Deep Water research

ACG Middle-Market AI Demo Day March 19, 2026: AI Deal-Sourcing Platform Evaluations

Which specific named independent sponsors, operating partners, or deal-origination principals at US lower-middle-market PE firms ($200M–$2B AUM) who are confirmed attendees or speakers at the ACG Middle-Market AI Demo Day on March 19, 2026 have publicly disclosed or are currently conducting formal evaluations of AI-powered deal-sourcing platforms to replace or supplement their existing Grata, SourceScrub, or PitchBook subscriptions in Q1 2026, and for each named individual, what is their firm's current platform contract renewal window, what specific forward-looking-signal or intent-verification capability gap have they articulated, and what is the most direct warm-introduction pathway to them (via shared ACG chapter, ACG PECS network, David Gershman/Trivest bridge, or co-investment history with Riverside or Cheltenham Investments) that DeepSignal can use to secure a 2-to-4-week POC engagement before that March 19 event?

Jun 28, 202632 sources reviewed

Executive Summary

  • Target Identification via ACG Leadership: The provided intelligence explicitly identifies three origination principals at The Riverside Company (Jeremy Holland, Bob Landis, and Cheryl Strom) holding prominent leadership roles within regional ACG chapters [6], [22], [30]. Riverside maintains a massive footprint in the ACG network, with 23 staffers holding memberships [38].
  • Optimal Warm-Introduction Pathway: The most direct, verified bridge for DeepSignal to secure a Proof of Concept (POC) engagement with Riverside's origination team is through Jonathan Zucker of Intrepid Investment Bankers, who serves on the ACG Los Angeles board alongside Jeremy Holland [14].
  • Articulated Capability Gaps: PE deal-origination teams suffer from severe technology fragmentation [12]. Existing platforms rely heavily on static lists and explicit online publishing [18], [26], failing to provide proactive, algorithmically driven, signal-based nurturing [28].
  • Evidence Limitation: The provided dataset does not contain intelligence regarding the "ACG Middle-Market AI Demo Day on March 19, 2026," specific Q1 2026 contract renewal windows, or affiliations with David Gershman, Trivest, or Cheltenham Investments. Outreach must therefore pivot to leveraging existing ACG board relationships and PECS network channels.

1. Target PE Principals and High-Trust Outreach Pathways

While specific attendance rosters for 2026 ACG events are currently unavailable in the provided data, the intelligence strictly profiles origination leaders at The Riverside Company, highlighting them as prime candidates for a DeepSignal POC due to their embedded status within the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) and reliance on deal-sourcing optimization.

Identified Deal-Origination Principals

  • Jeremy Holland (Managing Partner, Origination, Riverside): Serves on the Private Equity Roundtable Committee within ACG Los Angeles, where he is highly respected by peers [6].
  • Bob Landis (Founding Partner, Origination, Riverside): Currently chairs the ACG New York chapter [22].
  • Cheryl Strom (Partner, Origination, Riverside): Serves on the board of the ACG Cleveland chapter, previously acting as its president in 2022 [30].

Warm-Introduction Mechanics

Given that 75% of ACG members conduct business directly with other members [7], leveraging the inherent trust of this network is the most viable path to a POC.

  1. The Jonathan Zucker Bridge: DeepSignal's most concrete pathway to Jeremy Holland is via Jonathan Zucker at Intrepid Investment Bankers. Zucker sits on the ACG Los Angeles board of directors and has an established, recognized relationship with Holland [14].
  2. The PECS Peer-to-Peer Network: ACG’s Private Equity C-Suite (PECS) network provides a national forum specifically tailored to shaping best practices among PE business leaders [8]. Engaging these principals within PECS discussions regarding "technology stack fragmentation" provides a consultative entry point.
  3. Institutional Footprint Leverage: Riverside is heavily invested in the ACG ecosystem, maintaining 23 staff memberships and recording attendance at 80 distinct ACG events in a single year [38]. DeepSignal can utilize the ACG Member Directory [15] and the formal colleague-referral mechanism [16] to navigate this deep institutional presence.

2. Capability Gaps in Incumbent Platforms (The DeepSignal Wedge)

To successfully pitch a 2-to-4-week POC, DeepSignal must exploit the specific, documented failures of legacy platforms like Grata, SourceScrub, and PitchBook. The overarching theme in the market is that PE firms suffer from fragmented tech stacks that prevent the centralization of actionable data [12].

The Forward-Looking Signal Deficit

Most private equity firms still rely on reactive, event-based signaling, whereas modern deal origination requires proactive, signal-based nurturing [28].

  • SourceScrub: While praised for its reputation and vast source network [11], its signals are fundamentally tied to static lists (e.g., conference attendees, buyer guides) rather than sophisticated, forward-looking predictive algorithms [26]. Furthermore, users report a steep learning curve and inconsistent data quality across different industries [34].
  • Grata: Although Grata attempts to use secondary signals like leadership changes and market movements to infer deal velocity [25] and map buyer attributes [33], its underlying methodology relies heavily on web-scraping [18]. This approach limits its coverage to explicitly published online data, causing the automated model to miss numerous small private firms [2]. Consequently, Grata's G2 profile suffers from complaints regarding data inaccuracy, specifically surfacing companies that are "extremely small" or do not actually exist [10].

Workflow Inefficiencies and Data Homogeneity

Analysts consistently face delayed or incomplete information because private M&A financials are rarely publicly disclosed [9]. Legacy tools exacerbate this:

  • Most third-party databases recycle the same 100 or so companies, failing to provide the differentiated, nuanced intelligence required to match highly specific investment theses [4].
  • Standard sourcing workflows require highly inefficient manual labor—bouncing between Google searches, verifying headcount on LinkedIn, and cross-referencing ownership data on PitchBook and Crunchbase [20].
  • Outreach tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator force users into proprietary communication silos, necessitating error-prone, manual steps that waste critical deal-making time [3].

Attempts to fix this by patching together various platforms often result in bespoke, fragmented solutions that quickly become obsolete [36].

3. Platform Comparison: Legacy Bottlenecks

Feature / Platform Grata SourceScrub PitchBook & General DBs DeepSignal (Target Positioning)
Data Acquisition Web-scraping limited to publicly explicit online data [18]. Extensive sources, but tethered to static lists [26]. Strong on funded entities, weak on small/private gaps [1]. Algorithmic intent-verification & predictive modeling.
Data Quality & Accuracy Top G2 complaint: inaccurate/non-existent small companies [10]. Varying quality by industry; steep learning curve [34]. Tends to surface the identical top 100 companies [4]. Consolidated, high-fidelity signal integration.
Predictive Capabilities Uses secondary signals (leadership/funding) to infer velocity [25]. Lacks forward-looking predictive algorithms [26]. Reliant on trailing, publicly disclosed financials [9]. Forward-looking signal extraction.
Workflow Integration Prone to creating fragmented, bespoke tech stacks [36]. Faster than manual conference list synthesis [19]. Requires heavy manual cross-checking with LinkedIn [20]. Unified, automated pipeline replacing manual steps.

Limitations / Open Questions

The provided evidence robustly profiles middle-market PE platform gaps and outlines Riverside's ACG relationships. However, several elements of the primary research directive remain unsupported by the provided intelligence:

  • Event Specifics: There is no evidence confirming an "ACG Middle-Market AI Demo Day" scheduled for March 19, 2026, nor attendance records for any principals at such an event.
  • Contract Timing: The data contains no publicly disclosed platform contract renewal windows (Q1 2026 or otherwise) for Riverside or any other PE firm.
  • Specific Network Bridges: The provided documents do not contain mentions of David Gershman, Trivest, Cheltenham Investments, or co-investment history with Riverside as pathways for introductions. (Evidence does broadly discuss co-investment structures [21], [29], [37] and Mercer's role in GP relationships [5], [13], but lacks the specific firm-level ties requested).
  • Active Evaluations: There is no explicit confirmation that Jeremy Holland, Bob Landis, or Cheryl Strom are currently conducting formal evaluations of AI-powered replacements in Q1 2026, only that their firm fits the exact target profile experiencing these industry-wide platform gaps.

Sources