🎥 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.

Clip #1: What is the hardest problem to solve right now?

Clip #2: Are there going to be more point solutions or one-size-fits-all solutions?

Clip #3: What’s the “wow” feature on DealsPlus?

Clip #4: Is it harder to build for larger firms or smaller firms?

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 [email protected].

We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.

Show Notes

00:00 Introduction to our Sponsor, Ultimus

01:56 Welcome to Alt Goes Mainstream

02:10 What is DealsPlus?

02:33 Venkat's Background and Experience

03:01 The Complexity of Cap Table Management

03:10 Building a Single Source of Truth

03:49 Building DealsPlus

04:07 Venkat's Tax Advisory Experience

04:22 Complex Structures in Private Equity

04:53 The Need for Better Solutions

05:30 War Stories in Private Equity

06:31 Lack of Uniformity in Transactions

07:00 Technology's Role in Private Equity

07:44 The Impact of Cloud Computing

08:38 Consumerization of Enterprise Software

08:57 Moving from Excel to Digital

09:18 Excel's Strengths and Weaknesses

10:24 Connecting Front and Back Office

14:24 Recurring Pain Points

14:49 Focus on Cap Table Management

15:28 Complexity in Private Equity vs. Venture

16:29 Building the Platform

17:33 Stakeholder Management

19:53 Time Savings with DealsPlus

21:50 Integrating Technology into Workflows

22:15 Best in Class Solutions

24:49 Size of Fund and Complexity

26:58 Impact on Smaller vs. Larger Funds

28:44 Network Effects in Technology Solutions

30:04 The Wow Features in DealsPlus

31:16 Trends in Private Markets

33:11 Transparency and Software Solutions

34:28 Hardest Problems to Solve

35:55 Future of Technology in Private Markets

41:12 Conclusion and Closing Remarks

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