PE Stack and Holland Mountain present the first initiative to map AI / GenAI use cases and key vendors in Private Equity and wider private capital.
Valu8, Delio, Arcesium, Integrum ESG, and more- see the latest from these vendors in our weekly vendor news digest! News categories cover deal activity, partnerships and integrations, vendor whitepapers, and others.
Our latest Special Report, produced in collaboration with Untap helps our users understand the portfolio monitoring and value creation sector, including selection considerations and criteria. It also contains a Product Brief covering Untap and our verdict of this platform.
See a map of relevant vendors in the deal sourcing and execution space for private equity and venture capital. We cover software, data, and intelligence services - CRM, market data, diligence, alt data, relationship intelligence and more…
Our latest special report, produced in collaboration with udu, examines emerging 'Virtual Analyst' technology and the increasingly important role it's playing in proprietary deal sourcing channels:
What is a 'Virtual Analyst'?
How does the technology work?
Why is it so important in the current market?
How does adoption affect existing sourcing processes?
In a ‘buyers’ market’ fundraising environment, the onus tends to fall on fund managers to adapt and prepare for a demanding and extended process. But what about LPs? After all, almost all LPs have a fiduciary responsibility to their stakeholders to engage in a best-practice fund sourcing process. As the ratio of available funds to planned commitments gets ever-larger, LPs must also consider how their processes must evolve if they are to retain confidence in their ability to select the best funds.
Major financial platforms’ forays into private capital have transformed the product landscape in recent years, and activity shows no signs of slowing in 2020 with multiple partnerships and investments already announced. Following its recent investment in data optimization specialist Canoe, we take a deeper look at Nasdaq, one of the most active and exciting participants in the market today.
Preqin and S&P’s data partnership is the latest in a series of high-profile deals involving private capital specialists and broader financial data and software providers. We have some strong views on this emerging pattern and what it means for end-users, vendors and those doing deals in the financial data and technology industry.
The past week saw the announcement of two new partnerships as consultants to both the buy and sell-side seek to better serve their clients in the illiquid markets.
CEPRES, a provider of analytics and data exchange for private equity and other illiquid asset classes, announced this week it had formed a partnership which will allow Bain & Co to access insights and tools which promise to deliver ‘new levels of value’ for its private equity GP clients.
In other news, leading custodian BNP Paribas took a strategic stake in AssetMetrix, allowing it to expand and digitize its services to clients and investors through the provision of analytics and reporting tools dedicated to the analysis of private capital asset classes.
These two new partnerships mark the continuation of a trend where consultants and custodians are making moves to better serve a client base which is crying out for more robust reporting and analytical tools.
Another notable deal in September saw multi-asset class portfolio monitoring specialist Solovis partner with State Street to facilitate improvements to the Powered by DataGX product. And of course, Blackrock’s acquisition of eFront opens up opportunities for products which encompass entire investment portfolios. Other notable firms in the space such as Burgiss, which recently unveiled a new and improved UI, also maintain important custodian relationships.
The term ‘alternative’ assets is looking increasingly outdated as institutional investor allocations to private capital asset classes rise and grow in sophistication. With more products to choose from in more areas, and with more means of accessing investments (funds, direct, co-investments, separate accounts etc), there is an increasing demand for high-quality data and analytics as allocators seek to more effectively monitor and manage their portfolios.
This demand is also extending to firms advising and managing assets, and could prove to be a key factor in this already competitive market.
Products in this area pack a lot of functionality into their platforms, but there are some key areas which can act as real differentiators:
In order to provide robust analytics, investment data must be entered into the platform in a timely and accurate manner – an activity made challenging due to inconsistent (and in some cases outdated) reporting standards. Providers in this space such as Chronograph are increasingly using the latest technology to automate elements of the ingestion process, while many offer analyst services to manage the process on behalf of clients.
It is likely that both pressure from LPs and groups such as the ADS Initiative will result in higher quality, more standardized reporting from GPs, making this piece of the puzzle less of a headache in years to come.
Here’s where things get really interesting. There are really three main types of data at play in the industry today:
User Data: which is completely transparent and granular at both the fund and portfolio company level
Benchmarked User Data: which lacks transparency, but is granular at both fund and portfolio levels.
Market Data: which is completely transparent, but lacks granularity especially at the portfolio company level.
Platforms in the industry today have a mix of these three elements forming the basis of the data layer which power the analytics, and each has an essential part to play:
User data is the core piece, showing the user how they are performing over time, helping to illuminate exposure to different industries and geographies, facilitating cash flow modeling, VaR and much more.
Benchmarked user data aggregates client data to produce granular, anonymized benchmarks based on large datasets. These benchmarks, such as those produced by Burgiss and CEPRES, are robust in that they do not suffer from survivorship or reporting bias and offer a level of granularity which transparent market data providers cannot match.
Market data providers (such as Pitchbook and Preqin), while not as granular, are necessary to show how specific firms have performed and form an important component of the fund discovery and due diligence piece which is so important in today’s complex marketplace.
Pressure is growing on technology providers to utilize all three areas effectively. We are also seeing the emergence of a fourth piece, which is the voluntary, case-by-case provision of portfolio company-level granularity to non-investors over a platform to facilitate fund discovery as GPs take a more long-term approach to capital raising.
Winners in this space will be those that manage the relationships, partnerships and technology required to bring these data elements together, layering analytics to facilitate deep understanding for their users. Add in fund discovery functionality and the ability to conduct both primary and secondary transactions and you have the making of a truly ‘killer app’ for the private capital markets.
Please visit PE Stack’s Vendor Profiles to see more information on all the companies mentioned in this piece and over 100 more!
Back in 2011 I moved to New York to head up Preqin’s US operations, including sales, client services and marketing functions. I know a thing or two about selling data!
There are a lot of data companies in our industry. While no two are the same, all employ similar techniques to close a sale. We put together this insider guide to help you remain objective in the face of conflicting claims of superiority, take control of the selection process and empower you to procure the best services for your team.
PE Stack tracks around 40 different data providers to the private equity and venture capital industry. We maintain detailed profiles for all of them on our powerful Vendor Profiles platform. It's free to use, and we even offer free procurement advice to our users!
Preqin and Factset announce partnership which sees the integration of Preqin’s fund manager, allocator and performance data with the Factset Workstation.
Access to the new dataset is dependent upon Factset users also having the correct level of access to Preqin’s services. Existing dual-users can request access as of today (July 15th 2019), Factset users not currently subscribing to Preqin will be able to purchase access directly from Factset.
The addition of robust private markets data will add value for Factset’s M&A focused users, including investment banking and private equity deals teams. Preqin's data will help users to identify potential buyers and benefit from deeper intelligence on PE firms – for example, the ability to view the vintage and called-up % for a firm’s latest fund.
The data will also add value for Factset’s allocator clients, as Justin Strand, Factset’s Chief Content Officer and SVP, stated: “Investments in private equity are growing and clients require corresponding data to manage these investments effectively.”
"Factset appears within 26% of data and software stacks, making it one of the most utilized vendors in our sample"
PE Stack maintains comprehensive subscription and pricing intelligence for data and software products being utilized by 50 leading institutional allocators located in North America and Europe. Factset appears within 26% of these data and software stacks, making it one of the most utilized vendors in our sample.
Our analysis suggests that this new partnership will be well received by existing Preqin users - 75% of the major allocators tracked by PE Stack that have Preqin subscriptions also utilize Factset.
Of the other major data providers, Bloomberg is the clear leader in terms of allocator penetration with 73% of institutions tracked by PE Stack maintaining a subscription. In terms of aggregate subscription value, Factset is closer to matching Bloomberg as a result of a higher average subscription value from the institutions in our sample (which is more a function of client size rather than product cost).
"75% of allocators tracked by PE Stack that have Preqin subscriptions also utilize Factset"
Preqin and Factset feature alongside another 100+ vendors with profiles on PE Stack’s free Vendor Profiles platform, which helps private equity fund managers, allocators and service providers to identify potential software and data providers. To get instant access, please register here. For more information on our Allocator pricing and subscription data, please email info@pestack.com
