A financial model can be internally consistent and still be wrong.
The formulas add up. The logic holds. The projections flow from the assumptions. The question is whether the assumptions have any basis in what the market actually does.
Deal Scout takes the growth assumptions inside your acquisition model and tests them against real sector data — not against what management believes, but against what comparable businesses have actually delivered.
Every management team believes their projections are reasonable.
A target projects 20% revenue growth for the next four years. Management can explain every assumption; the model is coherent; the story is compelling. But the sector has grown at 7–8% for three years, and comparable businesses have not crossed 12% in any recent period. That gap is not visible inside the model. You need external data to see it.
+12pp above peer range
Sector benchmarking inside the diligence workflow.
Deal Scout is powered by the Syfter integration — real market data on comparable businesses in your target's sector.
Upload the target's financial model.
Deal Scout identifies the key growth assumptions: revenue CAGR, margin expansion, market share projections.
Those assumptions are benchmarked against actual performance data from comparable businesses in the sector.
Where projections diverge from peer performance, Deal Scout flags the gap and quantifies the variance.
The output sits alongside your Model Maestro audit — formula-level and market-level validation in one place.
The gaps between the story and the sector.
| Metric | Target projects | Sector / peer | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue growth | 20% CAGR | Sector median: 8% CAGR | 12pp above peer range |
| Margin expansion | 600bps over 3 years | Sector average: 180bps | Unlikely without driver |
| Market share | +4pp in 24 months | No comparable >1.5pp in same window | No precedent in data |
See what your current process is missing.
Use our integrated Diligenz Chatbot to ask high-level questions like “What is the primary driver of this quarter’s growth?” — and get an answer based on traced Excel antecedents.