EasyRewardz: How a Blank-Sheet Acquisition Search Reached Two Priority Targets
An acquisition can be the quick way into a new customer segment, once someone has worked out which companies are worth buying.
Summary
- EasyRewardz's CRM and loyalty software served mid-sized and large companies. It wanted to reach smaller businesses by buying a company already selling to them.
- With no list of targets to start from, SRF mapped the market, checked each candidate and agreed a top five with the client's leadership.
- Direct outreach narrowed the five to two priority candidates. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic halted the search before it went further.
Why did EasyRewardz want to buy rather than build?
EasyRewardz is a Gurugram company that sells cloud-based CRM and loyalty software to consumer brands, mostly retailers. CRM software keeps track of a brand's customers, and loyalty software runs the points and rewards that bring those customers back to the till.
Its clients were mid-sized and large companies. Small and medium businesses, usually called SMEs, looked like the natural next market. Leadership's view was that buying a company already selling to SMEs would get there faster, and with less capital, than building that business in-house.
There was no shortlist and there had been no outreach. There was not even a settled view of which companies served SMEs in this category. SRF was hired on the buy side, meaning it worked for the buyer, to build the search from nothing.
What made a search from scratch hard?
The first task was deciding which companies counted at all. Those companies then had to be compared on fair terms, although they differed widely in size, focus and maturity.
After that, someone had to approach them, and none had any prior relationship with EasyRewardz or its advisers. The whole process also had to stay orderly while the conditions around it kept moving.
How SRF ran the search, from market map to shortlist
Who was in the market?
SRF researched the CRM and loyalty software companies with a presence among SMEs, and drew the first list from public information and industry sources. This was the market map: the first list of candidates, to be narrowed later.
How do you compare companies that look nothing alike?
Each candidate then went through a first-cut due diligence pass, an early check on a business that SRF ran before approaching any of them. SRF set the results side by side across a fixed set of categories.
That gave EasyRewardz's leadership one basis for weighing a small, focused company against a larger, broader one. Without it, each candidate would have been judged on whatever was most visible about it.
How did the list shrink to five, then to two?
SRF and the client's leadership worked through the map in structured discussion and agreed a top five, the most relevant candidates and the best fit. SRF then contacted those five on EasyRewardz's behalf, through LinkedIn, email and direct outreach.
After those first conversations, SRF narrowed the five to two priority candidates for deeper talks.
Where did the search stop, and what did it leave behind?
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the process at that point, before deeper evaluation of the two candidates could begin.
Before the search, the acquisition plan had a direction but no names.
EasyRewardz's acquisition search before and after the SRF engagement
| Area | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Target list | None, and no view of who served SMEs in the category | A researched, ranked map of the SME segment |
| Comparing candidates | No common basis for very different companies | One set of categories, applied across a top five |
| Contact with targets | No relationships with any prospect | Dialogue opened through LinkedIn, email and direct outreach |
| Acquisition plan | A direction, not yet something to act on | Two priority candidates ready for deeper evaluation |
How should a buyer start an acquisition search with no targets?
A buyer often starts with a thesis and a few names someone has already heard of. That is how the most familiar company lands on the shortlist ahead of the best one.
- Map wide before you judge. The first list should hold every company that might fit. Cutting early means you never learn what you left out.
- Fix the comparison before you look at names. Decide the categories first, then score every candidate on the same ones.
- Plan outreach across several channels. A target with no reason to know you may ignore any single message. LinkedIn, email and direct outreach give each prospect more than one chance to reply.
- Treat a paused search as dated. A market map ages, and so do the scores built on it. If a search stops, re-check both before picking it up again.
Our deal advisory team runs buy-side searches for companies like EasyRewardz. Searches like this draw on our market research and competitor analysis work, and the first-pass checks on our due diligence practice. For what a deeper review of a shortlisted target should test, read our piece on commercial due diligence.
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