Item: PitchBook
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with PitchBook

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Have numerous use cases for PitchBook within my daily workflow: • PB offers an excellent private Company database. I would say it has information (incl. description, headquarters, ownership, etc.) that is critical in my day to day workflow. • If I want to understand the funding history for a Company, I look at the deal history for a Company to understand who owns and and when it last underwent a debt / equity recap. • Get an understanding of the comparable universe for a private Company. While trx data is limited, it at least gives me an idea where to start looking internally. • I love the filter feature in PB, it allows me to pull an array of companies within a specific sector and size, which I can then pull relevant data for when screening an investment thesis / sector. • I don't read the market insights and research reports often. I find them to be surface level and not that informative relative to other industry reports (e.g., Bain).

Pros and Cons

Pros

Database of private markets information with limited financial information.
Excellent deal history on an asset including previous investors / owners.
Custom search / filter feature should be the industry standard.

Cons

Comparable reccommendation is worth ignoring. It's often not accurate and the public comp proposals would get me fired if I ran with them.
I cannot trust the financial data provided by PB. If I have nothing else available I'll turn to it, but it's definitely a last resort.
Fund information is not something I can trust. The Fund returns are not reliable and I often turn to Preqin as an alternative.
Public company statistics and monitoring lead a lot to be desired. I often resort to CapIQ when doing anything in public markets. Even exporting data to Excel can be a painful process.

Return on Investment

I'll pull ~25 company descriptions on occassion instead of writing them myself. Each time I grab one of those I'm saving myself 2-3 minutes. Easily save an hour+ on this simple / repetitive task related to a daily / weekly work product.
If I want to understand other companies in the industry, PB's search function will save me from skimming the internet for hours. This can result in 4-7 hours of time savings across a more macro or industry-wide project.
Quickly finding who invested in an asset can save sometimes 30-45 minutes of searching the internet. While I wish it provided more details on the specific fund that invested (i.e., Fund IV), it provides sufficient direction for me to begin searching internal databases.

Usability

I think many aspects of it are intuitive; however, I do think there are elements that require explanation or time spent tinkering with the product offering. The search tool is excellent, but requires an explanation to make the most out of it. There are also features that are not obvious (e.g., company specific notifications) that people would find helpful, but most don't know exist.

Alternatives Considered

Preqin, S&P Capital IQ and Third Bridge

• Preqin has up to date and largely reliable fund performance information. The information like this on PitchBook is unusuable. I don't trust it in the slightest. If more sources were offered I might consider taking a closer look at it. • CapIQ is the home base for all public assets. I don't do any public market research on PB. PB is missing chart building features, an easy to use Excel plugin, easy access to investment research, easy to audite financial reports, and countless other things. • Third Bridge offers expert insight. If I want details on an industry, this is an excellent place to start. To my knowledge, PB doesn't offer this or other features.

Key Insights

Do you think PitchBook delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with PitchBook's feature set?

Yes

Did PitchBook live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of PitchBook go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy PitchBook again?

Yes

Other Software Used

S&P Capital IQ, Preqin, Third Bridge

Likelihood to Recommend

If you're a private markets investor, PitchBook is an excellent option as it provides a fulsome overview of the landscape of potential target assets and contains various levels of information. If you're middle market and focus on founder businesses, then PB would be less helpful, but it would still offer a good start. If you're workign regularly in the public markets space, I would point you towards other resources (e.g., CapIQ). PB doesn't have a great Excel plugin and the times that I've used it or seen it used in the past, it feels clunky and out of date compared to CapIQ's Excel plugin.

PitchBook Feature Ratings

Comments

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Sally Davis
(Vendor Representative) commented a year ago
Thank you for your review Were glad to hear PitchBook saves you time and improves efficiency. We appreciate your feedback regarding data accuracy and our Excel plugin. We have flagged this feedback in our system. Thanks for being a PitchBook customer

PE Associate PitchBook Usage