Experienced w/ deal management software at a private equity fund?
I'm looking for case studies of success/failure in implementing a knowledge management tool to manage deal flow and existing portfolio company information. At this stage I'm more interested in the "what benefit" and "why or why not" rather than the specific tool or features.
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Shane H
Software Entrepreneur and Executive, Program and Project Manager, Fin Tech, Mobile, and CRM specialist
Best Answers in: Venture Capital and Private Equity (1)
Furqan - Blackstone uses our mobile software to extend their systems for portfolio and deal management. I can see if their IT folks are willing to share details about their backends and try to put you in touch with them if you are interested. Give me a call at 781.997.0302. For deal management they use our mInstitutional product http://www.pyxismobile.com/products/mInstitutional/ . We have customers who also use the desktop version of our product as their system of record for deal management, although Blackstone is not one of them.
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Unfortunately we didn't use software to track our deals. In hindsight that was a mistake. We used outlook, excel spreadsheets and started to create a proprietary tracking system. It's making it difficult to find information now on who the decision makers were, when there was a transfer of authority etc. I'll be following this thread closely to see what experiences others have had.
Have seen a knowledge mgmt tool used by hedge funds that engage in heavy research. It will track all the related spreadsheets and e-mails. It is powerful with an intuitive interface. See www.tamalesoftware.com
Hire me! Actually I have seen both salesforce and saleslogix implemented in such a fashion - more for deal flow. I think anyone who doesnt is missing a major opportunity. However, it is time consuming (and thus somewhat expensive from an HR perspective) to maintain an excellent database. I think the benefits far outweigh the cost if the fund is looking at it as a long term component of the firm.
That being said, its only as good as the data that gets entered - getting people to enter info is more important than the software, IMO
I have seen Tamale as well, and it can be a good tool. There is a company called Relevant Technologies (I think) in Waltham, MA that has been building these systems for a long time, but (at least a number of years ago when I saw it closely) it was better at back-end fund accounting and LP mgmt. The CEO's name is Ray Haarstick. Lemme know if you want to cennect with him - or just ring him directly.
Check out Infusion Development at www.infusiondev.com, they build customer deal tracking based on Sharepoint. Done it for a number of PE and VC firms.
