DealsPlus' Venkat Subramaniam - building a single source of truth for private markets

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

Today’s episode is with a founder who is building mission-critical software for private equity firms.

I sat down in Citywire’s London studio with Venkat Subramaniam, the Co-Founder of DealsPlus, to discuss why he has built a digital solution to streamline, digitize, and automate the management of complex holding and capital structures for private equity firms.

Historically, private equity firms have relied on humans and manual processes to manage and track cap tables, transactions, and entities. This process has required significant human intervention and has often been rife with errors, making deals harder to consummate and transactions. Venkat has taken his 15 years of experience advising private equity managers on cross-border transactions, most recently as an Associate Partner at EY UK, to build DealsPlus to create a single source of truth for capital structures for private equity firms. DealsPlus works with a number of industry-leading private equity firms and is backed by a private equity firm with $38B in AUM.

Venkat and I had a fascinating conversation about the challenges private equity firms face with managing and tracking transactions and portfolio companies. We discussed:

• Why it’s been so hard to create a cap table management solution for private equity.
• Why it's much harder to build software for private equity firms than venture capital firms.
• How private markets can move from the Excel Age to the Digital Age.
• How to build software that provides a single source of truth.
• The atomic unit of value in private markets.
• Building an end-to-end platform versus building a point solution.
• What’s next in post-investment ops tech innovation?

Thanks Venkat for coming on the show to share your thoughts and wisdom on private markets tech.

A word from AGM podcast sponsor, Ultimus Fund Solutions

This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus Fund Solutions, a leading full-service fund administrator for asset managers in private and public markets. As private markets continue to move into the mainstream, the industry requires infrastructure solutions that help funds and investors keep pace. In an increasingly sophisticated financial marketplace, investment managers must navigate a growing array of challenges: elaborate fund structures, specialized strategies, evolving compliance requirements, a growing need for sophisticated reporting, and intensifying demands for transparency.

To assist with these challenging opportunities, more and more fund sponsors and asset managers are turning to Ultimus, a leading service provider that blends high tech and high touch in unique and customized fund administration and middle office solutions for a diverse and growing universe of over 450 clients and 1,800 funds, representing $500 billion assets under administration, all handled by a team of over 1,000 professionals. Ultimus offers a wide range of capabilities across registered funds, private funds and public plans, as well as outsourced middle office services. Delivering operational excellence, Ultimus helps firms manage the ever-changing regulatory environment while meeting the needs of their institutional and retail investors. Ultimus provides comprehensive operational support and fund governance services to help managers successfully launch retail alternative products.

Visit www.ultimusfundsolutions.com to learn more about Ultimus’ technology enhanced services and solutions or contact Ultimus Executive Vice President of Business Development Gary Harris on email at gharris@ultimusfundsolutions.com.

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Introduction and message from Ultimus

01:59 Introducing Venkat Subramaniam and DealsPlus

03:57 Venkat's Career Journey

05:07 The Genesis of DealsPlus

05:09 Challenges in Transaction Management

06:25 The Lack of Uniformity in Private Equity Processes

06:54 The Impact of Technology on Private Equity

07:33 The Role of Cloud Computing

08:24 The Consumerization of Enterprise Software

09:04 Excel vs. Specialized Software

09:34 The Importance of Cap Table Management

10:04 Connecting Front Office and Back Office

10:30 Building Effective Software Solutions

13:24 Recurring Pain Points in Private Equity

14:47 The Complexity of Private Equity Cap Tables

15:44 Building a Platform for Private Equity

16:43 Stakeholder Management in Private Equity

18:50 Impact of Technology on Fund Operations

20:25 Integrating DealsPlus into Workflows

21:06 Best-in-Class Applications and Data Integration

23:33 The Impact of Fund Size on Complexity

25:42 Technology Adoption in Private Equity

27:09 Network Effects in Private Equity Technology

37:41 The Future of Private Markets Technology

39:14 Conclusion and Closing Remarks