{"id":97535,"title":"Maywood - AI for M\u0026A","tagline":"The platform to run your entire deal","body":"Hi Everyone! \n\nWe’re **Drake, Kent, and Esteban**, co-founders of [**Maywood**](https://maywoodai.com/). \n\n# **TL;DR** \n\n**Maywood automates deal execution for investment banks, from decks to diligence.**\n\nBanks do not lose deals because of bad judgment. They lose time to repetitive work, fragmented information, and processes that do not scale with deal volume. \n\nMaywood removes execution bottlenecks so that deal teams can focus on judgment rather than mechanics. \n\n \n\n[**https://youtu.be/OCgXCora2OQ**](https://youtu.be/OCgXCora2OQ) \n\n# **The M\u0026A Process Doesn’t Scale** \n\nThere was $5 trillion of M\u0026A in 2025, yet M\u0026A workflow spans dozens of fragmented systems. Deal teams spend an extraordinary amount of time reconciling updates across platforms, copying figures from client materials, and reviewing large decks line by line to ensure accuracy and consistency. As teams increase transaction volume, they are forced to trade off speed with quality. The more deals a team runs, the harder it becomes to maintain a consistently high standard of execution. \n\nExecution, in practice, does not scale cleanly. We see this across middle-market and large investment banks. Teams rely on increasingly manual oversight to keep processes on track, with senior bankers spending time reviewing mechanics rather than focusing on judgment, positioning, and client advice. \n\nWe believe the best deal teams should win based on the insight and guidance they deliver to clients, not on their ability to manage PowerPoint and internal coordination at scale. \n\n \n\n# **Maywood Expedites Execution and Elevates Quality** \n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=97535\u0026key=user_uploads/2969341/7e11d106-ad35-4d3f-b52a-8969cdadf936)\n\nMaywood is building an AI execution layer for investment banking. Our goal extends much further than producing decks at the push of a button and instead centers around unlocking deal teams to focus on their relationships with clients and maximizing outcomes. \n\n### **1. We do the Foundational Analysis** \n\nMaywood provides a thorough research process covering the company, industry, deal dynamics, and more. Instead of analysts and associates spending days pulling comparables, industry context, and buyer rationales or managing directors (MDs) prepping endlessly for their next call with the management team, our system handles the entire process natively. This enables Maywood to optimally position each company being sold, in some cases replacing an MD’s original thesis altogether. \n\n### **2. Our Materials Can be Sent Directly to Clients** \n\nMaywood analyzes past confidential information memorandums (CIMs) and pitches to extrapolate firm-specific language and formatting standards. We run models that determine what has led to success in the past and emulate that in current deals, all while being in an isolated system. Some MDs forward materials directly generated on Maywood, while others use it to draft first-pass materials and iterate quicker using natural language to make slide mutations. \n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=97535\u0026key=user_uploads/2969341/86433f7d-2dfb-4678-a235-18b429c7690a)\n\nMaywood also transforms the due diligence portion of the process, where buyers ask countless questions about the transaction. Maywood surfaces answers immediately and flags missing information along with key risks to ensure deal teams are fully equipped.  \n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=97535\u0026key=user_uploads/2969341/9910819f-a237-47f5-8465-6421fad16989)\n\n### **3. We Deliver Everything via a Single Platform** \n\nEverything is connected. The analysis feeds into decks and the due diligence module. Data updates propagate throughout the entire system automatically. Every feature works as a function of this continuously updating data layer, from first document uploaded to close. \n\n \n\n# **Who This is For** \n\nWe are focused on middle-market and large investment banks running multiple sell-side processes per year and teams that care deeply about quality, consistency, and speed. \n\nWe are already working with several banks and are seeing strong results! \n\n \n\n# **Our Ask**  \n\nIf you are, or know, any of the following, we would love to talk: \n\n* Investment bankers thinking seriously about how AI fits into execution \n\n\n* COOs, heads of operations, or tech leaders at banks evaluating productivity tools \n\n\n* Former bankers with strong opinions about what actually matters in sell-side execution \n\nYou can reach us at [**founders@maywoodai.com**](mailto:founders@maywoodai.com). \n\nIf you know anyone thinking about selling their company, we are happy to help out as well! We have a lot of banking connections to help you navigate this process and get the best outcome possible. \n\n \n\n# **Team** \n\n**Drake** leads product, strategy, and go-to-market. He saw the significant shortcomings and breakdowns of the deal process firsthand while working on some of the largest deals in the industry. He previously worked in private equity at Blackstone, where he helped roll out AI initiatives. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Huntsman Program at Wharton. \n\n**Kent** leads AI and go-to-market. He always loved doing analyst work first manually and then automating it end-to-end right after. That mindset led him to MIT, where he conducted deep research in neural stylistic transfer. Wanting to do this at scale, Kent went to BCG to automate work at Fortune 500 companies. When he heard deals take 6-9 months end to end when the manual work could be shortened to weeks, he founded Maywood to transform the industry. \n\n**Esteban** leads AI and infrastructure. He saw how much AI could transform a financial organization during his time in the hedge fund space at Balyasny. With a strong research background in AI and machine learning, he joined Kent and Drake in founding Maywood to bring those same transformations to dealmaking.  ","slug":"PN9-maywood-ai-for-m-a","created_at":"2026-02-05T17:30:24.158Z","updated_at":"2026-05-25T03:30:41.454Z","total_vote_count":30,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/PN9-maywood-ai-for-m-a","share_image_url":"//bookface-static.ycombinator.com/assets/ycdc/yc-og-image-c440a0ad1dacfb86eeeb343717479cc54d256614449b4ef719977a0a451f8bc8.png","company":{"id":31188,"name":"Maywood","slug":"maywood","url":"https://maywoodai.com/","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/25766f301c649782f67a8e41bd075b4e72544918.png","batch":"Winter 2026","industry":"Fintech","tags":[],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/31188"}}