Ardent Equity operates as a hands-on mid-market private equity firm focused on Benelux and DACH businesses, built around an operator-led model that emphasizes close alignment with management teams rather than passive financial ownership. Its portfolio reflects a deliberate strategy of backing category-resilient companies across consumer manufacturing, pure-play e-commerce, and B2B industrial audio, with evidence of both majority acquisitions and successful exits that demonstrate its ability to originate, scale, and realize value across different business models. The firm positions itself around a clearly articulated “assess, align, accelerate” framework, avoids rigid holding periods, and embeds sustainability and ESG tracking into its investment governance, signaling a long-term, systems-driven approach to value creation. Combined with a regulated operating structure and a concentrated, thesis-driven portfolio, Ardent Equity stands out as a private equity platform built for active ownership and operational leverage—one that merits close attention for how it compounds discipline, execution, and outcomes in the European mid-market.
Ardent Equity had a lean GTM team and they wanted to build an acquisition system that must have everything in one place — access to 30+ custom account databases, signal-based TAM segmentation, automated enrichment, scoring, and qualification. They needed fast list creation, 1:1 personalized icebreakers (like “Saw this person recommended you” from LinkedIn), campaign scheduling, contextual follow-ups, and automated routing of interested leads. Email infrastructure, deliverability setup, and two-way CRM sync had to be included — no stitching tools together. What made it work wasn’t just the features, but the hands-on support.
The Ardent Equity team wanted to build an acquisition system that must have everything in one place — access to 15+ custom account databases, signal-based TAM segmentation, automated enrichment, scoring, and qualification. They needed fast list creation, 1:1 personalized icebreakers, campaign scheduling, contextual follow-ups, and automated routing of interested leads. Email infrastructure, deliverability setup, and two-way CRM sync had to be included – no stitching tools together. What made it work wasn’t just the features, but the hands-on support.
Ardent Equity was trying to identify mid-sized, owner-led businesses with stable operations and clear decision ownership. They focused on manufacturing, food, and pet food companies, indicating structured production and recurring operational needs. Targeting owners or CEOs signaled centralized authority and faster buying decisions. Limiting the geography to the Benelux region ensured regulatory familiarity and market focus, while the 50–500 employee size suggested scale without enterprise complexity. Together, these signals surfaced accounts with strong fit, authority, and readiness to engage.
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Target hot accounts with strong buying signals those rapidly expand, with both the budget and need for your product.
Act quickly to book meetings within the next 10 days, as these accounts are prime for conversion right now.
Signal 1: Target Geography – Companies based in the Benelux region, including the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Signal 2: Senior Leadership ICP – Companies where the target contacts are the owner or CEO.
Signal 3: Companies with 50–500 employees size.
Signal 4: Industry Focus (Preferred) – Companies operating in manufacturing, food, or pet food industries.
Now, let’s take a look at how the GTM Agent put this into action.
The GTM Agent targeted accounts matching the above signals and turned high-intent leads into warm conversations—without any manual follow-ups from the founder. This gave the team bandwidth to focus on closing, while outbound ran on autopilot.
Challenge: The manual, time-intensive process of finding companies actively hiring.
Solution: An AI-powered workflow implemented to automate lead identification, research, and qualification.
Let’s take a look at the flow run by the AI Agent for Ardent Equity
Input & Initial Data Capture: Basic company information is entered.
Company Extraction: Using a google query to extract a list of companies actively hiring engineering roles.
Find Company Domain: Auto-discover the domain of each company using its name.
Enrich Company Info: Fetch enriched data like size, location, website, social links, etc., using name and domain.
US Presence Check: Use AI to search if the company has a presence in the US by scanning search engine results for terms like “United States” or “USA”.
Decision Maker Identification and Email Enrichment: The system then finds relevant decision-makers within the company. After that, Contact email addresses are enriched using the gathered information.
Save to SmartLead: Automatically push enriched lead data (name, email) into a SmartLead
Human-in-the-Loop Campaign Management
While GTM Agents are autonomous, every campaign benefits from an expert-led human-in-the-loop (HITL) architecture that ensures precision, adaptability, and reliability—especially in complex SaaS and GTM environments where AI alone may fall short.
The campaign engine is supported by real humans with deep expertise in GTM systems, making the service resilient, customizable, and highly contextual.
What This Means for the Ardent Equity Team:
No DIY configurations — Our team handles all technical setup, infrastructure, and sequencing logic.
No risk of failure — If the AI agent cannot process a domain, extract signals, or validate contacts, our human experts step in immediately.
In this sprint we could identify 50+ accounts that are in fits show signal level hot and fits ICP fit.
With a 1% conversion rate, and ACV of 25K, this totals to X amount of identified pipeline in one week
Ardent Equity doesn’t just run one-size fits all programs. The team has built creative, flexible campaigns on top of custom AI Workflow.
AI Agent generated:
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Convert!If you're targeting customer service managers, than you'll need a pitch that completely resonates with them.
But how do you write emails that strike are a perfect balance between promoting your business but not being too self-centered?
In this article, Sacha, CEO of Growth Room, shows how social proof helps you transform a cold email into a powerful tool that books meetings!
Here's an example of a cold email that targets customer service (CS) managers in e-commerce to sell an AI-powered CS platform 👇
Here are Sacha’s insights on what needs to be improved to get more replies:
Mistake #1 → Too promotional subject line
Avoid using popular marketing and sales keywords such as “boost”, “customer service”, and “AI” which won’t make your cold email stand out in prospects’ inboxes.
Mistake #2 → Self-centered intro line
The intro line should catch prospects’ attention by talking about them and what you can do for them. Talking about yourself won’t bring them value and interest them in reading the rest of your email.
Mistake #3 → Not-visible CTA
Because your prospects usually scan emails before reading them, adding a space line before the ending line will make their next step more clear.
Mistake #4 → Spam words
If you want to ensure your messaging gets through, avoid using spam words like “free”. Those words trigger the spam filters and land your emails in the spam folder where your target audience can’t read them.
Here is how Sacha would rewrite the previous cold email and his tips for booking more meetings!
Tip #1 → Focus on your prospect
If you want to get replies to your cold emails - talk about their company, compliment them, and ensure the majority of your email is focused on them and how to achieve their goals.
Tip #2 → Give a glimpse of the value you bring
By leveraging social proof, you can showcase prospects’ desired outcomes and tease them into replying. Mention clients and their results from relevant industries to build trust and credibility.
Tip #3 → Position yourself as an expert
Position yourself as a problem solver. Once you show your leads that you understand their pain point and know how to solve it, it will make your product/service more relevant.
Tip #4 → Non-intrusive CTA
Instead of talking about demos, ask for less effort and talk about catching up over a call/meeting. It will sound less salesy and push your prospects to reply.
Here are Sacha’s tips for effective cold emailing to sell AI-powered platforms to e-commerce CS managers:
-> Focus on the recipient, highlighting their company and goals
-> Utilize social proof relevant to their industry to establish trust
-> Position yourself as a solution to their specific challenges
-> Use a non-intrusive call-to-action, like suggesting a casual call or meeting instead of demo
Cold emails work effectively when they are targeted, personalized, clear, and part of a well-thought sales strategy.
Here are 5 best practices that will make your cold outreach effective and help you get results:
Cold emails can be effective when they are highly targeted. This means understanding the recipient's industry, role, and potential needs, and then crafting an email that speaks directly to those factors.
A key element of successful cold emails is personalization. This goes beyond just using the recipient's name; it involves tailoring the message to address their specific challenges or interests.
The effectiveness of a cold email is often tied to its clarity. As the majority of recipients first scan cold emails, they are more likely to engage with the ones that get to the point quickly and offer a clear value proposition.
Persistence in cold outreach pays off! Follow-up emails, when done respectfully and increasing the value, can boost the chances of getting a reply.
The success of cold emails should be measured not just by open or response rates, but also by the quality of the interactions they initiate (e.g., established connections, closed deals)
Salesloft can be used in Large Enterprises, Mid Size Business, Non Profit, Public Administrations, and Small Businesses.
It was built for the entire revenue teams to optimize customer journey:
Ardent Equity operates as a hands-on mid-market private equity firm focused on Benelux and DACH businesses, built around an operator-led model that emphasizes close alignment with management teams rather than passive financial ownership. Its portfolio reflects a deliberate strategy of backing category-resilient companies across consumer manufacturing, pure-play e-commerce, and B2B industrial audio, with evidence of both majority acquisitions and successful exits that demonstrate its ability to originate, scale, and realize value across different business models. The firm positions itself around a clearly articulated “assess, align, accelerate” framework, avoids rigid holding periods, and embeds sustainability and ESG tracking into its investment governance, signaling a long-term, systems-driven approach to value creation. Combined with a regulated operating structure and a concentrated, thesis-driven portfolio, Ardent Equity stands out as a private equity platform built for active ownership and operational leverage—one that merits close attention for how it compounds discipline, execution, and outcomes in the European mid-market.
Ardent Equity had a lean GTM team and they wanted to build an acquisition system that must have everything in one place — access to 30+ custom account databases, signal-based TAM segmentation, automated enrichment, scoring, and qualification. They needed fast list creation, 1:1 personalized icebreakers (like “Saw this person recommended you” from LinkedIn), campaign scheduling, contextual follow-ups, and automated routing of interested leads. Email infrastructure, deliverability setup, and two-way CRM sync had to be included — no stitching tools together. What made it work wasn’t just the features, but the hands-on support.
The Ardent Equity team wanted to build an acquisition system that must have everything in one place — access to 15+ custom account databases, signal-based TAM segmentation, automated enrichment, scoring, and qualification. They needed fast list creation, 1:1 personalized icebreakers, campaign scheduling, contextual follow-ups, and automated routing of interested leads. Email infrastructure, deliverability setup, and two-way CRM sync had to be included – no stitching tools together. What made it work wasn’t just the features, but the hands-on support.
Ardent Equity was trying to identify mid-sized, owner-led businesses with stable operations and clear decision ownership. They focused on manufacturing, food, and pet food companies, indicating structured production and recurring operational needs. Targeting owners or CEOs signaled centralized authority and faster buying decisions. Limiting the geography to the Benelux region ensured regulatory familiarity and market focus, while the 50–500 employee size suggested scale without enterprise complexity. Together, these signals surfaced accounts with strong fit, authority, and readiness to engage.
Target hot accounts with strong buying signals those rapidly expand, with both the budget and need for your product.
Act quickly to book meetings within the next 10 days, as these accounts are prime for conversion right now.
Signal 1: Target Geography – Companies based in the Benelux region, including the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Signal 2: Senior Leadership ICP – Companies where the target contacts are the owner or CEO.
Signal 3: Companies with 50–500 employees size.
Signal 4: Industry Focus (Preferred) – Companies operating in manufacturing, food, or pet food industries.
Now, let’s take a look at how the GTM Agent put this into action.
The GTM Agent targeted accounts matching the above signals and turned high-intent leads into warm conversations—without any manual follow-ups from the founder. This gave the team bandwidth to focus on closing, while outbound ran on autopilot.
Challenge: The manual, time-intensive process of finding companies actively hiring.
Solution: An AI-powered workflow implemented to automate lead identification, research, and qualification.
Let’s take a look at the flow run by the AI Agent for Ardent Equity
Input & Initial Data Capture: Basic company information is entered.
Company Extraction: Using a google query to extract a list of companies actively hiring engineering roles.
Find Company Domain: Auto-discover the domain of each company using its name.
Enrich Company Info: Fetch enriched data like size, location, website, social links, etc., using name and domain.
US Presence Check: Use AI to search if the company has a presence in the US by scanning search engine results for terms like “United States” or “USA”.
Decision Maker Identification and Email Enrichment: The system then finds relevant decision-makers within the company. After that, Contact email addresses are enriched using the gathered information.
Save to SmartLead: Automatically push enriched lead data (name, email) into a SmartLead
Human-in-the-Loop Campaign Management
While GTM Agents are autonomous, every campaign benefits from an expert-led human-in-the-loop (HITL) architecture that ensures precision, adaptability, and reliability—especially in complex SaaS and GTM environments where AI alone may fall short.
The campaign engine is supported by real humans with deep expertise in GTM systems, making the service resilient, customizable, and highly contextual.
What This Means for the Ardent Equity Team:
No DIY configurations — Our team handles all technical setup, infrastructure, and sequencing logic.
No risk of failure — If the AI agent cannot process a domain, extract signals, or validate contacts, our human experts step in immediately.
In this sprint we could identify 50+ accounts that are in fits show signal level hot and fits ICP fit.
With a 1% conversion rate, and ACV of 25K, this totals to X amount of identified pipeline in one week
Ardent Equity doesn’t just run one-size fits all programs. The team has built creative, flexible campaigns on top of custom AI Workflow.
AI Agent generated:
This section uses a container element to ensure the content looks right on every device. It’s centered with the class “Centered Container.”
Convert!Ardent Equity operates as a hands-on mid-market private equity firm focused on Benelux and DACH businesses, built around an operator-led model that emphasizes close alignment with management teams rather than passive financial ownership. Its portfolio reflects a deliberate strategy of backing category-resilient companies across consumer manufacturing, pure-play e-commerce, and B2B industrial audio, with evidence of both majority acquisitions and successful exits that demonstrate its ability to originate, scale, and realize value across different business models. The firm positions itself around a clearly articulated “assess, align, accelerate” framework, avoids rigid holding periods, and embeds sustainability and ESG tracking into its investment governance, signaling a long-term, systems-driven approach to value creation. Combined with a regulated operating structure and a concentrated, thesis-driven portfolio, Ardent Equity stands out as a private equity platform built for active ownership and operational leverage—one that merits close attention for how it compounds discipline, execution, and outcomes in the European mid-market.
Ardent Equity had a lean GTM team and they wanted to build an acquisition system that must have everything in one place — access to 30+ custom account databases, signal-based TAM segmentation, automated enrichment, scoring, and qualification. They needed fast list creation, 1:1 personalized icebreakers (like “Saw this person recommended you” from LinkedIn), campaign scheduling, contextual follow-ups, and automated routing of interested leads. Email infrastructure, deliverability setup, and two-way CRM sync had to be included — no stitching tools together. What made it work wasn’t just the features, but the hands-on support.
The Ardent Equity team wanted to build an acquisition system that must have everything in one place — access to 15+ custom account databases, signal-based TAM segmentation, automated enrichment, scoring, and qualification. They needed fast list creation, 1:1 personalized icebreakers, campaign scheduling, contextual follow-ups, and automated routing of interested leads. Email infrastructure, deliverability setup, and two-way CRM sync had to be included – no stitching tools together. What made it work wasn’t just the features, but the hands-on support.
Ardent Equity was trying to identify mid-sized, owner-led businesses with stable operations and clear decision ownership. They focused on manufacturing, food, and pet food companies, indicating structured production and recurring operational needs. Targeting owners or CEOs signaled centralized authority and faster buying decisions. Limiting the geography to the Benelux region ensured regulatory familiarity and market focus, while the 50–500 employee size suggested scale without enterprise complexity. Together, these signals surfaced accounts with strong fit, authority, and readiness to engage.
Target hot accounts with strong buying signals those rapidly expand, with both the budget and need for your product.
Act quickly to book meetings within the next 10 days, as these accounts are prime for conversion right now.
Signal 1: Target Geography – Companies based in the Benelux region, including the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Signal 2: Senior Leadership ICP – Companies where the target contacts are the owner or CEO.
Signal 3: Companies with 50–500 employees size.
Signal 4: Industry Focus (Preferred) – Companies operating in manufacturing, food, or pet food industries.
Now, let’s take a look at how the GTM Agent put this into action.
The GTM Agent targeted accounts matching the above signals and turned high-intent leads into warm conversations—without any manual follow-ups from the founder. This gave the team bandwidth to focus on closing, while outbound ran on autopilot.
Challenge: The manual, time-intensive process of finding companies actively hiring.
Solution: An AI-powered workflow implemented to automate lead identification, research, and qualification.
Let’s take a look at the flow run by the AI Agent for Ardent Equity
Input & Initial Data Capture: Basic company information is entered.
Company Extraction: Using a google query to extract a list of companies actively hiring engineering roles.
Find Company Domain: Auto-discover the domain of each company using its name.
Enrich Company Info: Fetch enriched data like size, location, website, social links, etc., using name and domain.
US Presence Check: Use AI to search if the company has a presence in the US by scanning search engine results for terms like “United States” or “USA”.
Decision Maker Identification and Email Enrichment: The system then finds relevant decision-makers within the company. After that, Contact email addresses are enriched using the gathered information.
Save to SmartLead: Automatically push enriched lead data (name, email) into a SmartLead
Human-in-the-Loop Campaign Management
While GTM Agents are autonomous, every campaign benefits from an expert-led human-in-the-loop (HITL) architecture that ensures precision, adaptability, and reliability—especially in complex SaaS and GTM environments where AI alone may fall short.
The campaign engine is supported by real humans with deep expertise in GTM systems, making the service resilient, customizable, and highly contextual.
What This Means for the Ardent Equity Team:
No DIY configurations — Our team handles all technical setup, infrastructure, and sequencing logic.
No risk of failure — If the AI agent cannot process a domain, extract signals, or validate contacts, our human experts step in immediately.
In this sprint we could identify 50+ accounts that are in fits show signal level hot and fits ICP fit.
With a 1% conversion rate, and ACV of 25K, this totals to X amount of identified pipeline in one week
Ardent Equity doesn’t just run one-size fits all programs. The team has built creative, flexible campaigns on top of custom AI Workflow.
AI Agent generated:
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