Company and deal sourcing
Identify viable investment opportunities on our platform to fulfill your buy-side mandate. Outlined below are some of the most common journeys for our customers.
Company screening via Company Search:
Steps:
Go to ‘Search For’ > ‘Companies & Deals’ > ‘Company Search’.
Apply filters to display companies aligned to your strategy. For example, ‘US’, ‘Healthcare’, ‘PE-backed', and ‘>$50m raised’. You can also add filters for criteria such as fund characteristics, company stage, company financials, employee data, ESG metrics, investors, and more.
Utilize keyword search to find filters and specific keywords associated with companies.
Customize the columns to parameters which are most relevant to you and your strategy.
Once you have narrowed down your search, you can export the results to Excel, add to your target list, save the search, or view an individual company profile.
When looking for investment opportunities, it is also helpful to view similar companies related to a particular target to help you identify potential other targets and build comp sets.
You can do this by using Preqin’s ‘Similar Companies’ feature on company profiles.
Go to a portfolio company profile and navigate to ‘Similar Companies’, where you can see a list of companies similar to the one you are reviewing.
You can filter and refine the results based on location, sector, and stage to make them more relevant to your strategy and mandate.
Compare them based on employee count, financials, and more.
Once you have selected one or more companies, you can also export them or add them to your target list for analysis later.
Finding actionable companies
Do you have a strategy to find companies which might be coming to market in the next 12-18 months? Utilize Preqin’s comprehensive fund information and performance data, as well as our Actionability Signal, to locate target companies.
Go to ‘Search For’ > ‘Companies & Deals’ > ‘Company Search’
Apply a series of filters to find portfolio companies which have been held for more than five years. If the company has been held in a fund for five years or more and the fund has a DPI of less than 100%, this is an indication they might be on the market soon.
Apply Preqin’s Actionability Signal to further refine your search criteria.
If you are interested in assets held by a specific investor, you can add an investor or fund via ‘More filters’ on Company Search.
Actionability Signal
Identifying actionable companies is crucial to deal investment teams and service providers supporting fund managers with deal sourcing.
Preqin’s data science team developed two separate methods, Venture Capital Actionability Signal and Buyout Actionability Signal, to identify potential liquidity events that span the full lifecycle of private companies from early to mature.
Preqin’s proprietary buyout method
Preqin Pro’s Actionability Signal for buyouts uses historical data to pinpoint whether companies held in private equity buyout funds are likely to become actionable within the next 12 to 18 months.
Actionability Signal is a great tool for capital deployment, as it gives investors the ability to filter opportunities based on quality and build a target list more efficiently.
Preqin’s proprietary venture capital method
Preqin Pro’s Actionability Signal for venture capital uses predictive modeling to assess the likelihood that a company will be raising capital in the next six months. This feature examines historical deals to highlight the traits of a company in the six months prior to it becoming actionable.
More detail can be found here.
Add-on strategy
If you are working with a sponsor on an add-on strategy to help them expand their business, you can quickly identify potential companies via Company Search.
Go to ‘Search For’ > ‘Companies & Deals’ > ‘Company Search’
Apply a series of financial filters to find potential add-on companies. For example:
Revenue <=$20m
EBITDA margin >=15%
Revenue growth >=10%
Further refine your results by applying relevant sector and keyword searches to help you identify companies by characteristics which aren't tied to a company taxonomy.
