Product
M&A due diligence software that works with any data room
Cerclen is where diligence requests get tracked, answered and closed out. Every request, owner and deadline sits in one live list, alongside email and whichever data room the deal uses.
Project Kestrel / Requests
What to look for in due diligence software
Most diligence still runs on a spreadsheet and email, and most software meant to replace them is built into a data room. Whatever you evaluate, six things decide whether a deal team will actually use it.
It works with the data room the deal is on.
Request tracking built into one data room only works when the process runs there, and the banker usually picks the room.
It takes the request list you already have.
Lists arrive as spreadsheets in every layout, and retyping them costs days a compressed timeline doesn't have.
The other side doesn't have to adopt it.
The target and the advisors should be able to respond without learning a new platform.
Each side keeps its own work private.
Internal notes and draft answers should stay internal until you choose to share them.
It shows where the deal stands.
Completion by workstream, owner and requester, kept current without anyone rebuilding it.
It leaves a record.
Who asked what, who answered and when, with exports you can file.
How Cerclen runs diligence
One process, whichever data room the deal uses
Responses link to files wherever the deal keeps them, and Cerclen recognizes links from the major data rooms. Your team runs the same process on every deal, whether the banker chose Datasite, Intralinks or something else. There's nothing to migrate and nothing to set up with the data room vendor.
Project Kestrel / Request 2.4
AI that reads your request list
Upload the spreadsheet you already have. Cerclen uses Claude to read the layout: which sheets hold requests, where the headers sit, what each column means, how sections are marked and which advisor raised each list. If something is unclear, it asks you, up to five questions. You review every request before anything is saved, and nothing is sent until you choose.
Each confirmed import teaches Cerclen that layout, without keeping any of its contents. The next time anyone uploads a list in the same template, Cerclen already recognizes it. Lists from several advisors import as separate sections of one deal, so the consolidated list exists from day one.
Cerclen doesn't review your documents or draft answers. It organizes the requests around them.
Project Kestrel / Import
Nobody has to leave email
Every request has its own reply address for each participant, so an emailed answer lands against the right request without anyone filing it. Replies don't count on arrival: someone on the responding side confirms them in Cerclen first, and until then the other side sees that an answer is pending.
Project Kestrel / Pending Review
Two sides, one list, and a wall between them
Each side controls what the other sees. The deal owner's answers start as internal, and internal answers and notes never leave Cerclen, exports included. Invitations only work for the email address they were sent to, and removing a participant shuts off their access and their reply addresses at once.
Project Kestrel / Request 2.3
Where you stand against close, at a glance
Each deal opens on a dashboard: completion overall and by category, priority and requester, and what's open by owner. Every figure links to the filtered list behind it, and any view can be sent as a link instead of an attachment.
Project Kestrel / Dashboard
The spreadsheet still exists. It just isn't the truth anymore.
Export the list whenever you need it. Each export is saved as the deal's next numbered version, in the naming style your team already uses, and both sides can see every version, who took it and when. Every status change is recorded.
Working with your own tools or AI agents? The Cerclen API reads and answers requests with a key that acts as you.
Common questions
- We already use Excel and email.
- Keep them. Cerclen imports your spreadsheet, takes replies by email, and exports a versioned spreadsheet whenever you want one. What changes is that the list is current, and everyone works from the same one.
- Can't we just use our data room's tools?
- If every deal ran on the same data room, maybe. In practice the data room changes with the deal, and its built-in tools change with it. Cerclen stays the same across all of them.
- Another vendor means another security review.
- Cerclen tracks requests, status and links. Documents can stay in your data room, and Cerclen never fetches files from it, so access stays where you already control it.
- Will the target and our advisors have to learn it?
- No. They can answer by replying to an email or by linking to a file in the data room.