Solovis and Imagineer Activate Collaboration

Two prominent names in the alternatives software world are announcing a new partnership combining the quantitative strengths of the Solovis Platform with the qualitative tools of Imagineer’s Synap.

When it comes to tools for allocators, the most powerful applications are those which most closely align with the workflow of today’s professional investor. Maintaining an allocation to private equity and other alternatives is a process which incorporates multiple factors:

• quantitative and qualitative due diligence on new managers

• effective monitoring of existing portfolio including risk and exposure factors

• research on the wider market and environment

The newly announced collaboration between Solovis and Imagineer will allow for the qualitative side of the portfolio management process to be integrated within the more quantitatively focused Solovis platform, which includes tools enabling investors to manage complex multi-asset portfolios with advanced data collection and standardization, reporting and analytics functionality.

Partnerships like this can be challenging to get right from the strategic business perspective, but if both partners have a shared vision and similar goals, it can be an effective strategy to quickly create a single platform with tools which are tried and tested. Given the complexity in developing such functionality from scratch, the approach taken here can lead to a better end product more quickly and less riskily when compared with either firm developing similar products from scratch.

I feel that the strengths of Imagineer and Solovis are complementary in nature and this collaboration makes a great deal of sense. It will allow both Solovis and Imagineer to gain exposure to new customer-bases and provide additional value to mutual clients.

We know that shifting between multiple platforms to complete tasks can be inefficient and adds risk to any process. Today’s LPs and GPs are operating in an environment which is increasingly complex with allocators in particular facing more choice than ever in terms of funds on the road and the strategies they are employing. Whether through partnerships, acquisitions or new developments, effective integration of complementary tools with a single source of data is increasingly important to the modern institutional investor.

Here is the link to the official release

PE Stack’s thoughts on Pitchbook and eVestment’s Data Partnership

Two of the leading names in the private fund data world recently announced a partnership that sees Pitchbook’s fund performance and firm data available to users of eVestment’s Private Markets product. In addition, Pitchbook’s benchmarks will also be accessible to eVestment users.

What PE Stack says:

Since the NASDAQ acquisition, eVestment has been one of the most exciting vendors to watch, with this deal the latest in a series of acquisitions and partnerships that have enabled them to gather serious momentum in the private fund space.

I know first-hand that building and maintaining a high-quality source of performance data is tough, both in terms of assembling the data set in the first place, but perhaps more importantly in terms of building a good reputation. Pitchbook is one of a select group of trusted vendors with performance data and benchmarks which are high-quality and suitable for vital tasks such as due diligence.

I believe that by partnering with Pitchbook instead of building a competing dataset, eVestment put themselves in a strong position where their excellent tools and analytics can be accessed without having to convince users to switch to a new set of benchmarks and performance metrics. Don’t under-estimate how important consistency is for many GPs and especially LPs in the space.

It’s a smart strategy that will allow eVestment to attract new clients at a fast pace – especially on the GP and LP side. For Pitchbook, this move cements their position as a trusted provider for fundraising and due diligence data, and will increase their exposure to end-users on both the supply and buy side of the fundraising market.

I expect to see more deals which bring external data sets directly into eVestment’s growing ecosystem. Their mix of high-quality internal data products (Public Plan IQ), powerful tools (TopQ) and willingness to incorporate external data sources is unique in the market today. What makes the offering especially compelling to me is the effort that eVestment have put into integrating their portfolio of products into a powerful, inter-connected suite.

For more information on the specifics of the deal, please see the information page here:

https://www.evestment.com/privatemarkets/pitchbook-data-partnership/

Intralinks releases new UI

Intralinks has announced that it is introducing a new UI for its Alternative Investments portal enabling GPs to more thoroughly and quickly manage fundraising, reporting and investor communications to their clients.

The new UI brings more modern functionality and feel to the Intralinks platform at a time when LP expectations around reporting are at an all time high. A GP's ability to provide high quality reporting in a frustration-free setting on both desktop and mobile devices is becoming a core expectation, with outdated functionality reflecting increasingly poorly on a GP's brand in a time where quality offerings are becoming more commonplace.

Some of the key functionality on the new UI includes:

• Easier to navigate within an exchange and across funds

• Ability for users to drag and drop files

• Simple to add users to an Exchange, view documents from a web browser and download documents in bulk

• No need for plugins (such as Flash), and

• Mobile device support

"The world's largest community of GPs and LPs uses Intralinks technology to share information. To help make them more successful and ensure they have a seamless experience, we are committed to continually improving our offerings," said Ken Bisconti, EVP and Chief Product Officer at Intralinks.

Here's a link to the factsheet:

Information Overload!

Procuring and maintaining the right mix of data and software providers is tough, so we wrote a guide on how to do it.

You can download it here: