Fintech startup Inven raises $12.75M to reinvent private market deal sourcing with AI

Inven, a Helsinki-based fintech startup, has raised $12.75 million (€11.2 million) in Series A funding to rewire how private market deals are found and tracked. The round was co-led by Ventech and Vendep Capital, with participation from angel investor Risto Siilasmaa, the founder of F-Secure and former Chair of Nokia. Existing investors Lifeline Ventures and Joint Effects also joined the round.

Founded in 2022 by a trio of former McKinsey and BCG consultants, Inven was built around a simple but persistent problem: finding high-quality private market deals is slow, tedious, and often based on stale data. With markets getting more crowded and fragmented, old-school methods like Excel spreadsheets and static databases are falling behind. Inven is betting that AI can do better.

With $12.75M Funding, Finland’s Inven Aims to Become the Default AI Platform for M&A Deal Sourcing

The platform continuously scans over 21 million companies worldwide, using data scraped from millions of sources to identify signals most investors never see. Instead of just helping VCs or bankers react to obvious opportunities, Inven aims to surface the ones others miss—before they even become obvious.

Today, more than 700 firms across Europe and the U.S. are using the platform. That includes a mix of investment banks, private equity firms, and consultants, many of whom are trying to shorten the time it takes to go from sourcing to deal-closing.

“Deal sourcing has traditionally been labor-intensive and inefficient, especially in private markets where opportunities are dispersed and often hidden,” said CEO and co-founder Niilo Pirttijärvi. “AI is making the process faster, while revealing opportunities that were once invisible, giving M&A professionals a true competitive edge. This new funding fuels our mission to reimagine how the world’s best deals are found, evaluated, and closed.”

The company says it’s grown 670% year-over-year and now plans to double—or even triple—its team over the next 12 to 18 months. Most of the hiring will go toward AI engineering, product, and customer success. Inven is also eyeing North America as its next big move and wants to expand into major financial hubs worldwide.

Co-founder and CPO Tommi Kupiainen added: “We’re building AI that transforms how high-velocity teams make better decisions. In fast-moving environments, teams don’t have time to dig through scattered and noisy data. They need systems that know what matters and that have all the necessary data in one place. That’s why we’re designing Inven as an intelligence layer that filters out noise, and brings the right insight to the surface before it’s even asked for.”

Investors say they were sold on the strength of the founding team and the timing of the product.

“From the start, we were struck by Inven’s deeply talented, mission-driven team led by Niilo, Tommi, and Ekku, and the perfect product-market fit they’ve already validated with customers,” said Ventech General Partner Tero Mennander. “Their undisputed first-mover advantage, built on proprietary AI-powered data extraction, and proven traction position them to transform the $12.6 billion M&A data market.”

Vendep Capital’s Sami Ahvenniemi echoed the sentiment, saying: “Their trajectory so far has been nothing short of exceptional, and we’re thrilled to back such a driven and visionary team as they enter the next phase of their journey.”

With a fresh round of capital, a fast-growing user base, and global expansion in sight, Inven is positioning itself as a go-to platform for anyone trying to make smarter, faster decisions in the private markets—before the rest of the market catches up.