Author: Josh

5 Keys to Guarantee User Adoption of your Fund Management Software

Posted on August 9, 2021 by - Private Equity Technology

Like the well-known thought experiment, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”, a similar question can and should be asked about fund management software: “If a firm has powerful fund management software and nobody uses it, does it make a difference?”

The answer to the second question is, of course, an emphatic “No!” Not only does unused fund management software not make a positive difference, it can have a negative impact on everything from firm finances (i.e., the cost of the software) to user morale (having a new system but sticking to old, outdated, inefficient systems and processes).

So, taking action to ensure widespread adoption of your fund management software is critical. And to be clear, simply issuing a directive that everyone must use the software isn’t effective. Even if the order causes more people to “use” the software, they certainly won’t get the maximum value from it. Instead, you have to help users understand the value of your new fund management software.

In our work with many successful firms, we’ve found that there are five keys to ensuring user adoption of a new system:

  1. Ensure that you have complete data from day one. Having high-quality data is crucial to getting users to adopt new fund management software. Many fund managers we talk with just want to get the database set up with little or no data and then they wait and see what happens. They incorrectly assume that the “right” data will be added sort of “organically” over time. However, fairly quickly they learn that this assumption was a mistake. You’ve got to be strategic and intentional about what information you collect and maintain. Otherwise, users will quickly recognize that much of what’s available to them in the fund management software isn’t useful, accurate, or up-to-date—and, consequently stop using the system.
  1. Commit to using reports out of your database.  managers are hesitant to use reports out of a database because they feel they don’t have enough data to populate the report and make it valuable. The result is they continue to use their Excel models or other reporting tools despite the fact that the limitations of those tools are typically what drove them to look for a better solution in the first place. When fund managers commit to creating fundraising or deal pipeline reports from their new software, the volume and quality of data in the database both increase rapidly. And those improvements make it even more helpful to run reports, and the two activities (collecting data and reporting on it) reinforce one another to everyone’s benefit.
  1. Get buy-in from executives. As with any IT spend, new fund management software will have better adoption if firm leadership or an executive sponsor is behind it and they are committed to making it successful. Today, there are many technology options for the private equity industry, and your firm needs to have someone be the “champion” for the solution you select. Otherwise, you’ll be faced with ongoing “what if” questions about other systems.
  1. Acknowledge that it’s not just technology you’re implementing. You can’t just implement a new system, announce it’s available, and expect everyone’s behavior to change. There’s a large and essential change-management aspect to ensuring the adoption of new technology. It’s important not only to acknowledge the change but to maximize its benefit by incentivizing people to be early adopters, soliciting feedback, and acting on that input. And, you should expect there to be some resistance from users—it’s simply part of human nature to be wary of, and often resistant to, change.
  1. Set clear and attainable goals during implementation. A simple goal such as, “We’re going to be able to drive our deal pipeline with less effort.” helps your team understand what you’re working toward and lets you focus on one set of functionality and specific workflows to support it. This type of goal can also be measured. In our example, you could compare the hours of deal pipeline management required before and after your software implementation. And as soon as you achieve one goal, you should be ready to set another. Very quickly your team will recognize and appreciate that you’re not expecting everyone to master all aspects of the new platform immediately.

Creating Excitement Around Your New Fund Management Software

Ideally, the steps above won’t just convince people to start using your new fund management software. They’ll create a sense of excitement and optimism about the benefits of the system to users and the firm as a whole. At that point, you’re moving past adopting the software to embracing it, and that’s a very good thing!

For more best practices for private equity firms, read our white paper below.

4 Benefits of Salesforce

Increased M&A Activity in the AI Space: PitchBook Report Recap

Posted on August 4, 2021 by - Private Equity Technology

Not long ago, artificial intelligence (AI) was interesting to people who followed technology, but not really anyone else. For the rest of the population, it was a concept that would, at best, impact their lives decades or more down the road.

Well, AI has “arrived” sooner than expected and is having a game-changing effect on many industries. Increasingly, private equity firms are in that group. 

The Pandemic as Rocket Fuel

PE firms were already considering AI’s potential benefits before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, that event and the global lockdowns it triggered were like rocket fuel to the rise of AI.

Unable to use many of the processes they’d previously relied on, firms got serious about figuring out how they could leverage AI. And from data management to outreach efforts, they’re using it effectively in a long (and growing) list of ways today.

It Only Takes One

As with any groundbreaking change in how businesses operate, all it took for firms to “see the light” about this new technology was a few organizations adopting AI successfully. Suddenly, they were head and shoulders above the competition in productivity, accuracy, and other factors.

Firms that had dismissed AI as “science fiction” found themselves scrambling to figure out how and where to use it most effectively. Optimizing workflows and eliminating paper-based processes were some of the first tasks that firms sought to complete using AI, but others were close behind.

3 Ways Firms Are Using AI

Three major areas have emerged as ideal for AI assistance:

  1. Back-office processes. Firms are ditching manual processes and adopting AI to complete repetitive tasks faster, more accurately, and cost-effectively. And as a result, they’re freeing back-office staff to work on more important projects.
  2. Portfolio monitoring. Keeping an eye on portfolio companies used to be a labor-intensive activity. However, AI can do in seconds what used to take hours.
  3. Target identification. While target selection must be performed by humans and their understanding of the nuanced interplay of several factors, firms can leverage AI to quantify and narrow down the field. This saves team members a significant amount of time.

A Holistic Approach Delivers Better Results

The PwC 2022 AI Business Survey produced some interesting insights. One is that companies that focus on using AI to help them achieve three business goals as opposed to just one are much more likely to report high adoption of and substantial value from AI.

This includes creating value through several types of initiatives, the top three being:

  1. Increase productivity and improve efficiency
  2. Improve decision-making
  3. Streamline development of new products and services

Improving the customer and employee experiences follow closely, as do developing new, data-driven business models and increasing agility.

Challenges Accepted

Adopting AI isn’t without its challenges, of course. The top three in the eyes of survey participants are:

  1. Developing AI datasets and models that are applicable across the organization.
  2. Training employees about AI and helping them get comfortable working with it.
  3. Recruiting, hiring, and retaining workers who are already proficient in using AI.

Once the companies have decided to implement AI solutions, they must look for ways to accelerate adoption and improve results. But when they achieve those goals, they’ll be empowered to get more work done with the same number of team members, make their employees happy, and fill talent gaps by hiring data experts who can be taught the other skills they need.

AI and the Altvia Product Suite

Like AI systems, our private equity solutions are built with efficiency and productivity in mind. They were developed—and continue to be enhanced—using our deep industry expertise and understanding of the functionality that firms need to succeed.

The Role of IT Director in Buying Fund Management Software

Posted on July 28, 2021 by - Private Equity Technology

Because SaaS (software as a service) products are, by definition, hosted remotely, and often supported remotely as well, the role of IT in researching and evaluating options is growing increasingly unclear.

Fund managers in the market for new fund management software—or any SaaS offering—will often send a member of their IT team out to evaluate the market and determine the best options.

Frequently it’s the IT director. Why? Well, it’s a technology solution, so who better to assess the contenders than the person at the top of the IT group.

However, that approach exposes firms to a potential pitfall. And it’s a significant one—one that can haunt them for years after they make their purchase.

The IT-Only Approach to Purchasing Software

There are many types of solutions that an IT director can assess on their own and approve for purchase. Often, they are infrastructure-related systems about which the director is the firm’s top authority.

Fund management software is another beast altogether. The problem with putting the IT director on point for your software selection process is that they typically look at products primarily or exclusively from a technical perspective. You can’t blame them—technology is their thing.

Unfortunately, with this approach, the end-users of a software solution may not even be brought into the conversation until a short (sometimes very short) list of potential providers has been created. That means users don’t learn about products that have excellent functionality but have been excluded from the list due to some technical issue, and potentially an issue that really wouldn’t negatively impact the value of the solution to the firm.

In other words, an IT director may be inclined to “throw the baby out with the bathwater,” which leaves the firm with a product that isn’t ideal but that they’ll now have to live with for the foreseeable future.

The User-Only Approach to Purchasing Software

So, if the IT director’s software selection criteria may be skewed toward the technical aspects, a better approach is to let users make the decision without IT’s help, right?

Especially since the whole point of cloud-based software is to remove the technology from the premises, meaning there isn’t much for a SaaS provider and an IT director to talk about anyway.

Actually, users have their own biases and blind spots, as well. And because SaaS solutions are “technology”, input from IT is still important and valuable.

A fund management software solution that has all the “bells and whistles” a fund manager could ever want but that doesn’t play well with other applications, for example, is not going to provide the kinds or degree of benefits a firm is looking for.

The Middle Way to the Right Fund Management Software

It will come as no surprise—particularly on the heels of the previous two sections—when we say that we have found that the most effective fund management software evaluations are performed not by one person from a particular department, but by two people from different departments working as a team.

Specifically, having the IT director and someone from the fund management group work together is ideal. The IT director still must be involved in evaluating the viability of a SaaS platform in terms of attributes like security, uptime, and performance. IT might also evaluate the possibility of integrating a new solution with other systems already in use.

The fund manager can weigh in and judge each solution based on other aspects such as functionality, usability, the extent to which it matches (or can be made to align with) existing processes, the industry knowledge of the support staff, etc. And this is no ceremonial “final blessing” authority. A fund manager should be involved in the search right from the start. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with the manager observing the assessment that the IT manager makes. Doing so will only make them that much more helpful in future software evaluations.

Fund Management Software Selection: A New Skill on the IT Director’s Resume

Keep in mind that researching SaaS solutions (as opposed to on-premises solutions) and being involved in the buying process may feel odd to the IT director and others in the department. “If it’s hosted remotely and doesn’t affect any existing systems, why should we care?” is a common way for IT to look at this process.

But the job of IT, especially as SaaS solutions have become the dominant type of system, is less about racking servers and more about helping the organization find technology that makes the business more successful.

So, if you’re looking for fund management software, get your IT director and fund manager together and let them know that their insights and input will be vital to finding the ideal solution.

How to Adopt a Data-Driven Approach for Investor Relations Success

Posted on July 26, 2021 by - Investor Relations & LP Experience

Investor Relations (IR) teams are critical for firms. These people are the essential relationship drivers, and their work is a representation of the firm. 

To develop an effective IR strategy, teams must understand how to best interact with investors, be visible, and adapt to market changes to ensure effective communications.

To do their job well, IR teams need to juggle a variety of activities: 

  • Common Workflows

IRs are the overseers of the firm’s common workflows. They must regularly share information like PPMs, Cap Calls, and Distribution Notices with investors and stakeholders. 

  • Communication Coverage

Investors and stakeholders require regular reviews with in-depth analysis of their portfolios. IRs are responsible for presenting performance data clearly and correctly.

  • Identifying Interests and Concerns

A good IR team needs to read into investor and stakeholder engagement to identify proper follow-up and relevant topics to focus on. 

  • Provide Additional Information

IR’s responsibility is to triage the many requests received from investors, analysts, and others. To streamline communications and empower investors to get information when they want it, IRs can establish a self-serve system where investors can look up the information they need without always asking for it. 

To be effective, IRs need to be proactive and reduce the amount of time it takes to do administrative tasks while increasing the quality of their communication with investors.

How can they do this? With the help of technology. 

What does technology mean for Investor Relations?

Post-pandemic, the organizations that will thrive will put humans at the center and deploy technology to increase the speed and quality at which companies can innovate and communicate. This is where the IR team fits in. With a human-centric approach and technology adoption, firms can support their IR teams with data-driven insights, automation, and tools that empower investors—creating longer-lasting relationships.

Deploying technology faster is critical in an environment where accelerated technology adoption is reinventing everything from education to Saturday morning cartoons. Those who accept this innovation are better off today and more adept at pivoting when the unexpected occurs. The firms that invested in technology fared much better than those that were technology-adverse during the 2020 pandemic. 

Technology can arm a firm with knowledge instantly instead of requiring hours of manual research. With a tool like Altvia, IRs can sift through mountains of data in seconds to gain better insight into their investors, what they need, and where their interests lie.

It’s also advantageous to empower investors with access to the information they’re looking for instead of continuously relying on the IR team. Through Altvia’s secure portal, investors can review information and analytics at any time. There’s no need to wait for an IR team to return their calls or emails—all the information they seek is right at their fingertips. 

This process reduces time spent on one-off requests and takes advantage of firms’ data, interactions, and industry knowledge to build stronger investor relations. 

Through this portal, IRs can also gauge what type of information their investors are most interested in. Altvia’s portal access helps firms identify talking points and events that their investors want to know about.

Automating communication can also reduce the manual labor IR teams spend on common workflows and regular communications. Technology allows these types of outreach to be customized, automated, accessible, and distributed at the right time.  

How do IR teams implement a data-driven approach?

IR teams can’t expect to succeed at a data-driven approach with static processes and heaps of data stored in excel spreadsheets. They need to partner with a team like Altvia. 

Since 2006 Altvia has helped IR teams implement new technology. Our pre-built dashboards and reports set firms up for success on day one and evolve with our clients. Get the most out of your investment with Altvia. See how we support top firms.

How to Stand Out in a Sea of Annual Meetings

Posted on July 21, 2021 by - Investor Relations & LP Experience

Once just a simple lunch and presentation, annual meetings have morphed into a critical event for General Partners (GPs). Typically taking place during November and April, these get-togethers used to focus solely on sharing current market insights, fund performance, and relevant investment decisions with Limited Partners (LPs). These days, while those topics are still on the agenda, there are several factors upping the ante when it comes to planning and preparation.

For starters, for some GPs, this meeting is the only time during the entire year when they see their investors face to face. Not to mention have access to a quorum of their investors for a specific amount of time. They’re also under pressure to strengthen their relationships with LPs, who attend an average of between 15 to 20 annual meetings a year.

Now that the majority of these meetings are virtual, there is more emphasis on making a connection through a camera. So in addition to communicating what needs communicating, the goal is now to make a memorable impression.

To stand out from the crowd of managers vying for LPs’ attention, GPs are putting much more effort into their annual meetings. Across Private Equity, the name of the game is engaging investors with more personalized communication on meaningful trends, insights, and of course, results. Below, we’ll dive into how GPs are using annual meetings as an opportunity to differentiate their brand and contribute to long-term ROI.

Increasing investor engagement

Rather than a meeting “everyone has to attend,” today’s annual meetings are being used as a strategic tool to offer an experience with real value. Of course, GPs are still covering returns, but the focus these days is on engaging investors effectively to bolster fruitful long-term relationships.

During a typical annual meeting, a GP will highlight portfolio companies, discuss investments that didn’t go well, and share long-term strategic goals. Firms offering a little something extra will host informal dinners with plenty of time for networking—and even some entertainment—to encourage those casual conversations that deepen relationships.

Of course, the LPs are still there for the numbers. To offer real value, you have to do more than update last year’s figures and explain what happened in the previous year. The Kap Group recommends developing meaningful content to share with LPs. Show—don’t just tell—what your team has been doing and what’s really behind the fund’s performance.

Simplify Planning for your annual meetings

When we asked General Partners and Limited Partners in Private Equity about annual meeting prep, we learned that 41% of survey respondents feel the pain of creating annual meeting presentations. What’s more, LPs will be sure to share the presentation with their colleagues, so the final document must be able to stand on its own—and put your firm’s best foot forward.

With so much at stake, demonstrating that you’ve already made sense of the data you’re reporting on is a surefire way to stand out. While everyone has received the quarterly reports, it’s a safe bet that hardly anyone has read them and had time to derive any meaningful insights.

Thankfully, today’s fund management software is designed to track and report on exactly the data you’ll need to prepare for your annual meeting. For example, knowing who from your firm has talked to annual meeting attendees—and what they talked about—can be invaluable for starting conversations with investors that lead to future investments.

But who has the time to cull Excel spreadsheets and calendars of activity to track meetings and calls in time for the annual meeting? Adopting a good fund management software tool like AIM not only reduces the chance of errors, it makes gathering this kind of information as easy as clicking a button. You can also save your team time by using the tool to build an up-to-date guest list out of a shared database, sending out save-the-dates and invites, and keeping invitees up to date on all of the upcoming activities.

Service Secrets that Lead to Repeat Investments

Posted on July 16, 2021 by - Investor Relations & LP Experience

While the management stage of the investor relationship is all about earning trust and anticipating needs, the next stage—service—is where best-in-class firms truly differentiate themselves from the competition using an investor relations tool. 

Instead of creating a more tactical management style, these savvy firms strategically position themselves to become less about “doing things right” and more about choosing the “right things to do” for their investors.

This approach boils down to everyone in the firm—not just the investor relations team—having a customer-centric perspective. Maintaining relationships is reactive; providing excellent customer service is far more proactive. 

Top-tier firms understand this and seek out ways to use investor relations tools to provide added value to their investors through greater transparency, more co-investing opportunities, and impactful communications.

Enhance Relationships with Investor Relations Tools 

In addition to honesty, follow-up, and delivering more than expected (the keys to earning and maintaining your investors’ trust), transparency around investments is more critical than ever.

Take, for example, events that took place in Saudi Arabia a few years ago. In the wake of an American journalist’s death, investors who were bought into portfolio companies doing business with Saudi Arabia were understandably asking about their exposure. Historically, not all investors report on each company within the portfolio, but the best practice is to highlight any key issues that might affect the portfolio’s investments.

Best-in-class firms reduce risk and exposure by keeping their investors abreast of any changes affecting the companies within their portfolios. General partners (GPs) who provide detailed company updates on what is going on with their investments provide the kind of service that leads to investors coming back to the firm during the next fundraising cycle.

Offer Co-Investment Opportunities

Co-investment opportunities are another way to grow your existing investor relationships. Co-investments bypass the standard fund by investing directly in a portfolio company. Technically, co-investments are a minority ownership stake with many co-investors already existing as limited partners (LPs).

Both LPs and GPs are actively seeking co-investments, according to a Preqin survey of fund managers and investors. That’s because:

  • 80% of LPs have seen their co-investments outperform private equity funds
  • 46% have seen their co-investments outperform by a margin of more than 5%

With co-investments, not only do LPs enjoy higher returns and get to invest directly into the company at a minority ownership level, they pay lower fees than when investing in a standard fund.

To stand out from your competition, use a purpose-built private equity CRM system to track which kinds of co-investing LPs are interested in and what your firm has already presented to them. When opportunities arise, you’ll be well-positioned to target investors who are more likely to be interested. And you can do so with great ease, since finding them in your database and connecting with them is simple.

Go Above and Beyond with An Investor Relations Tool

While investor relations teams routinely share capital and legal documents with stakeholders, this role calls for far more than transactional communication. Besides sending out a K1 every quarter and inviting investors to sit in on regular quarterly performance calls, you can provide additional value to them with newsletters, annual meetings, deal announcements, and opportunities to connect with other investors.

Staying engaged with your investors not only shows that you want them to be informed, but it also demonstrates that you’re proactively managing your investor relationship. Over time, this is what leads to repeat investments. When you enter the fundraising process again, you’ll be halfway to close if you’re managing relationships in this manner.

Best-in-class firms operating using a predictive approach are already adopting technology to share reports and fund information, and then track what the investors are doing with that information. Again, investor relations tools like Altvia can help you improve targeting and personalization in communications for a more impactful touch.

Investor Relations Tool: Enabling You to Connect With Stakeholders at the Optimal Times

What’s the secret to being well-positioned when the next fundraising opportunity arises? 

It’s all about providing an outstanding LP experience to your existing investors. When you leverage the right investor relations tools to do that, they’ll want to do more deals with you.

As we’ve outlined above, if you’re as transparent as possible, tailor co-investing opportunities to LPs’ preferences, and use every chance to communicate added value, you’ll be providing the exceptional customer service that attracts and builds successful relationships with investors for years to come. If you’re looking for more guidance on ways to improve the investor experience, read our full guide below.

Private Equity Operational Efficiency: 3 Steps to Differentiate

Posted on July 15, 2021 by - Fundraising Strategy

With increasing pressure from investors about fees and fierce competition across the industry, private equity CFOs are looking for new ways to streamline and stand out. Operational efficiency is a top priority for many private equity firms and executives. 

It is no surprise that firms are investing in private equity technology to address these key challenges and many more:

  • Making data management more efficient
  • Improving reporting capabilities
  • Integrating systems for a stronger investor communication platform

Whatever firms are looking for, transformation through purpose-built private equity technology is now the name of the game. 

Key advantages that come from investing in new solutions include:

  • Optimizing workflows
  • Reducing operational expenses
  • Freeing personnel resources to focus on more strategic endeavors that support revenue growth

And those advantages together help firms achieve their ultimate goal: standing out from the competition.

In this blog post, we cover how private equity firms can improve operational efficiency and their ability to create an unmatched stakeholder experience to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

Step 1: Use Private Equity Technology to Make Data Self-Serve

What if every stakeholder could access the real-time information that’s relevant to their specific goals—and get that data whenever they wanted it? 

That’s crucial since every stakeholder has different interests and needs. So, sending out, or providing access to, the information you think they’ll want is a strategy that’s bound to fail in many instances. One-size-fits-all is not an approach that works in private equity.

Intuitive solutions like Altvia give customers, investors, or constituents easy, self-serve data access and important functionality right on their desktop. After taking just a few minutes to learn how to use the intuitive tools in the software, the entire team is able to work more efficiently, spend less time waiting for information, and more time acting on its insights.

We all know that timing is everything in this industry. Miss connecting with someone—by days, hours, or even minutes, in some cases—while your competition is doing exactly that and you may miss out on starting or strengthening a long, lucrative relationship.

Step 2: Ensure Quality Control with Private Equity Technology

In addition to offering a simpler way to manage information, today’s private equity technology solutions can drastically improve your firm’s data quality control, flagging miscalculated or outdated data automatically. Providing stakeholders with inaccurate or old information is a sure way to make them question your attention to detail and also your capabilities in general.

With more accurate information from the get-go, your firm is poised to put together more profitable deals. Another plus? You can consolidate data from multiple sources into one central private equity technology system and optimize workflows to scale for growth.

Step 3: Leverage Technology for Private Equity Efficiency

Whether you’re working on the initial round of funding or are just days away from closing the deal, the reporting tools in today’s private equity technology can ensure everyone on the team is on the same page. What’s more, these tools can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of reporting to investors.

You can also take advantage of convenient communication tools for connecting more efficiently with busy investors. Stakeholders appreciate getting timely, concise, and helpful information.

Private Equity Technology Is the Key to Steady and Significant Improvement

Of course, throwing private equity technology at a problem is not going to change your business overnight. It’ll take some time and effort to implement a new system the right way. But in the end, your team will be able to work on more fulfilling—and profitable—tasks that set your firm apart.

3 Ways to Gain Data-Driven Insight for Private Equity Firms

Posted on July 14, 2021 by - Private Equity Technology

You’d think with all of the capital involved, that private equity firms would embrace technology with open arms, but the opposite is true—PE firms are notoriously slow and resistant to adopt new technologies. 

The industry has been traditionally reliant on spreadsheets and intuition. These methods miss the mark on data-driven insights that help the firm identify opportunities, build relationships, and strategically invest. 

Fund managers needed a big shakeup and a perspective shift to see the advantages of adopting new technology. The pandemic was that shakeup. 

The firms who started their digital journeys pre-pandemic were able to leverage the latest tools to minimize disruptions, react quicker to shifting issues, and monitor the impact of the pandemic on portfolio health.

Firms that were behind the curve with technology felt the blow of the pandemic much more dramatically. Many were left scrambling to sift through spreadsheets and emails to try and make sense of the pandemic’s impact on their portfolios. With the move to remote work, reaction time slowed, there were more disruptions, and the inefficiencies caused stress and loss of trust.

It’s now more apparent than ever what an advantage it is to use centralized systems and data to manage operations and drive insights for PE firms. The use of data-driven insights for PE firms is a clear competitive advantage. Instead of leading by intuition, firms using data to drive their decisions have more trust from their investors and make better investments. 

How can firms make this shift to data-driven and get better insights? In this article, we’ll review three different ways to use data to drive business decisions.

Take advantage of your proprietary data

Every PE firm has massive amounts of historical information. The answer to the most pressing questions lay within that information if you have the proper technology to identify insights efficiently. Comparing massive spreadsheets and pulling data from multiple sources can lead to mistakes and false conclusions, let alone, it’s an enormous waste of time. 

Modern firms with smart technology tools should be able to look at their data and quickly answer questions like the ones below:

  • Who are my top capital raisers?
  • What regions are we most successful in?
  • Where are our best introductions coming from?
  • Where can we improve deal progression and optimize performance?
  • What are the characteristics of our most committed LPs?

By answering these questions, firms can identify top priorities and ensure they are efficiently spending their time on tasks that are more likely to provide high returns instead of sifting through spreadsheets. At a minimum, technology can be used to create firm-wide visibility, better-coordinate teams, and avoid frustrations chasing data across applications.

Use third-party data

To make their data even more powerful, PE firms can take their collected data and combine it with third-party data tools, like Pitchbook, DataFox, and Source Scrub. Combining data in one tool, like your CRM, gives firms a complete picture of portfolio’s performance in relation to the marketplace as a whole.

With industry benchmarks and internal data combined, it’s more straightforward to determine which factors accelerate or derail a deal right from the start. Firms can hone in on great opportunities earlier and use their resources to act faster. They can also identify red flags and avoid situations where they are likely to lose time and money.

You can learn a lot about your company by analyzing internal data, but by combining it with industry knowledge and stats, firms can spot both advantages and areas of weakness. There are untapped opportunities or warning signs of future collapse that could go unseen without the proper technology and information.

Create a single source of truth for private equity firms

With the right tools, a firm can visualize the proprietary data housed in their system of record, enriched with 3rd party data sets, and further enhance the data with portfolio and fund performance visualizations.

Altvia is a tool that can combine internal data with 3rd party data to create visualizations that empower firms to see trends quickly. The aggregated data feeds business intelligence, which turns spreadsheets into interactive data visualizations that accelerate the viewer’s comprehension to provide real-time insight to identify trends and abnormalities quickly.

Visualizations shared with firm team members contribute to faster analysis and a more efficient process. They can give firms an edge over the competition and quickly communicate their value and expertise. 

To take it a step further, tools like Altvia allow investors to enter a web-based, consumer-like portal. This portal surfaces investor-appropriate data visualizations and provides real-time transparency into their investment. With this type of portal, investors can get relevant data instantly and slice and dice charts and graphs as they please. 

Uncover data-driven insights and gain a competitive edge for private equity firms

Your firm already has mountains of data. Now it just needs the right technology to make sense of it and add in market data to draw powerful data-driven insights and dynamic visualizations. 

If you’d like to give your firm a competitive edge with the ability to identify issues before they arise and laser focus on the very best opportunities, give Altvia a try and sign up for a free demo.

Private Equity Tools to Build Trust with Investors

Posted on July 9, 2021 by - Investor Relations & LP Experience

There’s no question that private equity is booming. Investors have allocated more capital to this space over the past five years than at any time in history, according to Bain & Company’s Global Private Equity Report.

In addition, Pitchbook reported that a remarkable 23 startups have earned unicorn valuations in one recent year.

At the same time, deals are becoming more complex and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is tightening regulations. Naturally, this calls for greater scrutiny before deciding to invest. 

 For limited partners (LPs), transparency has become critical to their decision-making process. Before investing, LPs demand an understanding of how the data supports higher-level calculations and how it will impact their investments. 

As a result, LPs expect companies and investment funds to disclose more detailed information, including the nature of their investments, compensation to their managers, liabilities, overhead costs, and investment performance.

It’s no longer enough to simply use private equity tools to put together a nice-looking report with pie charts and bar graphs. These days, the success of your business depends on understanding the impact of the relevant data—and sharing it openly with all stakeholders involved. After all, if you don’t, your competitors surely will.

How to Build Trust with Investors

As LPs demand more transparency, many private equity firms are adopting technologies that give them the capabilities to organize, track, and present insights from the huge amount of data available. A well-designed platform can help you track where you are in the fundraising process and easily communicate status updates to investors.

If you’re putting together monthly or quarterly updates,  a purpose-built platform for private capital gives you the power to share documents securely and provides visibility into how often your investors are accessing the information. 

Even better, it can help you automate reports and communications so that your investor relationship tasks—as important as they are—don’t take up so much time.

Preparing to Implement a Private Equity Tool

Of course, the critical first step before adopting a solution is to determine the information that is most important to you and your investors. This typically is not all information, of course. So, with that list in hand, your firm can create a process to collect the relevant data—whether it’s financial or non-financial—and build it into the tool.

It’s also worth noting that members of the C-Suite consider transparency critical. According to Deloitte’s Effective Investor Relations (IR): Lessons from the Trenches:

“In our case, management is executing on a five-year turnaround plan….and helping investors understand what the milestones are and what they can reasonably expect along the way is incredibly valuable,” says Rob Binns, former VP of Investor Relations at Hewlett-Packard, who now serves as CFO and VP of HP Software. The feedback from investors, he adds, is that “they welcome an honest, straightforward story—they don’t want to be sold to, they don’t want to be spun to.”

Tools Designed for Private Equity

Altvia has developed advanced data and technology solutions specifically for the needs of private equity firms like yours. Our CRM combines the Salesforce platform with an email marketing tool to provide clear, secure, and easy-to-understand reports and communications to LPs.

The combined solution delivers advantages both for your clients and for you. Create an exceptional LP experience and support strong relationships while lightening your team’s workload.

The Impact of Private Equity Technology on the Industry

Posted on July 7, 2021 by - Private Equity Technology

If there’s a type of business that can ignore or refuse to implement new technology as advances are made and still be successful, we don’t know what type of business that is. It’s certainly not private equity firms.

In our fast-paced, highly competitive industry, firms that aren’t using purpose-built, state-of-the-art systems are at a distinct competitive disadvantage.

And firms that remain at the back of the pack don’t last long.

Private Equity Technology and Differentiation

Competition in the private equity space is continually reaching new extremes. This ongoing escalation forces firms to reach new levels of operational excellence, personnel optimization, and data management.

How do they support this continuous evolution? They stay vigilant, constantly scanning the horizon for the next technology solution to break new ground and enable improved operations. But operating more efficiently and effectively is really just a means to an end. The “end” in this case is creating clear differentiation from competitors.

Is your firm the only one of its kind in the industry? It may have some of the best people and have an impressive track record of success, but no, it isn’t particularly unique in the services it offers. However, the combination of the skills, experience, and insights of your team with the communication, data management, and other capabilities of the right technology solution—now that’s something that can set your firm apart from the competition.

And that differentiation can make all the difference in attracting investors and closing deals. Why? ‘

Because the stakeholders you interact with are just as busy as you are. They don’t have the time or resources to assess each one of the countless “middle of the pack” contenders. They identify a few that stand out, do a little research, and decide how to move forward. If you aren’t in that select group of finalists, you’re out of the equation.

How Firms Leverage Their Technology

How do firms use technology to get ahead?

For one thing, they use a CRM to manage their contacts. That’s the foundation for getting the right communications in front of the right people at the right times. They also make it easy to share resources securely with stakeholders, which increases transparency and helps create and nurture trusting relationships.

And underpinning all of these advantages is the implementation of efficient workflows. The easier it is to get day-to-day tasks completed, the more time there is for finding innovative ways to engage stakeholders and close more deals.

From “Nice to Have” to Necessity

Not long ago, switching to a better CRM or an email program with enhanced features was something firms did if they had the time and capital to invest in those upgrades. Today, those tools and others that increase productivity and improve stakeholder relationships clearly have moved into the “Mission Critical” category.

But the good news is that it’s easier than you may think to implement a suite of private equity technology solutions. The first step is learning about what’s available.