New to your shortlist. Proven in dealmaking

It’s a fair concern. When you recommend a data room, you put your reputation behind that choice. You need confidence that confidential information will be protected, your client can use the platform, and help will be available when the process is under pressure.

My job is to give you enough evidence to assess that choice: who uses Ansarada, the transactions it has supported, and how it would work for your team.

Ansarada may be new to your shortlist but we’ve been supporting dealmaking since 2005.

Over 21 years in the room

Ansarada has been running data rooms since 2005 . That's 21 years of live mandates, through the global financial crisis, the pandemic and every rate cycle in between. Today the platform is used in 170 countries by more than 955,000 organisations on over 65,600 transactions.

In Australia, where Ansarada's home office is, the platform has run some of the largest deals of recent years. Blackstone's AU$24 billion acquisition of AirTrunk, the AU$11.6 billion sale of Qube Holdings and Sembcorp’s AU$6.5 billion acquisition of Alinta Energy all ran through Ansarada data rooms .

Security isn't new either. Ansarada has held ISO 27001 certification since 2009 , alongside SOC 2 attestation. For a Big Four risk team, that history matters more than a logo they recognise.

The same firms, already in the room

The firms asking "who are you?" in India are often the same firms whose colleagues in Brussels, Brisbane and London already run deals on Ansarada. Deloitte's corporate finance teams in Belgium and Australia are customers. UBS and Macquarie have run major transactions on the platform. Here's what their peers say.

Europe. Kevin Defour, Director of M&A Corporate Finance at Deloitte Belgium, has worked with Ansarada across a decade of sell-side and buy-side mandates.

"Opening a data room today is a hundred percent easier and more efficient than it was ten years ago." Kevin Defour, Director, M&A Corporate Finance, Deloitte Belgium

United Kingdom. Sustainable Development Capital came to Ansarada the way most advisers choose a provider: a recommendation from someone else on the deal.

"A colleague asked the lawyer we were dealing with if she had a data room provider she preferred working with; she answered Ansarada." Keith Driver, Head of Investor Relations, Sustainable Development Capital LLP

Australia. McGrathNicol's transactions team has worked with Ansarada to shape the platform around its own process.

"We've looked to partner with Ansarada to tailor certain elements to our requirements and to what we think our clients value most." Hugh Monaghan, Partner, Transactions, McGrathNicol

The volume tells the same story. Oaklins Netherlands ran around 60 transactions on Ansarada in 18 months. That's not a trial. That's a default.

Familiar isn't the same as proven

Brand recognition feels safe because it's a shortcut. But on a live deal, nobody cares whose logo is on the login screen. They care whether the room is ready on day one, whether bidders can find what they need, and whether someone picks up when it breaks at midnight. Above all, they care whether their documents and their reputation are in safe hands.

Those are track-record questions, and they have answers. Ansarada runs a follow-the-sun support model across New York, London and Sydney. Ask AiDA gives deal teams sourced answers from across the whole document set in seconds. And the platform is built for the client who has never seen a data room before, which matters when your seller is a founder selling once in a lifetime.

That last point came up in Kevin Defour's story. Deloitte Belgium's clients are mostly family businesses, so ease of use isn't a nice-to-have. It's the difference between a client who uploads on time and one who doesn't.

What to ask any data room provider

If you're weighing up a provider you haven't worked with, these questions cut through faster than name recognition:

1. Which firms like ours use you, and in which markets? Can we speak to one?
2. What size of deals have you run, and how recently?
3. How long have you held ISO 27001, and do you have a SOC 2 attestation?
4. Who answers the phone at 2am in Mumbai, and where are they?
5. How quickly can a first-time seller get their documents in and organised?

A provider with a real track record will answer all five without hesitating. A familiar name doesn't guarantee that.

Confidence start with evidence

You should feel confident in any provider you put in front of your client. If you haven’t worked with Ansarada before, look at our track record, hear from the teams using us, and let’s walk through what your next mandate would need.

We may be the new name in the meeting. We're not the new name in the data room.

See it before your next mandate

Running a process in India, or pitching for one? Book a conversation with me to see how Ansarada helps advisers get clients diligence-ready faster and keep bidders moving through to close.