In this episode, Steve LeFavour, Managing Partner of The Praderia Group, a boutique investment bank based in Austin and Oklahoma City, shares how his firm built AI tools to screen deals and vet fund managers. Drawing on decades of experience as a manufacturing operator and turnaround specialist before co-founding Praderia eight years ago, Steve explains how his team evaluates capital raises and M&A deals across manufacturing, industrials, energy, and occasionally maritime industries, and why they intentionally screen out 98 percent of the deals that come their way.
Steve walks through how Praderia built two proprietary tools, Tranche and Vintage, using Claude, with no prior coding experience, to assess deal fundability and audit general partners before recommending them to limited partners. He also discusses how his team automated roughly 85 to 90 percent of their day-to-day operations, from onboarding subcontractors and investors to running seven marketing campaigns simultaneously, offering a practical blueprint for business owners and dealmakers looking to leverage AI without a technical background.
Learn more about The Praderia Group at https://www.tpgsvc.com/