JP Lewin

CEO Foundy: sell & acquire £100k to £15m revenue businesses via Foundy.com's first of its kind AI powered acquisition portal | You no longer need 5 separate tools and 4 advisors, Foundy has all in one portal.

22 acquisitions completed. Recent client received 4 offers in a month and sold in 9 weeks to a YC-backed buyer for a multi-7-figure cash sum. 12,000+ acquirers signed up.

My Story
After selling my first company, I realized M&A is broken. Tens of thousands spent on advisors, months wasted on tire-kickers. I built DealFlowAgent to fix it.

What I Do
I run an AI-native M&A advisory firm with a world-first conversational AI matchmaking engine. Think Boardy or JackandJill.AI but focussed on matchmaking business buyers to business sellers. 4000% higher liklihood of completing a successful deal through this method compared to a marketplace. 

How? Our AI Deal Origination Manager on the buy side, Sterling, has 15 minute conversations with acquirers to understand their unique search interests and criteria before matching them with sellers in our internal mandates or partner network and beyond. Every sell-side client gets an expert human advisory team plus a custom-trained Deal Concierge that becomes a deep expert in your business and process. Human + AI delivers investment bank-grade deal prep from start to completion.


How I Can Help
Business Owners: Thinking about selling in 1-36 months? Head to DealFlowAgent.com for a personalised list of active acquirers, then chat with our Exit Planning AI, Sage, to build your exit plan and improve your company's real valuation. 

Acquirers & Investors: Sterling is free. 15-minute conversation, then receive tailored deal flow matched to you.
M&A Advisors & Brokers: Upload your mandates and let our network find qualified acquirers.

The Vision
Give owner the highest probability of a successful exit with the right buyer
Become the default M&A infrastructure for 1m to 50m $/ £ M&A market. Relationships and real conversations can't be scraped by generic AI. Every Sterling conversation compounds into a proprietary advantage. 

Following recent traction, we've raised from an amazing group of investors including the former CTO of a fintech that scaled 0 to $1bn revenue and a term sheet from a fund with 30 + unicorns in the Partners Portfolio.

Based in London, frequently in New York. If you've made it this far, we should probably just talk. Send me a Direct Message.

Founder and CEO

Foundy has overhauled the acquisition process for tech business sellers and acquirers. We are specialists in helping founders ready their business for an exit, including preparing their data room and finding relevant acquirers. Alternatively, founders and buyers can use our platform for free on a self-serve basis if they prefer. 

Buyer accounts include representatives of large tech companies, private equity and software aggregators as well as acquisition entrepreneurs and family offices. Sellers include founders of mostly profitable online businesses in verticals such as SaaS, fintech, mobile apps, marketplaces, eCommerce, Amazon FBA, Web3 and AI but we are very much open to hearing from companies in other sectors and industries, as well as distressed businesses. 

Alongside a range of digital tools and M&A advisory services, I am helping my team to produce podcasts, tutorials and blogs with the intention of delivering helpful insights and tips to company leaders, buyers and aspiring entrepreneurs on their journey to exit 💵

Join today by creating a free and anonymous account or sign up to our newsletter on https://app.foundy.com/sign-up

Joe Lewin

There's something about a good founder dinner.

Last night was one of those. Only a handful of people in the room. The conversation was one of the best I've had in a while. A mix of exited founders, someone about to close an 8-figure seed round, another who joined a startup at seed stage and drove it to a $400m + valuation before starting his own thing, people from HSBC Innovation Banking supporting the ecosystem, a few others in stealth.

What I loved most: it was one of the few rooms where I didn't feel the need to self-deprecate. Talking about big ambitions and scale felt normal, not out of place. That's rare in the UK.

The conversation that stuck: why does the UK offer so much less breathing room for entrepreneurs to start, scale, stumble, and then succeed?

I remember my school having adverts at local train stations showing a split screen. A kid studying hard then the same person a decade or so later working in middle management. Caption: "A Stable Future." Nobody put up a poster of someone who built something from nothing.

The US has produced over 800 unicorns. The UK has approximately 55. The US is only 4.8x bigger by population. So what explains the rest of that gap?

The American Dream is a real cultural force. The British equivalent is... "don't get too big for your boots."

Can you reverse engineer a culture? What would you even change first? 

Big thanks to Jonathon, Jenni, Kofi and Misha, HSBC Innovation Banking and Google Cloud.

#Founders #UKBusiness #Entrepreneurship

Joe Lewin 

Founder | DealFlowAgent.com | Helping founders exit & buyers access deal flow | £/$1m to 50m Evergreen businesses (inc. home services & healthcare)

The seed investors behind Uber, Notion, and Canva just backed my company.

Partners of Long Journey Ventures include Arielle Zuckerberg, Pascal Levy-Garboua, Lee Jacobs, Cyan and Scott Banister. Angels include a founding employee of banking software giant, Temenos.

The vision has always been clear, but the technology to truly modernise this highly fragmented process didn't exist until recently. We've built a vertically integrated M&A process for business owners in the £1M to £30M range.

10,000 baby boomer business owners retire every day. Buyers spray thousands of cold emails hoping to find hidden gems. Owners don't know who to trust or who will protect what they've built.

The most sought after companies going forward? Evergreen, essential businesses. HVAC, care homes, pest control, plumbing, fire safety, specialist clinics. Stable, cash-generative, and experiencing unprecedented demand from PE funds, search funds, and roll-up aggregators. The owners who built them deserve a proper process.

DealFlowAgent is the first AI-native M&A advisory firm covering the UK + US. We empower our advisers with vertical AI agents and conversational AI tools. More qualified acquirer connections. More offers. Better deal terms. Shorter timelines.

The human adviser isn't going anywhere. At this level, relationships and judgment will always matter.

22 transactions completed. PE funds, search funds, and strategic acquirers are joining every week looking for deal flow.

If you know a business owner in home services, healthcare, essential services, or vertical SaaS thinking about what comes next, send this to them privately.

That's exactly who we built this for.

And if you're a founder, investor, acquirer, or adviser who's seen this problem up close, I'd love to hear your take in the comments.

Funding announcement for DealFlowAgent

There are 20,000 letting agencies in the UK. Many have been around for decades.

Within 2 years, Dwelly has reached the top 15. 

Huge congrats to Dan, Ilia and the team on their $93M raise. It's been great seeing the company grow. Dwelly is a textbook AI-enabled roll-up: acquire independent property agencies, integrate their best-in-class AI operating system, and deliver a service the incumbents simply cannot match.

The results speak for themselves. Maintenance resolution times cut from 50 days to 20. Time to find a tenant down from three weeks to under two. An average of 10 validated offers per property where a traditional agency might generate one or two.

The same opportunity exists across the trade services that surround homes and commercial property. Pest control, fire safety, HVAC, roofing, landscaping, roofing. Fragmented but essential to the backbone of society and largely untouched by technology. 

There are serious buyers actively looking to acquire and scale in these niches. And for the owners building these businesses, the right partner can take what you've built to a level that would be very hard to reach alone.

Dwelly is the proof of what's possible when you get it right.

What are your predictions for 2026? Which sector do you think is next?

#MergersandAcquisitions #AI #TradeServices #PrivateEquity #UKBusiness #Acquisitions

Dan Lifshits, Ilia Drozdov, Dwelly

Dwelly Co-Founder 🏡 | ex-Gett GM 🚕 | ex-McKinsey 🤓

Today, we're announcing $93M in funding for Dwelly, led by General Catalyst , with participation from Begin Capital, s16vc - Founders for Founders Fund, and Trinity Capital. 

Huge thanks to Marc Bhargava, Zeynep Yavuz-Willson, Hemant Taneja and Jeannette zu Fürstenberg at General Catalyst, and Emmett Ulian, James Newton and Craig Fox at Trinity Capital for supporting us.

There are over 20,000 letting agencies across the UK, many of which still rely on manual processes, phone-based coordination, and traditional decision-making approaches. In a £100B market, this can sometimes lead to delays — with tenants occasionally waiting weeks for relatively minor maintenance issues to be resolved.

Dwelly is an AI-powered roll-up designed to modernise this sector. We acquire independent letting agencies and integrate them into our AI operating system, helping streamline operations, improve responsiveness, and enhance service quality.

Importantly, we don’t replace what makes these agencies valuable. We preserve their local brands, relationships, and expertise — while equipping teams with technology that enables to operate more efficiently and deliver a better experience for landlords and tenants alike.

→ Top 15 UK letting agent in under 2 years
→ 10,000+ properties under management
→ £200m in rental roll
→ 10x more validated applications per property, hence letting times cut by a third
→ Maintenance times down 33% (with a clear path to 70%+ reduction)

That’s the product we’re building. Clearer, merit-based matching for tenants and landlords. Fewer manual steps for agents and less time wasted for everyone involved.

You can read more about our vision on Fortune, thanks to a brilliant interview by Jeremy Kahn.

Also, we’re hiring! All across the board - from engineers and product managers, to integrations and operations, with many other roles available: https://lnkd.in/dAiuanu8

Founder @ WineFi | Bringing Fine Wine Investing Mainstream | ex-JP Morgan.

WineFi is a multi award-winning platform that makes investing in fine wine simple and cost-effective. 

Our unique syndicate structure allows investors to co-invest in diversified, expertly-curated collections of world-class wines from just £3,000 -- a fraction of the cost of buying the individual bottles outright.

WineFi has been featured in the Financial Times, Wealth Briefing, The Buyer, The Drinks Business, Digital Frontier and many others.

We are backed by leading fine wine group Coterie Holdings, as well as SFC Capital and Founders Capital, and a number of wonderful angels.

Capital at risk. Fine wine is an unregulated asset class and the value of your investment may fall as well as rise.

Callum Woodcock

Huge news - we have just launched www.winefi.com 🚀 🍷 

This website does something the wine and spirits investment industry has avoided for decades.

It shows you everything.

Our actual performance.
Our actual portfolios.

Fine wine has always had a transparency problem. Spirits are even worse.

Informational asymmetries are rife. There are plenty of bad actors in our space selling the equivalent of penny stocks at extortionate prices.

So we’ve taken a different approach:

1️⃣ Our performance publicly visible.
2️⃣ Full breakdown of every wine contained within our syndicates.
3️⃣ An explanation of our data models.

Take a look → www.winefi.com

--
Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

Quant Fine Wine Investing with WineFi 🍷 | ex-JP Morgan

Open article: WineFi - Wine Investing Made Easy by winefi.com

The biggest realisation I have made in the last few years is... you can just do things.

You can leave that job, move out of the city, start that company, take that trip, write the book, open that restaurant, marry that person, win those awards, build that audience, ditch those people, learn that language, reach that famous person, run that triathlon, launch that podcast, apply for the role, start the newsletter, join that club.

You don't have to ask permission because there is no gatekeeper. The door was never locked.

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Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

Another one! Delighted to hear WineFi 🍷 has won Wine Investment Firm of the Year 2026 at the Innervision Media "Heroes of Industry" Awards.

'The Heroes of Industry Award' recognises businesses and individuals who consistently go above and beyond within their sector. This award celebrates resilience, leadership and a lasting contribution to the industry, acknowledging those whose work has made a meaningful and positive impact.

We do not pay for awards, so it is a privilege to have been selected.

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Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

I have been dreaming of the moment we could announce this wine investment strategy...

𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠... 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 📈 

With the market now in the early stages of recovery, our newest wine investment syndicate is designed to capitalise on a return to growth.

"Boom" periods in the wine markets (e.g. Liv-ex 1000) have historically averaged three years in duration with cycles delivering anywhere between 10 - 24% annualised returns.

Following a period of price consolidation, the market has reset to valuation levels not seen since before the pandemic - creating an asymmetric setup where historical precedent for recovery substantially outweighs current downside risk. For investors, moments like this have consistently represented the most compelling point of entry.

This portfolio is set to outperform for three core reasons:

1️⃣ Valuation Anomalies (Timing): Current pricing in select blue-chip labels has retraced to levels not seen in over a decade. We believe this creates a compelling entry point where the margin of safety is significantly higher than the 15-year mean.

2️⃣ Algorithmic Selection (Data): Rather than following sentiment, we utilise proprietary trading models to identify individual constituents that historically lead market recoveries. We target assets with the highest probability of outperformance over a 5 year horizon.

3️⃣ Market-Making Advantage (Liquidity): In a recovery, liquidity is the ultimate difference maker. This syndicate acts as a liquidity provider, utilising our data capabilities to place aggressive, targeted bids across a broad universe of wines, capturing value from sellers seeking immediate exits.

𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: https://lnkd.in/e-dFJTvx

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Capital at risk. Fine wine is an unregulated asset class and the value of your portfolio may fall as well as rise. Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

We’re pleased to announce that WineFi 🍷 is partnering with GrowthInvest to list our fine wine investment syndicates on their platform.

At GrowthInvest, the mission is simple: make tax-efficient and private investments more accessible for wealth managers, financial advisers, and their high-value clients.

Their platform provides tailored digital solutions that simplify the execution and administration of private asset portfolios, while also allowing advisers to onboard existing assets. The result is a single, clear view of a client’s alternative investments in one place.

By listing WineFi syndicates on GrowthInvest, we’re opening up fine wine as an asset class to a wider network of professional advisers and their clients.

It’s another step towards making fine wine investing more accessible, transparent, and data-driven.

More to come soon!

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Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷 #FineWine #AlternativeInvestments #WealthManagement #PrivateMarkets Steve Dobson Jorge Sierra

Phwoar, now this is the stuff that gets me out of bed!

We ran a Monte Carlo backtest of WineFi Investment Score (WIS)-screened portfolios (WIS ≥ 70) against the Liv-ex 1000 benchmark over a 10-year holding period.

Rather than testing a single “perfect” portfolio, we simulated 600 randomly constructed portfolios, each subject to regional allocation constraints, to reflect real-world portfolio construction rather than hindsight optimisation.

The purple line shows the mean normalised performance across all simulations.

The shaded band represents ±1 standard deviation, and each thin line is an individual portfolio path.

For comparison:

👉 The red line represents a price-weighted index of Liv-ex 1000 constituents, simulating a simple buy-and-hold strategy using observed market prices.

👉 The dark-red line shows the official Liv-ex 1000 mid-price index.

The result?

Consistent outperformance across the distribution, not just at the mean - suggesting that the effect is driven by portfolio construction and asset selection, not a small number of extreme outcomes.

This is, of course, historical simulation, not a forecast. Markets change. Correlations shift. No backtest can remove risk.

But what it can do is demonstrate that, across cycles, systematic selection and disciplined allocation have historically mattered more than timing the market.

That’s the foundation we build on.

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Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

BIG build in public update 📈 

With the launch of our new website over the next few days, the performance (+ all holdings) of our fine wine investment syndicates will be displayed publicly.

Performance will be benchmarked against third-party indices, and audited by a third-party accountant (Complete HQ). 

I actually made a pledge to a stranger on Reddit to do this within Q1 2026.

He (or she) were skeptical of the concept of wine investment and the idea that anyone could "beat" the market. 

I'm glad to be following through on my promise publicly. 

--
Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

Build in public update: What's next for WineFi 🍷?

We set out to professionalise fine wine investment, bringing transparency and quantitative analysis to a market that has so often been inefficient and opaque.

Our quantitative models - an industry first - have played a critical role in ensuring all of our syndicates generate alpha vs. their respective benchmarks.

This is all the more impressive given the steep decline of the wine markets.

Since the beginning of the year, with the wine markets now in recovery, we have been testing growth channels (thank you Julian Trémaud) in order to scale the investment side of the business.

The launch of our new website is only the beginning. From here our plan is to:

1️⃣ Monetise our data tools.

This creates a B2B revenue stream that is decoupled from the cyclical nature of the wine markets. We have pilots in the offing with three industry players. More on this soon.

2️⃣ Introduce other adjacent asset classes to our platform.

Think whisky, tequila and rum. These can be integrated under the WineFi brand and already fit seamlessly within our syndicates or private portfolios.

3️⃣ Develop a product aimed at professional investors and large ticket clients following a discretionary trading strategy.

We’re expanding into adjacent assets, scaling our data infrastructure, and opening the door to larger pools of capital.

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Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

Gosh, who knew that actions had consequences? 

Turns out the Laffer Curve inconveniently does exist after all.

In fact, the alcohol sector is one of the clearest examples. 

Once duty is already high (as it is in the UK) further increases don’t generate more tax. They suppress legal consumption, push volume into lower-tax or untaxed channels and hollow out the on-trade.

That means...

Lower duty collected.
Less VAT.
Fewer viable pubs/bars/restaurants.
Fewer jobs.
...and a smaller total tax take.

Tax policy doesn’t operate in a vacuum. It operates in markets full of humans who respond to incentives.

Ignore that, and you get worse outcomes.

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Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

HM Revenue & Customs figures show a 4% year on year drop in Alcohol Duty receipts for the 2025 to 2026 financial year to date. The decline comes despite repeated upratings in duty. While late summer receipts edged up slightly, the broader trend indicates lower overall Treasury takings from beer, wine and spirits.

Open article: UK alcohol tax revenue falls £285m despite higher duty rates by thedrinksbusiness.com

UK alcohol tax revenue falls £285m despite higher duty rates

During COVID, the fine wine market experienced one of the strongest bull runs in its history -- reaching all time highs in October 2022.

Prices accelerated so sharply that at one point, the Liv-ex Burgundy 150 was outperforming the Nasdaq by 30%.

Looking back, two forces explain most of what happened.

1. Liquidity flooded the system

Governments and central banks pumped enormous amounts of stimulus into the global economy. Interest rates were near zero and investors were searching for alternative assets that could preserve value.

Fine wine suddenly started appearing on the radar of investors who had never previously considered it.

2. Consumers were stuck at home

Lockdowns changed spending behaviour dramatically. No travel, no eating out, no money spent on "experiences".

Instead, people spent money on things they could enjoy at home. Collectors invested in their cellars. 

The result was a powerful demand shock.

Prices across the fine wine market surged between 2020 and 2022.

Since then the market has been working through a correction. But cycles are a normal feature of every asset class.

The real question now is what the next phase of the wine market looks like.

If you want to understand the market in more depth, comment GUIDE and I’ll send you our 2026 Fine Wine Investment Guide. 🍷

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Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

Are we at the beginning of the next great fine wine rally? 

It's a question we hear constantly.

Since its peak in late 2022, the Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 has fallen approximately 29% over 2.8 years - the longest, deepest drawdown since the index launched in 2004.

And history is unambiguous about what comes next.

The past 25 years have seen five boom periods averaging +52% gains. Every single prior decline was followed by a recovery that materially outweighed the fall.

The window of opportunity to buy great wines at unusually low prices is open right now. Price discovery is slow in fine wine - recovery periods create wider price dispersion. 

The best way to take advantage of this is to provide liquidity when others cannot, and secure the market's best deals before prices rise or spreads tighten.

During periods of market stress, motivated sellers routinely accept prices below fundamental value. By deploying capital now — backed by WineFi's proprietary valuation model and 18.4 million historic price points — we identify and secure the market's best deals before prices recover and spreads close.

The opportunity isn't simply to invest in fine wine.

It's to invest now - at the exact moment when price gaps are widest, sentiment is most cautious, and the asymmetry between risk and reward is most pronounced.

Before that window closes.

To find out more comment "GUIDE" to receive our FREE fine wine investment guide.

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Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷. Capital at risk. Fine wine is an unregulated asset class and the value of your portfolio may rise as well as fall.

Should you invest in Cristal Rosè 2002?

Iconic brand.

Fantastic vintage. 

Strong critic scores.

16 years left in its drinking window.

But is it a good investment at current market prices? 🤔 

Our quant model doesn't think so...

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Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

Our latest fine wine investment syndicate, The Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Collection, closes for new investment this Sunday 8th March.

Through WineFi 🍷, you can co-invest in this diversified portfolio from as little as £5,000 -- the price of a single glass of Romanee-Conti Grand Cru! 

The wines themselves are stored in perfect condition, in a ring-fenced account, at Coterie Vaults under the names of syndicate members. This means that no VAT or Duty is payable, and that the wines are yours.

To find out more, visit our website or drop me a DM.

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Capital at risk. Fine wine is an unregulated asset class and the value of your portfolio may fall as well as rise.

🚨 Missed the 2022 peak? The next fine wine cycle might be beginning...

The fine wine market has just come through the longest correction in market history.

After hitting all time highs in October 2022, the market drifted lower for 34 consecutive months.

But if you look at the long-term data, something interesting appears.

The Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000, the broadest benchmark of the investment-grade wine market, has risen more than 3.5x since 2004.

And historically, wine markets move in very clear cycles.

Previous "boom" phases delivered returns such as:
 • +109% over 4.5 years
 • +51% over 2.6 years
 • +50% over 4.3 years
 • +44% over 2.5 years

When wine rallies, it tends to rise slowly, steadily, and for years.

It also offers investors something rare:

♾️ Low correlation to equities (a powerful portfolio diversifier)
🍷 Finite global supply of the world’s greatest wines
📊 CGT exemptions for UK investors (wine is classed as a “wasting asset”)

After the longest drawdown the market has ever seen, the obvious question is: Is the next cycle already beginning?

👉 If you’d like our full breakdown of the market outlook, comment “GUIDE” and I’ll send you our 2026 Fine Wine Investment Guide 🍷

Thinking of taking advantage of the wine market recovery?

With WineFi 🍷 you can invest in fine wine at a fraction of the cost of owning the underlying portfolio outright.

We use quantitative analysis to identify wines that are most likely to appreciate in value of the medium term (~5 years) and take care of sourcing, storage and insurance.

When the time is right to sell to maximise returns, we sell the portfolios and distribute returns pro rata to investors.

Throughout the journey, investors can track the value of their portfolio in real time on our platform using two independent market prices.

Before this though, we were wine collectors and investors ourselves. We had become fascinated by the characteristics of fine wine as an asset class and the inefficiency of the market.

Our hypothesis was that through modern data science, we would be able to predict which wines were good investments and the right entry and exit points.

To find out more, visit our website.

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Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

Thinking about investing in wine… but not sure if it’s actually a sensible idea?

Trying to work out the difference between WineFi, a merchant… or (God forbid!) one of our competitors?

Or just wishing someone had written a proper guide to the whole market?

Well… we did.

The 2026 Fine Wine Investment Guide breaks down how the market works, what drives prices, and how people actually invest in the asset class.

Comment GUIDE and I’ll send it to you, or just go to our website.

(Also still figuring out VEED and doing my own stunts… so be kind.)

--
Follow the journey over at WineFi 🍷

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