M&A / Investment Deals
Buy companies in a live market. Each week one target comes to market for the whole class: do the diligence, then bid against rival funds or negotiate with the owner, or walk. In the final week everything you bought is sold, and your returns show what your price and your diligence were worth.
Inside Deal Room
Screens from a class in progress. Click any screen to see it full size.
Deal Room puts students on the buy side of a live market. Every active day each team gets 1-5 deal emails (the same emails for the whole class), staged through the season: sourcing early, negotiation and closing mid-sim, integration and portfolio late, diligence and valuation in every deal week. Every week but the last, one company comes to market for everyone, with a deal card and a true value nobody sees. That week's diligence and valuation emails are its deal file: sound calls uncover hidden problems and narrow each team's estimate. On the week's last day, odd weeks run a sealed-bid auction (price and structure: cash, earnout or seller note) against the other teams and one outside bidder, and even weeks bring an off-market deal each team negotiates privately: a walk-away price and BATNA first, then three offers against an owner whose floor the engine hides and enforces. What a fund buys it holds; integration calls move its value and problems missed in diligence come back after close as surprises. In the final week every holding is sold, and the Final Report walks each deal from price paid to proceeds, with MOIC, IRR and DPI. Memos are graded 0-10 by a senior-partner LLM that also sits as an Investment Committee with a memory of the team's earlier positions and the BATNAs it filed. The Fund Score averages four pillars (Valuation Accuracy, Diligence Rigor, Negotiation, Returns), three of them half graded calls and half deal results, and is the one number on the leaderboard, final report and gradebook. Teams split three light roles (Deal Lead, Diligence Lead, Portfolio & LP Lead): the inbox marks each email "For:" its owner, the Deal Lead also owns the week's bid or offer, and each student writes a weekly Investment Committee reflection, worth 20% of the suggested grade with their owned work once the class uses roles. Three investor archetypes: Private Equity, Venture Capital and Corporate Dev, each with its own fund page, dry powder and targets.
Share this with your team— printable one-pager for a chair or procurement./for-your-team/deal-roomTeams claim their roles. The first target comes to market; teams work its deal file (the week's diligence and valuation emails) and file sealed bids on day 5 against each other and an outside bidder. True value is revealed when day 6 opens, and each student writes the week's Investment Committee reflection.
The owner of the second target talks only to your fund. Teams file a walk-away price and BATNA, then make up to three offers on day 10. Holdings from week 1 are marked and the first post-close surprises arrive.
A second auction. Teams that overpaid in week 1 see it in their marks; the debrief asks who won and why the winner tends to be the most optimistic bidder.
A second negotiation and a third auction. Integration and portfolio calls move what the fund owns; surprises from skipped diligence keep landing.
No new deal: when day 30 opens every holding is sold. The Final Report walks each deal from price paid to proceeds, with MOIC, IRR and DPI, and the leaderboard, final report and gradebook show the same Fund Score.
A walkthrough from Jeff Forgrave, who built Boardroom Rivals.
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