• Financial Services
  • Intapp DealCloud

How verified deal-making data is powering M&A transactions in Europe

Verified deal-making data — both proprietary and third-party data — enables the most-strategic private equity (PE) and M&A professionals to make key decisions in their everyday work. In the Nordics, no data provider is more widely used than Stockholm-based Valu8. For deal-makers across Europe, and the Nordics specifically, the powerful combination of Intapp DealCloud’s software and Valu8’s comprehensive European private company and ownership data makes it possible for firms to gain a 360-degree view of the deal-making landscape.

In a recent webinar, “Harnessing the Power of Private capital Markets Deal-Making Data in Europe,” James Brierley, a Client Solutions Engineer at Intapp DealCloud, and Jonas Wennberg, Head of Sales at Valu8, discussed how technology and data are fueling transaction activity for countless firms across the Nordics region and Europe. Christian Melby, Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Summa Equity, provided first-hand insight into the process of connecting data to deal-making as a client of both DealCloud and Valu8.

Below, we highlight their key findings and illuminate how Nordic and European firms can leverage verified deal-making data to power their M&A transactions globally.

Understand the Universe of Private Companies

Valu8 aggregates comprehensive sources of private company information that help users effectively screen and analyze relevant private company and ownership data. Firms often use this intelligent business application tool as a starting point in their initial screening for company financial filters through other verticals such as industry, keywords, or employee growth. As the primary research tool for private company data in Europe, Valu8 works with 95% of the PE and M&A market across the Nordic region, and enjoys a 98% renewal rate.

Since tracking countless private companies is virtually impossible, it’s now best practice to leverage the research capabilities of firms like Valu8. Rather than performing that research in house, firms should consider leveraging Valu8’s existing data on more than 68,000,000 European companies.

Assess the Importance of European and Nordic Private Market Data

Verified deal-making data has been in high demand across Europe, and the Nordics specifically, for quite some time. Three key trends have pushed firms to leverage third-party data to fuel their investments and deal-making activity:

  • Rising cross-border deal-making and office expansions (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic)
  • Strong proprietary relationships need augmentation
  • Limited competence in research and data validation

Christian Melby of Summa Equity said he has witnessed and navigated the effects of these trends during the course of his 20-year career in the industry. According to Melby, cross-border opportunities have increased in light of new office openings and new market development because most firms don’t have the same relationships globally that they would normally maintain within local markets. Fewer geographic boundaries and an increased willingness and ability to facilitate international deals have driven the need for verified deal-making data and purpose-built systems to house deal information.

Working with a CRM system and verified deal-making data providers has become really crucial because you have to work smarter, more precisely, and more efficiently.

Christian Melby, Summa Equity

Bolster Thoughtful Implementation with Best-in-Class Solutions

Summa Equity has leveraged the combined power of DealCloud and Valu8 in response to the three trends mentioned above. Melby explained to Brierley that the most important thing he was looking for in a new CRM system was flexibility in its implementation, as deployment is when firms face the biggest risks. Other factors that Summa Equity considered when choosing a new vendor were specific experience within private equity and venture capital, ease of use, as well as UI and UX quality.

No matter the underlying considerations, when firms seek out a more strategic and streamlined way to leverage verified deal-making data, they need to make thoughtful and realistic plans for implementing and adopting those tools. The data needs to extend into each deal-makers’ everyday processes and, therefore, requires system flexibility and ease of configuration.

Evaluate Vendors for Industry Specialization

When choosing a new way to leverage verified deal-making data, it’s important that firms consider whether or not their CRM systems and data providers offer domain expertise in the private capital markets. DealCloud, for example, was designed by investors and bankers specifically for transaction professionals, and allows dealmakers to accomplish their work with ease:

  • Streamlining deal sourcing and origination efforts
  • Improving the efficacy of relationship management and development initiatives
  • Making informed decisions and taking action more quickly
  • Building institutional knowledge and databases in a fraction of the time it previously took

When building a solution for your firm, we recommend following best practices to analyze these core capabilities. If your technology solutions provider and verified deal-making data provider don’t offer facilitate the items mentioned above, they likely don’t have the industry specialization required for a successful deployment.

To see a DealCloud demo incorporating Valu8 data and hear more expert insights, watch the “Harnessing the Power of Private capital Markets Deal-Making Data in Europe” webinar on demand.

To learn more, schedule a DealCloud demo.