I'm an Analyst at a mid-market PE firm and I struggle to find good IR software. My least favorite part of my job is filling out LP requests. How is your process to fill out these data requests for portfolio companies? Do you use any software? Does everything you do also need to be approved by half of the firm before it goes back to the LP?
I'm desperate here, please help lol.
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Its a pretty broad pain point across the industry - Historically using software / RfP tools (for example a friend at a large cap shop uses Loopio that they suggest works well) only has really worked at significant scale because it took / takes quite a lot of effort to set it up / input answers / format data and that only really pays dividends at a certain size point.
I think that's changing quite rapidly with the integration of AI/LLMs and a lot of platforms are building out tools to help responses using that (in a smarter way than historically). Unsurprisingly a lot of larger IR teams as well as placement agents I know are spending quite a bit of time on their strategies here. I heard one advisor was using all existing DD materials in a folder and copilot to draft responses which was working 'okay'. I think its an area that will develop quite a lot over the coming year though.
Agreed 100%. I used Loopio but that one is only good for qualitative questions and I don't really like how it matches the questions.
What is your process for quantitative data requests? Do you need to collect data from deal teams and go through all the approval cycles etc.? There is so much pain in my process personally.
Generally the best practise I've seen is to agree an overview 'Portfolio Company Datasheet' at the outset of a fundraising with all the key figures for each deal/PortCo (as at entry and exit / latest) and that gets updated quarterly and used as the reference point for DD responses.
Obviously the amount of effort that sheet takes to create / update is heavily dependent on how organised a firm is and easy the data is to pull from central systems/deal/finance teams.
That said once you have it, and its signed off the approvals process isn't needed case by case. Obviously if some LPs want more detailed numbers that are not on it you'd have to go deal team by deal team but not sure I've seen it that often and where I have seen those requests I've often seen GPs push back.
Yes re your point on Loopio I agree - Its the best of a pretty bad bunch - Can clearly pull in some relevant responses but clearly misses almost all the nuances between slightly different questions and of course who is asking them (and how that might change a response)
Thanks for this response. Are you at a mid-market firm? At my firm we have quarterly data requests and we do deliver them each quarter, not only during fundraising. It's really surprising to me that some GPs would push back on that unless they have a lot of leverage and are megafunds.
We also get approval from all ops teams before we send it back to the LP.
I have studied this extensively. I'm sorry but there really are no good options. Battle of lesser evils. There are a few AI start-ups (some in public, some in stealth) trying to tackle this now but none are functional enough to be really meaningful yet - hopefully this changes in the next 6-12 months as they figure it out
If its just DDQ completion and you already have a good library of completed responses, Dasetti might be your best bet. Loopio is around too but it takes a lottt of work.
the economics of starting a company to sell to IR teams is a really tough sell for founders. it needs to be under the umbrella of a bigger co, and none of the bigger co's will pay IR folks enough to get them to leave
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