Episodes
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We're back with another episode on the state of Tech Due Diligence. This time we're joined by Dan Bender and Lukas Ingelheim, founding partners of Berlin-headquartered Code & Co, who perform Tech Due Diligence around the world. We cover some basics of tech due diligence for those of you unfamiliar, discuss the differences between US and European tech diligence, and look into the future to see how tech diligence is evolving to help PE firms create value.
You can learn more about Code & Co. here: www.codeandco.com -
In private equity, it is becoming widely recognized that technology-enabled growth and innovation within portfolio companies is a major spur to productivity and value creation. The mechanisms through which technology is developed, adopted and used in production are complex.
How are private equity firms handling the evaluation of technology-enabled growth pre-acquisition, and how are they then helping their portfolio companies execute once acquired? As we've highlighted in past episodes, approaches vary. One approach that has been gaining momentum is the creation of an in-house team of technology experts to assist in everything from diligence to execution.
Verdane, a European private equity firm that has taken this approach of building out a team of in-house, specialized technology experts, is the focus of today's episode. Verdane has even named this team: Elevate. Within Elevate is CTO Henrik Berg, today's guest. Henrik talks us through the formation of Elevate and how the firm leverages his team. -
Missing episodes?
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Triton Partners, the large European private equity firm, has long understood that optimizing the technologies that run its portfolio companies can bring meaningful value to its investments. Anders Thulin joined Triton 6 years ago as its head of the firm's digital & technology practice. He and his team are engaged in due diligence as well as execution, helping to uncover opportunities that others may be missing.
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Our guest this episode is Doug Laney, Data & Analytics Innovation Fellow at West Monroe and author of "Infonomics: How to Monetize, Manage, and Measure Information as an Asset for Competitive Advantage". Doug discusses why "Data Diligence" should be added to your ever-growing list of diligences and opportunities for monetizing the data that exists within your organization.
Links:
+ Doug Laney: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglaney/
+ Infonomics: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075QM8P2T -
Having technology experience and leadership within Private Equity firms is becoming increasingly critical – people with the resilience, speed and partnering skills necessary to drive growth by leveraging technology. Incline Equity Partners provides a glimpse into it has chose to tackle this challenge. Our bet is that PE firms start to look more and more like the Inclines of the world in the next 5 years.
Juliane Stephan and Kyle Roemer join us. -
We invited Alice Murray, Editor at The Drawdown, to discuss her recent article "Great Techspectations", critical observations on Private Equity’s technology upgrade since the pandemic catalyzed upgrade plans.
Alice shares sharp insights on not only technology but also on a much deeper theme of employee well-being and the criticality of ‘G’ in ESG. -
For the first time, we turn our attention to the data quality and accuracy *within* Private Equity firms. Ian Rubenstein, CEO at Exchangelodge, talks us through the state of data within PE firms and where the industry needs to go next to provide timely, accurate, and actionable data for both LPs and portfolio company decision making.
Links
https://www.exchangelodge.com/ -
If your portfolio company builds software applications, whether as its core business or in support of its core business, the speed and quality of delivering that software can have a major impact on the success of the business. Dev Ops is a collaboration between software development, operations, and other teams, collectively tasked with achieving common business goals through delivering software to the organization efficiently and effectively.
Dave Mangot, of Mangoteque, has been preaching Dev Ops for over a decade. We talk about what Dev Ops means, its importance to software development, and its impact on your portfolio companies. -
A quick rant on how you, as a private equity firm, need to be engaging Microsoft, Amazon, and/or Google to help drive meaningful cost savings across your portfolio companies through the optimization and scale opportunities they provide.
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One of the most important things you learn in Private Equity is to work with partners to achieve the investment thesis. To this end, a strategic partnership with Microsoft can be pivotal to saving time and money, and enabling growth.
Into the pod comes Microsoft's Casey McGee, VP of ISV Partner Sales. We discuss how Microsoft supports Private Equity firms and their portfolio companies. We continue with a recent theme of how/why you should be aggregating your portfolio company spend technology spend (thing business apps and cloud) with the big, global technology providers.
Reach out to Casey and the Microsoft team here:
Casey McGee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-mcgee-4b0128/
US: [email protected]
UK: [email protected]
EMEA/APAC: email one of the above and we will put you in touch with the right team -
Differentiated facts and insights enable better decision making. Gartner insights support Private Equity investors in making key decisions throughout the investment life cycle.
Today we speak with David Smith, Vice President Analyst and Gartner Fellow Emeritus at Gartner. David is part of the Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation team where he leads the research agenda for cloud computing and digital disruption. He has served as a Lead Gartner Analyst covering major vendors, such as Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Sun, Google and Deloitte. He is often quoted in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times amongst others, and is a frequent guest on CNBC.
A measured and deeply thoughtful voice, David offers advice on Cloud technology strategy and the choices, risks and benefits it can bring for an investor. He investigates What defines a cloud service? Public vs Private vs Hybrid Strategies? Does a cloud strategy enable anything new? What is the financial and operational impact of investing in Cloud?
https://www.gartner.com/en/industries/investment-services
https://www.gartner.com/analyst/6992/David-Smith
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirarajani -
Whether you're in charge of cloud expenditures at a company or you're invested in one or many companies with significant cloud spend, you're going to want to pay attention to this episode. Rackspace, the well-known hosting-provider-turned-multicloud-solutions-provider, sent in Justin Chris-Tensen and Jeff DeVerter to talk about how they help their clients optimize cloud spend.
We're not talking a few thousand dollars here or there. We first heard about the work that Rackspace did for HGGC in Episode 43, when the PE firm disclosed *millions of dollars in savings* as a result of working with Rackspace.
If there was ever an episode that could lead you directly to monetary savings, this is it.
Rackspace: https://www.rackspace.com/
PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW WHEREVER YOU LISTEN! -
Mike Bestvina and Sean Lyons of Renna Partners are two of my favorite tech guys in the private equity realm. Always insightful and current with how technology is shaping investing and operating.
Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebestvina/
Sean: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-p-lyons-2319653/
Renna Partners: https://rennapartners.com/ -
HGGC, a middle-market private equity firm based in Palo Alto, California, has seen significant benefits of technology as a disruptor or enabler in traditional industrial or service-based businesses. Les Brown, an HGGC Partner, discusses the how the firm leverages technology, from diligence to inception to exit. Moving companies from the industrial age to the information age is their niche, and Les presents how technology has played a critical role in value creation across industries and business models, including buy-build infrastructure to accelerate growth from single digit EBITDA to triple digit EBITDA. HGGC has also built out its own tech capability internally in order to build up the intelligence and muscle of the firm for the future.
Episode links:
+ HGGC: https://www.hggc.com/
+ Les Brown: https://www.hggc.com/team/leslie-m-brown-jr
Thanks for listening! Please leave a review on your favorite podcast app. -
There's a newish type of operating partner in town: the digital operating partner. Bruce Sinclair, author of The Digital Operating Partner: Using Digital Transformation for Value Creation, drops by to talk about his expectations for the role, namely that a Digital Operating Partner should be driving massive improvements to enterprise value.
Links and resources mentioned in this episode:
+ The book: https://bit.ly/dig-operating-partner
Thank you so much for joining us this week. This show was co-hosted with Lisa Weaver-Lambert.
Want to subscribe to The Private Equity Technology Podcast? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/priv…1265864756?mt=2
Have some feedback you’d like to share, please contact me directly at [email protected]. -
As the global pandemic continues to fundamentally change the way we live and work, it has forced every PE firm to take difficult decisions. In this talk, Sean Epstein, SVP and Global Head of Private Equity at SAP, shares his experience on how PE clients have faced these challenges with a very pragmatic and human approach to leveraging technology.
Links and resources mentioned in this episode:
+ Sean Epstein https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanpepstein
+ sap.com
Thank you so much for joining us this week. This show was co-hosted with Lisa Weaver-Lambert.
Want to subscribe to The Private Equity Technology Podcast? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/private-equity-technology-podcast/id1265864756?mt=2
Have some feedback you’d like to share, please contact me directly at [email protected]. -
Iain Bishop, a long-time CTO at PE-backed companies, joins us to discuss key areas for evaluation when due diligencing technology teams, what differentiates software companies, current trends in software development, and the tech talent landscape.
Iain Bishop https://www.linkedin.com/in/iain-bishop-429421
This show was co-hosted with Lisa Weaver-Lambert.
Want to subscribe to The Private Equity Technology Podcast? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/private-equity-technology-podcast/id1265864756?mt=2
Have some feedback you’d like to share? Contact me directly at [email protected]. -
Russ Albright and Erik Larson of Crosslake Technologies join Alex and Lisa to talk through 5 cost optimization strategies for your portfolio companies' IT function. While the discussion is perhaps more relevant than ever, the topic is one that should always be on the minds of operating partners and portfolio company leadership.
Crosslake is a technology due diligence, strategy, and execution consultancy based in Seattle, with offices in Canada and Europe.
Website: https://crosslaketech.com/equity -
Hosts Alex Agran and Lisa Weaver-Lambert catch up on what they've been seeing, hearing, and experiencing in the US and UK, respectively, since since being sheltered in place due to the SARS-CoV-2.
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More firms are increasingly taking a proactive approach to how they integrate and plan technology across their portfolio to drive value. Riccardo Basile, Principal at Permira in the portfolio group, takes us through how to think about technology during due diligence through to the investments themselves. He covers the different approaches according to sector and how to leverage knowledge from software investments and apply to more traditional sectors. Staying ahead of disruption and protecting the value of the investment requires both a defensive and offensive approach.
Links and resources mentioned in this episode:
Riccardo Basile - https://www.permira.com/people/riccardo-basile/ - Show more
