The Private Equity and Venture Capital industry have taken leaps forward towards digital transformation due to the pandemic. While the interest in a centralized technology platform has been recorded through surveys for years, it is only recently that more firms realize the necessity of working remotely. The Altvia capital markets platform leverages the best technology to maximize fund management and improve investor relations. Salesforce is a one size fits all solution. While firms can directly install Salesforce, it lacks features that Private Equity and Venture Capital need to run effective operations.
We’ve summarized five significant points to consider before turning to Salesforce for Private Equity and Venture Capital.
1. Salesforce Objects and are Not Specific for Fund Management
Salesforce out-of-the-box comes with seemingly familiar objects such as Accounts and Contacts but does not include specific, custom objects for fund management like Deals, Funds, Investors, etc. The Altvia product has these objects built into a template so that on day one your team has the pieces it needs to run a capital raise or manage a complex set of funds and investors.
Additionally, the terminology found on Altvia’s platform aligns with the terms most used in the capital markets industry. This was a thoughtful design feature from Altvia’s product team so users can pick up the software and quickly start using it in no time.
2. Salesforce Doesn’t Capture Investor Communication Preferences
Success in Private Equity and Venture Capital is based on the relationships built with LPs and other fund managers. Many of these relationships have special requests or nuances of which all employees at the firm should be aware of.
A popular feature of Altvia’s platform allows users to segment investor contacts into specific lists of funds, making it easy to launch fund-specific emails to recipients. If the firm is using ShareSecure, Altvia’s LP Portal, investors manage their selections for receiving fund documents — email, portal, or both — and the investor relations professional spends less time managing these communication preferences.
This self-selection option is a favorite and sets firms apart because of the control offered directly to investors.
3. Salesforce Doesn’t Allow for Multiple Investments Under An Account
Often LPs and GPs make investments into several funds at any one time. The Salesforce generic platform cannot seamlessly manage the one-to-many relationship of a firm making multiple investments in different funds causing the creation of redundant data.
Altvia’s product engineers designed a system that matches the firm’s hierarchy of data and relationships, creating the true ‘Salesforce for Private Equity’ platform.
4. Salesforce Limits Records of Committed Capital and Passed Investment Opportunities the Fund Management Data
Before committing any capital, LPs and Fund of Fund firms typically review several investment opportunities in their pipeline, including ones passed. Out-of-the-box Salesforce lumps all opportunities into one funnel without giving the option of storing passed opportunities, restricting the ability to analyze data from partners.
With Altvia’s Pipeline feature, firms track funds under a Fund Manager even if the investment wasn’t initially considered. Additionally, because of the custom Fund object, managers are able to easily track both committed and uncommitted capital that is not tied directly to investment.
5. A Customer Success Manager that Understands Private Equity
Salesforce provides countless training materials–video how-to’s, articles, and an online community to ask others for advice or assistance. This works for those who enjoy being self-taught with technology; however, the reality is, most employees juggle multiple tasks and need to be up and running quickly. Altvia provides a named Customer Success Manager to help firms understand best practices and get the most out of the product.
A Customer Success Manager sets any firm up for success including pointing out dashboards for visibility on areas that matter the most, such as current fundraises, investors last contacted, or stages of a current deal. Additionally, during the implementation process, training sessions are set-up and recorded for both power users and specific teams to understand the key pieces to manage at go-live. Finally, ongoing webinars and a community to offer support on-demand.
Altvia’s fully integrated product suite is capable of optimizing the Private Equity firm’s life cycle for deal flow management, investor relations, and fundraising.
Altvia’s investor and deal management product is designed to capture interactions of investor investments, portfolio performance, and back-end systems to scale your growth. Successfully raise and deploy capital, ensure compliance, and deliver a trusted and transparent experience to stakeholders and investors.
View our client case studies to see how Private Equity and Venture Capital firms leverage the platform.
