Gabriel d'Agay, founding partner, explains how his boutique found the alternative it was looking for.
The following article is an interview with Gabriel d'Agay, founding partner of Aesus Advisory.
Before Entropia, we used fairly standard solutions.
On larger deals, we used traditional providers like Datasite, mainly because counterparties or lawyers requested it.
On smaller transactions - we do a lot of small cap work - we mostly used SharePoint. But SharePoint for setting up a data room, it's... not satisfactory at all. It's complicated to use, complicated to manage access rights, and above all there's no visibility: no tracking, very few features.
Worse: at the end of a deal, when you want to close the file, download the entire data room properly and transfer it, well... it's impossible.
It can work for very small deals, but it poses real legal risks, and operationally it's really painful.
In reality, we were rather passive. Resigned, like much of the market. And then, scrolling through LinkedIn, we came across Entropia promising a new world in the data room universe, which hasn't evolved in far too long.
We reached out, had a meeting within a few days, and saw it was heading in the right direction. We saw a simple, clear interface with features designed to facilitate deals, whereas too often data rooms are sources of friction, even tension, between parties.
Populating a data room is long, painful for executives, for teams, for everyone, and takes weeks. Having a tool that streamlines this process means tension saved on the deal.
First, there was the overall approach, very focused on simplicity and usage.
We also saw real effort on the Q&A side, which is often the other nightmare of data rooms. On traditional solutions, it's very poorly managed, to the point where bankers end up exporting Excel spreadsheets to have executives answer questions manually.
We felt Entropia was taking the opposite approach to traditional data rooms on many fronts, with thinking driven by design and actual usage, and that resonated with us.
Today, we use Entropia on all our transactions, including multi-target deals with different counterparties and auditors depending on the targets.
Access management by stakeholder type is a real strength, for example. It's become super simple for us to manage each party's rights to the right documents, without ambiguity.
In our buy-side work, we often approach executives who have never led a sale process. In that case, we're the ones organizing the data room for them. Having a tool we can provide to our clients whether we're on sell-side or buy-side, that their lawyers and accountants can use immediately, without dragging them through endless quotes or archaic processes with forms to fill out manually... well, it's great.
Everyone's happy to have a tool that's simple to use, and on our end, it allows us to keep visibility on what's happening across all our data rooms, and ultimately save everyone time and energy.
Day to day, features like index management or file renaming save time. But not just time, it's especially always those tension points: when you're in a transaction and you receive documents that aren't properly named, it drives you crazy, it's unauditable. So being able to make data more readable, having ultimately a more "human" data room, it improves the work of all stakeholders, on both buyer and seller sides.
On AI too, Entropia's approach seems very sound to us. Making work easier without ever removing control. On topics as sensitive as those we deal with around transactions, no one wants a decision made automatically by an AI. Save time, yes. Lose control, no.
The real issue for us isn't so much the price level as clarity and predictability. What's frustrating with legacy players is that we regularly end up with unexpected fees, lines that are hard to understand, and it creates discussions that add friction to our client relationship, for nothing!
So at Aesus, we chose an annual Entropia license. It becomes an integrated work tool for us. We open data rooms in Sell but also in Buy-side, even pre-LOI, there's no longer an issue.
The subscription allows us to use the data room very early on, from pre-deal phases, to centralize information, secure exchanges, control access, and gradually get counterparties used to a structured framework. Whereas there are still people doing a "pre data room" on SharePoint, and then they'll move everything to a data room later...
And above all, it allows us to handle the data room cost issue very cleanly with our clients. Costs are anticipated, controlled, and discussed upfront. They go through us, with no nasty surprises at the end of the transaction.
I'd tell them first to focus on the time and energy saved. To save their juniors' and lawyers' time to spare them administrative work that serves no purpose.
Today, an investment banker's performance no longer rests solely on their network or negotiating ability, but also on how they work. We're at a time when it's important to improve our productivity with the right tools.
A slow, complicated, or poorly structured data room penalizes the entire process. Conversely, a fluid tool like Entropia improves overall productivity.
At Aesus, there are two partners and we'll close about ten transactions this year. That's no accident. We've put in place the right tools - including Entropia as an integral part of our stack - that allow us to be what you might call "augmented investment bankers."
Using effective tools allows us to have sharper processes, close more deals, and work more intelligently.
About Aesus Advisory
Aesus Advisory is an independent M&A boutique advising entrepreneurs, business owners, and investors on acquisitions, fundraisings, and exits. We combine the discipline of investment banking with the agility and pragmatism of entrepreneurship. Our focus is on execution, precision, and trust.
255 rue Saint Honoré, 75001 Paris - contact@aesusadvisory.com
https://www.aesusadvisory.com/