On October 13, 2021, Cobalt Software Inc., a portfolio monitoring solutions provider, was acquired by FactSet, a provider of financial information and analytical applications. The acquisition was decided to advance FactSet’s strategy to scale its data and workflow solutions completed using targeted investments in a multi-year investment plan and expanding its private markets offering. The acquisition took place on October 12, 2021, and is currently not expected to create a material impact on fiscal results in 2022 for FactSet.
Says Goran Skoko, FactSet’s Executive Vice President of Research and Advisory Solutions: “’There is a growing need for a complete workflow solution for general partners that connects differentiated data with sophisticated tracking and portfolio reporting. Integrating Cobalt’s offering into FactSet allows us to meet that need while adding proprietary fund performance content to our private markets data universe.’”
States Jason Weinstein, CEO of Cobalt: “’ There is a large and growing opportunity to offer integrated workflow, data, and analytics to the PE/VC industry. By combining our capabilities, we will be optimally positioned to capitalize on the increasing demand for these solutions and deliver even more value to clients.’”
PE Stack's Take
We’ve seen GP-focused portfolio monitoring solutions team up with market data and analytics companies in the past. Notable examples include iLevel and Ipreo/IHS Markit, Baxon and Preqin. While the potential for cross-platform data flow is seemingly significant, past examples haven’t accomplished too much in the way of the parent company’s data and tools flowing into portfolio monitoring solutions or vice versa. The most we tend to see is fund benchmark data flowing into a PM platform, and in Cobalt’s case they already have a proprietary market data source which covers this area - something which we expect to see flowing into FactSet.
However, more recently we have seen some meaningful convergence on the LP-focused portfolio monitoring side (addressed in our earlier coverage of Preqin’s Colmore acquisition), and this acquisition feels like more significant cross-platform, bi-directional data flow is likely to be on the cards for this GP-focused tool. FactSet has clearly made private markets a strategic priority, and language from both parties indicates that meaningful integration is a core part of the plan. PE Stack and our clients evaluating the platform are already hearing from Cobalt about the additional value which this acquisition will bring, with explicit references to integrated tools, data and analytics.
There are always challenges to overcome when we are dealing with proprietary internal GP data and wider market data, but assuming that such issues can be addressed, the potential value-add for users of both platforms is meaningful.
About Cobalt
Cobalt is a portfolio monitoring platform that works to support private capital firms in collecting, analyzing, and reporting on portfolio company performance and KPIs. The Cobalt platform also includes dashboards, reporting, advanced analytics, and an advanced calculation engine. Also used are cash flow analytics, user-configured data collection templates, automated email sequencing, and a data collection status dashboard.
About FactSet
FactSet creates data and technology solutions for investment professionals around the world, providing instant access to financial data and analytics that investors use to make crucial decisions. It combines its proprietary datasets, clients’ in-house data, and third-party unstructured data.
The FactSet Private Equity feed contains comprehensive information on thousands of global private equity and venture capital firms. Users can access information about a firm’s venture capital financing rounds, view in-depth company profiles and investment trends, analyze industry and geographic holdings, as well as discover potential investments and buys.