Leobit
Digital Marketplace To Facilitate Mergers and Acquisitions
Discovery phase for a pioneering startup aimed to simplify the buying and selling of businesses in the UAE and the Middle East
ABOUT
the project
Client:
Location:
OAE
|Dubai
Company Size:
Industry:
Mergers and Acquisition
Solution:
A marketplace platform designed for buying and selling businesses in the UAE and the Middle East. It connects business owners looking to exit with potential buyers, offering a secure and transparent environment for transactions. The platform aims to simplify the process of business acquisitions and exits by providing vetted listings, direct communication between buyers and sellers, and tools for secure transactions.
Our goal was to translate the customer’s vision into a clear, actionable roadmap. By documenting the technical architecture, development milestones, and budget estimates, we ensured they had everything needed to secure investor confidence and move forward with development.
Customer
Our customer is a pioneering online platform dedicated to facilitating the buying and selling of businesses in the UAE and the Middle East. Their mission is to create a seamless and secure marketplace where entrepreneurs can discover exciting business opportunities and business owners can find the right buyers for their ventures.
Business Challenge
The customer wanted to solve the problem of navigating the fragmented and often overwhelming journey of acquiring a business, which many aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned investors face. They wanted to simplify the process of finding reliable opportunities or navigating exit strategies. The platform they kept in mind should bridge the information gap and simplify, streamline, and transform the acquisition process.
Why Leobit
Our customer had a UI/UX design for the MVP version of their solution, which they used to pitch to investors. However, they soon realized that mockups alone weren’t enough to fully communicate their vision and secure funding. Investors needed a clear technical plan, development roadmap, and cost estimates to understand the feasibility of the project.
That’s when they turned to Leobit. Our team stepped in to create comprehensive project documentation with a detailed description of the technical architecture, implementation strategy, timeline, and budget.
Project
in detail
To establish a clear product vision and a structured implementation roadmap, we conducted a discovery phase comprising workshops along with extensive background research and analysis.
Technology selection
We carefully selected a technology stack that provides a strong foundation for future scalability, seamless integration with existing platforms, and long-term stability.
For the front end, we suggested React, as our customer was already using it on another platform. This allowed for UI component reuse to ensure a smooth transition, faster time to market, and easier long-term maintenance. React’s vast ecosystem and strong community support further simplify feature expansion and issue resolution.
For mobile app development, we selected Flutter, as it allows the development of a high-quality, native-like experience on both iOS and Android from a single codebase. It would help our customer to reduce development and maintenance efforts compared to developing separate native applications.
For back-end development, we suggested using .NET, as the customer needed to handle complex, large-scale operations. .NET offers high performance, efficient memory management, and strong type safety, which can ensure stability under heavy loads. We paired .NET with Azure for its built-in security, DevOps support, and seamless integration with OpenAI’s advanced models.
Architecture vision and planning
Our solution architect designed a cloud-based, microservices-driven architecture for the customer’s platform. To support our customer’s evolving business and compliance needs, we suggested hosting a platform on Microsoft Azure so that the system will seamlessly integrate with its services.
The front end will consist of a responsive web interface and a cross-platform mobile application built from a single codebase. Security will be handled through a gateway that manages user authentication and authorization using either internal or external identity providers.
We suggested using containerized microservices to power different platform functions and allow for flexibility and independent scaling. These services communicate through a messaging system that ensures reliability even during high demand. Configuration settings, secrets, and operational data will be managed centrally.
Data storage will combine relational databases for structured information and blob storage for files and documents. Business insights will be generated through a data warehouse that feeds reporting dashboards. The platform will also incorporate artificial intelligence capabilities in the later versions, including a conversational bot to assist users.
The system will also support blockchain transactions and connect with various third-party services for payments, identity verification, document signing, and customer relationship management. Such a modular approach creates a scalable, secure platform that can adapt to changing business requirements over time.
AI/ML features implementation
Since the client wanted to integrate AI-driven features, we analyzed different approaches for addressing multiple tasks within the platform. For AI-based matchmaking, where the system recommends relevant business listings to buyers based on multiple parameters, we determined that a custom ML model would be the most effective. This approach allows for precise control over recommendation logic, fine-tuned matching criteria, and adaptability to the platform’s unique dataset.
For the AI-powered consultant, which assists users with business valuation insights and transaction guidance, we recommended using pre-trained OpenAI LLMs. By integrating a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system and speech models, we can ensure a more conversational and context-aware AI assistant that can provide accurate, real-time responses based on platform data.
Value Delivered
- An in-depth market analysis and market positioning
- Implementation roadmap with time and cost estimate
- Detailed architecture vision and suggested technologies that will best fit to fulfill customer short-term and long-term goals
- List of potential risks and limitations and the ways to mitigate them
- A detailed total infrastructure cost breakdown
