Private Equity

Top CRM platforms for Private Equity investors in 2023

A comprehensive review of software available for private equity and venture capital funds

There’s a real and competitive variety of CRM software in the market today.  Different platforms have been arriving at different stages of development in the sector, giving customers a constantly evolving and improving choice of products and a better chance to find one that perfectly meets their requirements.

Industry evolution

We’ve broken down the CRM software market into three broad groups, each corresponding to a distinct time period in the industry's history:

  • Generic industry CRMs (1999-2005): The early 2000's saw the emergence of the first at-scale generic CRM platforms. HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce emerged as winners. While they weren’t specifically tailored for the private equity sector, these early systems laid the foundation for the development of more specialized platforms.
  • Legacy full-suite players (2000-2010): Several private equity-specific CRM platforms entered the market. DealCloud, Altvia, Dynamo and Backstop Solutions were among the early pioneers. Although these platforms delivered a range of specialized features, they often suffered from outdated user interfaces, limited flexibility, and a reputation for being cumbersome and bloated.
  • Best-in-breen modern platforms (2014-current): As the need for more agile and user-friendly CRM solutions grew, a new wave of best-in-breed platforms emerged in the private equity space. ListAlpha, Affinity, and Attio are prime examples of these modern, tech-forward CRM systems. Designed to address the limitations of legacy platforms, these platforms offer advanced features, modern user interfaces, and robust API integrations.

We’ll begin with the most competitive modern systems, and take you through the wide range of platforms that are available today.

A. Best of Breed Modern Platforms

The latest generation of tech-forward platforms with full-spectrum, user-focussed relationship intelligence capabilities and API integrations.

1. ListAlpha

listalpha.com

Founded in London in 2020, ListAlpha is one of the few CRM platforms that benefits from a modern tech stack based on OpenAI GPT, semantic search and robust API-integrations. The platform is focused on deal team workflows (i.e., deal origination, research, screening) and differentiates through a modern and light-weight user interface, minimal data entry requirements and powerful search capabilities.

ListAlpha also has native company research engine that allows to perform due diligence and deal screening directly in the platform without relying on 3rd party API integrations with Pitchbook or Crunchbase. This allows for a seamless workflow without the need to data warehouses or cumbersome integrations between different software vendors.

  • Pricing: $70-115 per user per month, depending on the size of the team and modules enabled
  • Strengths: Modern tech stack; light-touch user interface; disruptive pricing model; strong API integrations with leading deal origination platforms
  • Weaknesses: Investment team and front office-focused.

2. Affinity

affinity.co

Affinity

Founded in San Francisco in 2014, and backed by YC, Affinity has been one of the most successful deal origination platforms of the recent generation. The platform was built around native integration with email providers (Gmail or Outlook) and differentiates through strong Relationship Intelligence functionality. Affinity has strong traction among Venture Capital funds, however has had a more limited relevance in the Private Equity market due to the specifics of that customer segment.  

  • Pricing: $15-40k annual license fee for team of 10-30
  • Strengths: Modern tech stack and user interface; Strong Relationship Management and people intelligence functionality
  • Weaknesses: Very VC-focused workflow, slightly inappropriate for private equity (i.e., heavy focus on outbound origination and long lists of contacts)

3. Attio

attio.com

Attio is another London-based platform that had its roots in the private markets. The company has developed a very modern and flexible platform for managing contacts, sales pipeline and various fund related administrative tasks. At first Attio targeted VC funds as its core market, however has since pivoted to the broader generic CRM market offering industry workflows for start-ups and scale-ups as well.

  • Pricing: $20-100 per user per month, depending on the size of the organisation
  • Strengths: Visually appealing user interface, adaptability to individual workflows, and a strong focus on data-driven insights
  • Weaknesses: recent entry into generic industry market, which may result in limited exposure and adoption among private equity firms.

B. Full-Suite players that offer CRM functionality

An earlier generation of CRM platforms, these can be expensive and difficult to use - but can also be a good choice if you’re looking for an established all-rounder.

These players came as a second wave of industry-specific software providers that customized their workflows to the Private Equity market, thus avoiding the pitfalls of the generalists. The most established of this cohort are Dynamo, eFront and Backstop which were all founded in 1998-2003 and have since reached significant scale. The newer entrants include DealCloud (which is arguable the best of this group) and Altvia (which is based on the SalesForce platform, hence suffers from the earlier mentioned issues).

4. DealCloud

www.dealcloud.com

DealCloud

One of the best known names in the industry and a slightly more front office-focus than the rest of the group. DealCloud was started in 2010 in North Carolina by two founders with previous private equity experience. The company has 250+ employees globally and has been recently (2018) acquired by Intapp, a legal software business.

  • Pricing: $50-70k license fee for team of 30 + $30-50k in integration / set-up costs
  • Strengths: one of the biggest names in the market with good visualisation and analytical features
  • Weaknesses: Very manual and data entry-heavy workflow which bogs down the deal team; Expensive and cumbersome to install / maintain; Old and ageing tech stack.

5. Altvia

altvia.com

Altvia

Founded in Colorado in 2006 by Kevin Kelly, who previously was a CTO at another private equity fund. Over 15 years, the company has scaled to over 40k users and completed a sale to Bow River Capital in 2019 and subsequently Marlin Equity in 2022. Altvia offers a full-suite CRM however differentiates through a focus on Investor Relations functionality (e.g., LP communications, fundraising, virtual data room, etc.). Their platform is built entirely on SalesForce, which gives rise to a number of disadvantages when it comes to the user interface and flexibility of the software.

  • Pricing: $70k license fee for team of 30 + $40-50% for integration / set-up costs
  • Strengths: Full-suite solution. Strong LP / IR features.
  • Weaknesses: Built on top of the SalesForce platform, which limits ability to add new features; Lack of control over their own core infrastructure. Old school user interface.

C. Generic industry CRMs

If you have any choice in the matter these are generally a bad idea, given all the better options now available.  

Despite their respectable age, the likes of Salesforce and MS Dynamics continue to feature on various software vendor lists for private equity, slightly to our bemusement. These are very large and generic sales platforms designed for industry customers (think manufacturing or life insurance companies), which have been "shoehorned" into serving PE clients by various industry integrators.

The problem with generic CRM platforms is that they are fundamentally designed for supporting the sales and customer service functions of medium to large corporates (think thousands of employees). On the size front, this stands at odds with the fact that even the largest mega funds have at most hundreds of employers (if not less than a 100). These platforms also don't deal very well with the fact that PE funds do not have customers, or sales people. Shoehorning these CRM platforms inevitably involves introducing slightly alien concepts like M&A advisers and deal pipelines, and turning off the multitude of "Work In Progress" and "Quarterly Sales Quota" reports, which as the bread and butter of the Saleforce customer base.

These platforms are generally cheap (HubSpot is free, Dynamics is c.$10-20k depending on team size), however installing them in 2023 is akin to sending your organisation back into technological dark ages.

6. Microsoft Dynamics

https://dynamics.microsoft.com/

A long-standing CRM solution from the tech giant Microsoft, has been serving various industries since the early 2000s. While it offers a broad range of features and benefits from its tight integration with other Microsoft products, the platform struggles to cater to the specific needs of private equity firms.

  • Pricing: $10-20K for a team of 20 (depends on bundling discounts with other Microsoft services)
  • Strengths: Seamless integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, providing a familiar environment for users already invested in Microsoft services
  • Weaknesses: Lack of specialized tools and features tailored to the private equity industry, making it less effective for managing industry-specific workflows and processes. Additionally, its cumbersome and dated user interface may hinder efficiency and user satisfaction, leading private equity firms to seek more modern, tailored alternatives.

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