Public companies are required to disclose detailed, timely information about their operations, financial performance and projections. Conversely, private means private. Historically, private market investors receive only high-level fund performance data — often only by vintage — which can paint a partial or incomplete picture. Look-through data into underlying asset performance has been scarce.

It’s not as easy to make money in private equity today as it once was. While still attractive, downward pressure on returns has come as a result of increased competition and as the asset class matures. There are more private equity firms in existence now than ever before, and collectively they are sitting on nearly $2.3 trillion in uncommitted capital, or “dry powder”. The asset class has matured with new funds, GPs, LPs and participants creating increased competition across the industry. Many of the private equity transformation plays have been adopted by operating companies themselves, and it becomes harder to create value within portfolio companies.

Vetting private equity funds for potential investments can be an inefficient process for many LPs struggling to identify which opportunities are worth an initial deep dive. Analysts that manually build complex spreadsheets and models to conduct due diligence can find themselves stymied by a lack of actionable performance, investment and strategic data. However, mechanization and acceleration of the private equity fund due diligence process is now possible. Advances in data accessibility and analytics coupled with a capacity to look through fund-level data into the underlying asset classes. CEPRES is a pioneer in allowing LPs to peek under the hood of private equity funds to see details on each of their individual assets, helping transform the due diligence process from a value detractor into a value add.