a business that is ready to scale08:45 - Seller conversations vs relationship building10:46 - Filtering out the businesses that cannot be sold12:40 - Making an owner-dependent business sellable in two to three years13:28 - Why sales and marketing is almost always the highest-leverage fix14:48 - The medspa exception: new verticals instead of more leads17:05 - The operating-partner model and how roll-ups get built18:14 - HVAC, boomer succession, and the AEO opportunity20:41 - Voice cloning, call centres, and where AI still breaks trust25:53 - Why data and memory are the real AI advantage28:01 - Where to find Trisha and MergeWorksKEYWORDS: Frederik Jakobsen, Danish Lead Co, Trisha Gulati, MergeWorks, M&A, mergers and acquisitions, deal sourcing, AI deal flow, business acquisition, search fund, roll-ups, private equity, HVAC acquisitions, boomer succession, AEO, AI SEO, B2B outbound, lead generation, customer acquisition, The Revenue Equation podcast