Gravity Capital Launches AI Agent to Solve the "Missing Link" in French SME Succession

France faces a succession crisis - and visibility alone won't solve it

Over the next decade, an estimated 500,000 French business owners will retire, putting hundreds of thousands of SMEs at risk of disappearing. In April 2026, the French government launched Objectif Reprises, a national plan led by Bercy and Bpifrance to accelerate ownership transitions. The initiative marks a turning point: business succession is now a matter of public policy.

Yet listing a company on a marketplace does not get deals done. The real bottleneck sits further down the funnel - in the qualified outreach, the first conversation, the trust-building that convinces a 60-year-old founder to open his books to a stranger.

The execution gap in deal origination

Traditional M&A advisory for small and mid-cap transactions relies on a labour-intensive, relationship-driven model. Advisors cold-call, attend trade shows, tap personal networks. The process works, but it is slow: months can pass between identifying a target and activating a mandate. For a market that needs to process tens of thousands of transitions per year, the model does not scale.

This is the problem Gravity Capital was built to solve. Not visibility - execution.

An AI agent purpose-built for SME deal sourcing

Founded in Lyon by Florent Jacques (Head of AI) and Adrien Pelletant - M&A professional with experience at Siparex, Carvest, and Rothschild - Gravity Capital has developed an AI-driven platform that automates the most time-consuming phases of deal origination. The platform operates across four modules:

Scan - Identification and scoring of potential sellers using financial signals, ownership data, and sector dynamics
Reach - Qualified outreach sequences combining personalised messaging and intelligent follow-up
Mandat - Structured workflows compressing the path from first contact to signed mandate
Doc - Automated preparation of transaction documentation (teaser, info memo)

"A visible company is not a company that gets acquired," says Florent Jacques. "Bpifrance's Objectif Reprises solves the awareness problem. We solve the execution problem - turning a name on a list into a signed NDA and a meeting with the owner."

Adrien Pelletant adds: "The talent and expertise exist in French advisory firms. What they lack is a scalable way to source and qualify deals. That's exactly what our platform delivers."

A tool for the advisory ecosystem

Gravity Capital does not compete with M&A advisors - it arms them. The platform is designed for succession advisory firms, accounting firms (experts-comptables), wealth management consultants (CGP), and transmission advisors who need a reliable, scalable pipeline of qualified sellers.

Resources:
https://gravity-capital.fr/
https://gravity-capital.fr/espace-presse

Gravity Capital
37 rue Sainte-Hélène 69002 Lyon, France
Head of AI - Florent JACQUES
presse@gravity-capital.fr

Gravity Capital is a Lyon-based startup reshaping SME deal origination in France. Founded by Florent Jacques (Head of AI) and Adrien Pelletant (ex-Siparex, Carvest, Rothschild), the company deploys an AI-powered agent that automates deal sourcing and qualified outreach for business succession transactions in the small and mid-cap segment. By compressing mandate activation timelines and scaling advisory capacity, Gravity Capital equips M&A firms, accounting practices, and wealth management consultants with the infrastructure to address France's unprecedented wave of ownership transitions.

This release was published on openPR.