The Key to Maintaining Strong Investor Relationships Virtually

Investor relations technology stack checklist

Private equity firms today are continuing to adapt to lasting changes in the industry brought on by the pandemic and to zero in on how they must conduct business going forward in order to be successful. Those changes—far fewer in-person meetings, for example—have created a number of operational challenges. One of the most pressing is finding a way to maintain strong investor relationships in what has always been a very people-oriented industry.

For many forward-looking firms, the answer is investing in a technology stack that supports meaningful interactions and enables strong investor relationships.

This, of course, is a significant change for organizations that, in many cases, are still managing portfolios with spreadsheets.

LPs today are increasingly expecting easier and more complete access to information, both when deciding whether to invest in a fund and when managing their portfolio. As a result, firms that choose not to embrace technology will be at a competitive disadvantage.

On the other hand, firms that actively seek and implement the right tools for relationship building and investor relations will enjoy benefits in many areas.

Manage investor contact information more effectively

Attempting to keep track of investor information using emails and spreadsheets is inefficient at best, and in a worst-case scenario, can result in the loss of data that costs your firm business.

In order to have clean, accurate, up-to-date information free of duplicate records and other unhelpful data, you need a purpose-built, centralized private equity platform.

In fact, this system shouldn’t just be a major component of your investor relations efforts, it should be the foundation for them.

A capital-markets-specific tool enables you to indicate investor communication preferences as part of your investor services workflow. This is essential, as to how you reach out to investors can have a major impact on how receptive they are to your messaging.

A platform like Altvia helps your team build reports and segment lists based on factors like:

  • When you most recently contacted investors
  • Investors who are committed to a specific fund
  • The number of your emails that have been opened or engaged with

Email communication for investor relations

Reach out to an investor just a little too late and they may have been lured away by another firm. Consequently, it’s important to have a platform that generates personalized email templates and enables you to get high-quality communications out quickly.

And while there are many email tools on the market today, you need a system that makes it easy to send industry-specific information like Capital Call notices, PPMs, K1s, and distribution notices.

A solution like Altvia gives you that capability along with powerful integration to your CRM. That seamless connection enables the automatic storing of information like details on email opens and click-throughs, which you can use to further tailor your communications. It can also be helpful during fundraising.

How a data-room & LP portal improves investor relationships

It’s common for investors to want more information in uncertain times. We saw this in the financial crisis of 2008 and again during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In fact, PEI surveyed 120 fund managers about their communications with investors, and, not surprisingly, 61% said that LPs have been requesting more frequent reporting about their portfolio companies in recent times.

What’s a better way to handle these requests instead of responding to each individually?

Empowering investors to answer their own questions with a cutting-edge LP portal and data room like ShareSecure. Simple document sharing sites like Dropbox and DocuSign may work well for other industries, but they aren’t designed for the nuances of the private capital industry.

A proper data portal must have enterprise-grade security to protect the sensitive data it holds—everything from documents to video files, which are more important than ever with the new focus on fewer in-person interactions.

The portal should also give your firm a high degree of control over user permission customization and have digital signature functionality.

And perhaps most importantly, an LP portal should provide access to a visual dashboard where investors can check on fund performance and answer many of their own questions without having to contact your investor relations team.

Learn More About the Growing Importance of Private Equity Technology for Investor Relations

Is your private equity technology stack providing your investor relations team with everything needed to optimize investor services and support current and future growth?

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