OffDeal, The AI Investment Banker

Photograph showing the two founders : Ori Eldarov (left) and Alston Lin (right).

Every year, thousands of small and mid-sized businesses change hands. Yet the vast majority of their owners navigate the most consequential financial decision of their lives without access to the advisory infrastructure that Fortune 500 companies take for granted. The traditional M&A playbook was built for billion-dollar deals, not for the local manufacturer doing $20M in revenue.

Enter OffDeal, a Y Combinator-backed startup that calls itself "what Goldman Sachs would have looked like if it was started today, in 2025." Instead of selling AI tools to banks, OffDeal is the bank, delivering full-stack sell-side M&A advisory powered by machine learning, automated deal sourcing and AI-generated transaction documents, all at a fraction of the cost and time.

Our report, The AI Investment Banker: How OffDeal is Redefining M&A for SMEs, examines how this AI-native model compresses deal timelines from months to weeks, where it outperforms traditional advisory, and where the human elements of trust, negotiation and strategic judgment remain irreplaceable. We break down the technology stack, compare it against incumbent workflows, and assess the ethical, legal and operational risks that come with automating high-stakes financial decisions.

This is not about whether AI will transform investment banking. It already is. The real question is what gets lost when algorithms replace advisors, and what gets gained when millions of business owners finally get a seat at the table.

This is why the Bocconi Students Fintech Society has made AI-driven M&A the focus of this report: because the future of dealmaking will not be shaped by who has the biggest team, but by who has the best technology.

---

Slide Deck

Read the Slide Deck below ⬇️

Download the Slide Deck below ⬇️

Offdeal, the AI Investment Banker - Fall 2025.pdf

Download PDF • 4.24MB

Published in January 2025

---

Project Team

Project Leader: Natalia Borisova

Junior Analysts: Felipe Achatz, Niccolo Graziani, Niccolo Bonifati, Rodrigo Martins.

Association Board :

Guillaume Abaz (President), Andrea Botero (Head of M&A and VC), Roxane Midorge (Head of Generalist), Neil Maaouni (Head of Data Analysis), Mathilde Castaigne (Head of Events), Noé Wierzba (Head of Operations).