Maven and CM2 Join Forces to Offer New Suite of Competitive Intelligence and M&A Support Services

Partnership Combines Intelligence Gathering with On-Demand Domain Expertise

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — August 10, 2011 – Maven, the Global Knowledge Marketplace, has partnered with CM2, a leading Washington, D.C.-based strategic consulting firm, to offer a suite of advisory products for firms seeking unparalleled competitive intelligence and M&A support.

The partnership leverages techniques developed by the U.S. intelligence community combined with Maven’s ability to deliver on-demand domain expertise. The results are synthesized, action-oriented recommendations that can help companies make critical strategic decisions.

“In today’s competitive marketplace, it takes well-researched intelligence to succeed,” commented Maven Co-Founder and CEO Wyatt Nordstrom. “This partnership with CM2 will provide our clients with the information they need to make better strategic decisions. Our suite of advisory products can help companies in their due diligence, competitive analysis, and market viability reviews to give them a clear competitive advantage.”

CM2’s Managing Partner Matthew H. Polak added, “This partnership will leverage two distinct and powerful capabilities: Maven’s state-of-the-art microconsulting platform and CM2’s ability to create customized strategic insights using its proprietary techniques. The combination of our human intelligence capabilities with Maven’s global network of experts to create strategically oriented and highly actionable business solutions is a natural fit.”

The partnership will offer several competitive intelligence and M&A services, including:

Mini-Market Map – Creating Proprietary Deal Flow and Vetting a Market:

A targeted perspective on an industry niche, typically within a certain size range and/or geography. This analysis can be an important addition to a client’s existing due diligence work prior to investment. It is often used to develop proprietary deal-flow in areas of interest because it identifies companies that are overlooked via traditional analysis and provides insights into companies that need capital or are likely sellers. The Mini Market Map also identifies likely purchasers of assets or companies.

A typical Mini Market Map includes:

• Key trends and forces driving growth and consolidation on the market in question
• A detailed profile of the key companies operating within the market of interest to include important details about the companies’ strategies, management, customers, financials, and competition.
• Recommendations that are specific to the client’s request

Target-Specific Due Diligence:

A deeper assessment of investment targets well beyond the information in the data room and information that the investor is able to acquire. This world-class analysis of the target firm identifies key strengths and weaknesses and likely long-term success along with a short list of key post-closing actions required to maximize value potential.

Competitive Tear Down:

The Competitive Tear Down is a “deep dive” analysis of a specific company that   addresses key issues confronting a client’s current business or potential investment. It is            includes a broad and comprehensive human intelligence collection effort, often including interviews with industry experts that have direct knowledge of the target.

The Competitive Tear Down results in an action-oriented assessment of the target company, and can include detailed insights into the company’s:

• Financial position
• Key leaders, often sales or R&D oriented people that drive the value in the business
• Strategic challenges and opportunities
• Key strengths and weaknesses, and how to exploit them
• Product, technology, or R&D pipeline changes
• Key customers, including those that are “at risk” of being converted to a competitor

Competitive Landscape Matrix (CLM):

The CLM is a data visualization tool that ranks companies in a given market segment based on a variety of factors, including how competitive they are relative to the market leader. The CLM also compares financial strength, market share, and senior management’s desire to succeed to create a comprehensive view of the current and future market participants. CLMs drive strategy, acquisitions, recruiting, product development, and more.

About CM2

CM2 Limited (http://www.cm2limited.com/) is headquartered in Washington, DC and specializes in working at the intersection of strategy, M&A, and competitive intelligence. CM2 personnel have played key roles in over 90 M&A transactions and over 1,000 intelligence projects on a global basis. For more information, please visit http://www.cm2limited.com/ or email info@cm2limited.com.

About Maven

Maven ( or contact Chuck Hester, PR Maven, at chester@maven.co.