Find Sales Prospects from News and Trends with Codex

Timing matters in sales. A company that raised funding last week is more likely to buy than one you found on a static list six months ago. Codex connected to AgentPatch can scan Google News for trigger events, validate the market with Google Trends, and research each prospect with Google Search — all in one terminal session.

Why This Matters

Event-based prospecting outperforms list-based prospecting because the outreach is timely. “I saw your recent expansion” is a reason to talk. “Hi, I found your company” is not.

The challenge is finding these events consistently. You’d need to monitor industry news, track funding databases, and manually research each company. Codex can automate the scan-and-research loop.

Setup

Add AgentPatch to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.agentpatch]
url = "https://agentpatch.ai/mcp"
bearer_token_env_var = "AGENTPATCH_API_KEY"

Then set your API key:

export AGENTPATCH_API_KEY=your_api_key

Replace your_api_key with your actual key from the AgentPatch dashboard. Codex discovers all AgentPatch tools automatically on next start.

The Workflow

Step 1: Find Trigger Events

Tell Codex what industry and events you care about:

“Search Google News for fintech startups that announced funding rounds or product launches in the last 30 days.”

Codex calls the News tool and returns recent announcements with company names and details.

Step 2: Validate the Market

“Use Google Trends to compare search interest for ‘neobank’, ‘fintech API’, and ‘embedded finance’ over the past 12 months. Which terms are growing?”

Codex calls the Trends tool so you can see which segments are heating up and worth targeting.

Step 3: Research Each Company

“For each company from the news results, search Google for their website. Check their team size, product maturity, and tech stack if visible. Flag any that look like they’re scaling fast but might not have internal tooling built out yet.”

Codex runs Google Search for each company and builds structured profiles.

Putting It All Together

“I sell developer tools. Find me prospects: search Google News for fintech companies that raised funding in the last month. Check Google Trends for which fintech categories are growing. Research each funded company and tell me which ones are scaling fast enough to need better developer tooling.”

Google Trends (12 months):
  "embedded finance": +85% YoY — fastest growing
  "fintech API": +34% — steady
  "neobank": -12% — declining interest

Google News — recent funding:
  1. PayStack (Series B, $28M, Feb 2026) — embedded payments for SaaS platforms
  2. LedgerFlow (Seed, $5M, Jan 2026) — accounting API for fintechs
  3. VaultPay ($15M Series A, Feb 2026) — crypto-to-fiat payment rails

Research:

PayStack: 45-person team per LinkedIn. Engineering blog active. Hiring 8 engineers.
  Growing fast, likely building internal tooling now.
  Verdict: Strong prospect. Scaling engineering team = tooling decisions being made.

LedgerFlow: 12-person team. Seed stage. Product still in beta.
  Verdict: Too early. Flag for 6 months.

VaultPay: 30-person team. No engineering blog. Job posts mention "building from scratch."
  Verdict: Good prospect. Building infrastructure now, no established tooling.

Priority: PayStack (actively scaling), then VaultPay (building from zero).

Two qualified prospects with specific context for outreach, one flagged for later.

Wrapping Up

News gives you timing, trends give you market context, and search gives you prospect detail. Codex with AgentPatch chains all three from the terminal. Same connection also unlocks Maps, email, image generation, and more. See the full marketplace at agentpatch.ai.

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