Source deals by funding stage, investor, and sector
Turn a thesis into a pipeline. Search Canonical by round, backer, geography, and sector to surface the companies worth a first conversation, including the ones in the long tail.
Good sourcing comes down to seeing the companies your competitors do not. The obvious databases show everyone the same well-covered names, and the more interesting deals often sit just outside their coverage.
Canonical lets you express a thesis as a search across stage, investor, sector, geography, and size, and returns a verified shortlist you can refine, expand with similar companies, and pull into your workflow through the app, the API, or an MCP-connected assistant.
The problem
Sourcing against a thesis is slow. Filters in legacy databases are rigid, coverage skews toward companies with heavy press, and building a market map means stitching exports together. Finding net-new, under-the-radar companies at the right stage is the hardest part, and the one that matters most.
How Canonical solves it
Describe the companies your thesis targets and Canonical interprets it into editable criteria: funding stage, lead or participating investor, sector and business model, geography, and size. It then returns verified matches. Because coverage is built for long-tail discovery, you see credible companies the larger databases miss. One-click find-similar expands any promising company into a cluster of comparable ones.
How it works
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Express the thesis as a search
For example: pre-Series B vertical SaaS in Europe backed by a seed-stage fund, excluding agencies. Review and edit the interpreted criteria before you run it.
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Refine and expand
Tighten the stage, investor, or geography, then use find-similar on a strong match to pull a cluster of comparable companies into your map.
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Route to your pipeline
Export the shortlist, or connect the MCP server so your assistant sources and triages against the thesis in conversation and drops candidates into your CRM.
Example searches
- “pre-Series A climate startups in Europe backed by specialist climate funds”
- “founder-led vertical SaaS companies, 20-100 employees, that raised in the last year”
- “companies similar to a portfolio company that recently raised a seed round”
Connect the Canonical MCP
Add Canonical to your assistant over MCP and run this search, or schedule it, right in the chat. OAuth handles sign-in, and there are no API keys to manage.
Frequently asked questions
How do I source deals by funding stage and investor?
Describe your thesis to Canonical, including funding stage, investor, sector, geography, and size, and it returns a verified shortlist. You can edit the interpreted criteria before running the search and expand any match with find-similar.
Can Canonical find companies outside the well-covered names?
Yes, that is the point. Coverage is built for long-tail discovery, so you reach credible private companies that larger databases under-cover, not only the heavily-covered rounds.
Can I search by a specific investor's portfolio?
You can filter by lead or participating investor to surface companies a given backer has funded, then combine that with stage, sector, and recency filters.
Does it work for an AI sourcing agent?
Yes. The MCP server exposes search, find-similar, lookup, and company details, so an agent can source and triage against your thesis programmatically.