Dharmendra Singh shares insights on how MergerWare’s platform helps companies streamline all M&A processes, giving a sneak peek into some exciting topics in AITech.
1. Can you tell us more about yourself? How did you get into entrepreneurship?
I believe that I am a constant learner, a dreamer and a fearless leader.
I grew up in the small but progressive city of Ranchi and did my schooling there. After completing my engineering, I did my MBA degree from INSEAD, a top business school in France.
I started my corporate career with Siemens in their ultrasound division where we built the flagship product of the company for the US market. Back then, I split my time between the US and Bangalore. Later, I joined Schneider Electric (SE), a French MNC, and worked there for more than a decade. It was my experience at SE that sowed the seeds of entrepreneurship in me. My engineering and MBA background, and my corporate experience gave me motivation to become an entrepreneur. I was always passionate about doing something of my own, and that seemed the right time to start my entrepreneurial journey. I believe that everyone must be passionate about what they do, else they must not do it at all.
2. Can you give us a brief of your career before MergerWare?
Before I started MergerWare, I was working Schneider Electric that specialises in digital automation and energy management. I was responsible for setting up their R&D centre in India, which I did with a lot learnings, failures, and eventual successes. After 8 years, I moved to the global M&A team in a first of its kind role. My responsibilities encompassed overseeing all acquisitions, leading post-merger integration, and supporting all deals across the company. It was here that I learnt all about M&A.
I feel very fortunate that I got the opportunity to gain first-hand experience of working with global M&A leaders and learn so much from them.
3. Could you tell us more about MergerWare and how has the company evolved over the last couple of years?
MergerWare is a cloud-based M&A software platform integrated with all possible M&A actions that deal makers need to perform during deal execution stages. The platform helps companies to streamline all M&A processes starting from deal pipeline management to due diligence and post-merger integration.
MergerWare was founded in the US in early 2018. Our platform helps M&A deal professionals accelerate M&A deals, increase deal visibility through different dashboards, and streamline different deal processes. Hence, they find deal execution easier and can focus on value creation.
During the initial years, we spent a good amount of time in educating the customers about M&A digitalization, as it was a relatively new concept. We conducted, (and still do) a lot of webinars and events to create awareness. We built the MergerWare platform together with our customers as our focus was to create a platform which is easy to adopt, offers a good customer experience and solves the real pain points. Even now, we take customer feedback very seriously and enhance the platform based on what they need.
Currently, we work with customers from different industries and countries across the globe.
4. What’s your favorite part about working in this industry?
I find M&A industry is very interesting as it involves a great deal of analysis and decision making in selecting a company to buy, performing due diligence, integrating the new company, enabling culture fit, etc. M&A is one such industry which is always active. When the market dynamics are good, companies look for buying other companies, and when the market is not that great, companies look for opportunities to get acquired by bigger groups. So, the activity is always on.
As I was a part of the deal execution team, I have seen the industry quite up-close and know the real challenges that deal professionals face. Now, I am on the other side of the problem and help companies solve those challenges through the MergerWare platform.
5. What makes MergerWare unique? Why should enterprises choose MergerWare?
MergerWare is unique in many ways. First of all, it’s foundation is based on the real experience of M&A practitioners. The very fabric of the platform has been created keeping in mind the pain points of deal makers. Moreover, it is a cloud-based M&A platform which is a single source of truth for all the stakeholders. This allows companies to gain real-time visibility into their pipelines, run a more thorough due diligence and in half the time, and accelerate post-merger integration processes by up to 40%.
MergerWare is a one-stop solution for many M&A challenges, a single platform helping in solving many problems. Companies, specially during cross border deals, find it easy to deploy our M&A process playbook, onboard deal execution teams, and track the overall deal execution progress effectively.
6. What are the technology solutions that MergerWare offers?
Mergerware provides technology solutions for deal pipeline management, due diligence and post-merger integration.
7. Tell us a bit about your culture. What makes MergerWare’s culture unique?
MergerWare is a new age software platform, and is constantly evolving with the changing requirements of the customers. Hence, it requires its teams to be agile and open to learning new things. And thats exactly what we have here.
Our culture is very open. We encourage continuous learning and upskilling. We respect each other and our customers’ faith in us. Our new employees find working with a niche business like ours as a unique opportunity to learn and grow.
8. In your opinion, what are the most exciting topics in AITech right now? How do you keep up with the constantly changing landscape?
What I find interesting in AITech is how it is transforming the business landscape. Coming to AI in M&A, it is really revolutionizing the way deals are done.AI-based analysis is extremely powerful. Businesses are evolving with other new-age technologies like data science and blockchain. Hence, customer demands are also evolving and they are looking for newer tools and technologies to automate their processes.
I keep learning about these advancements and stay updated so that I can offer meaningful advice to our customers about how to adopt these technologies.
9. What are MergerWare’s plans for expansion and growth? Where do you see it in the coming years?
MergerWare’s mission is to become a 15MUSD company in the next few years and to be the preferred choice of M&A companies across the globe.
10. What is the biggest piece of advice you could provide to company leaders about helping them fulfill the needs of their team?
My biggest learning comes from my vast experience of learning on the job, taking my work seriously, and focusing on building capabilities without any fear of failure. I think leaders must believe in their teams, delegate to them, and empower them to take decisions. They should support the teams to deliver, and allow them to learn from their mistakes instead of being too controlling.
11. What movie/book has inspired you recently?
I haven’t found time to read a book or watch a movie lately. But I recently read one of the letters my father used to write to me. I lost him to cancer. In these letters, he used to share motivational quotes and inspirational words to be fearless, to be willing to take risks, to keep learning and be humble. These letters always inspire me. He had inculcated some good habits in me in the early childhood, and these habits are an integral part of my life.
12. What motivates you to get up every morning? What do you take pride in when it comes to your company?
Since childhood, I have been an early riser. My father used to wake me up at 4 am in the morning and take me along for jogging. I still follow that routine. As a person, I am very positive. I believe that hard work always pays off, so I never worry about short-term setbacks. I keep learning and working towards my long-term goals. This philosophy of my life keeps me energised. I take immense pride in my company. After working with large organizations in senior positions for more than two decades where I had a lot of support to do my job, starting my own company was like beginning a new career from scratch. Deciding to quit a successful corporate career to start something from zero isn’t easy, but I was confident. I am very proud that I chose my passion to do what I love.
Visit AITechPark for cutting-edge Tech Trends around AI, ML, Cybersecurity, along with AITech News, and timely updates from industry professionals!
Dharmendra Singh
Founder & CEO, MergerWare
Dharmendra is a seasoned M&A professional with 25+ years of rich industry experience at various global positions in Europe, US and other countries. He has worked extensively on some of the largest post-merger integration programs across the globe. During his years in the corporate, he realized that the traditional approaches followed in these programs, like use of spreadsheets, data repositories, VDRs, and traditional project management tools are quite inefficient, inaccurate, and time-consuming. Not to mention the difficulties faced in adhering to compliance in regulated transactions!
Driven by the goal to help organizations solve these problems and improve their synergies, he took up the challenge to create an innovative and comprehensive deal-management platform. He founded MergerWare in early 2018, a cloud-based integrated and easy-to-use tool that helps M&A teams to run their entire processes within a single platform. As the CEO of MergerWare, he drives the firm’s vision to be the top company in the world to help global customers with their deal execution process.
