In December of the saga that was 2020, Sutton Place Strategies – the market-leading provider of deal sourcing data & analytics for Private Equity sponsors – was acquired by Bain & Company. The past year since our acquisition, characterized by more market variability and deal flow than ever, has shone a light on the value of data analytics and technology within the M&A deal sourcing landscape – and it’s been our strongest year yet! While we’ve exceeded our growth targets for the year, that doesn’t tell the whole story. Today, we’re reflecting on our team’s major milestones in 2021.
Perpetual Improvement: 2021 Product Development Roadmap
We released several new enhancements to help deal originators stand out from the crowd and differentiate themselves in a hyper-competitive landscape.
Our Dashboard Renovation delivered four purpose-built modules to gain firm-level competitive intelligence, locate overlooked deals on the market, optimize time spend on conference events, target deals before they surface, and better connect with professionals involved on relevant deals through a 1-Degree of Separation networking tool.
To enhance those use cases and others, we enabled access to Sponsor, Strategic, Lender, and Law Firm* firm and professional data on our database of over 80,000+ deals. In addition, we improved the granularity of target criteria across the SPS platform, along with access to non-intermediated deals, allowing for comprehensive Sector Deep Dives and Competitor analyses.
In January we’ll be releasing a new industry taxonomy, upgrading the full historical database to a new classification scheme that will enhance usability and accuracy across the SPS platform. In addition to expanding each sector to four defined tiers and a total of 560+ options at the lowest (subindustry) level, we’re adding a Primary/Secondary structure for deals across multiple industries and a separate Business Function field to enable queries across all subindustries for Distributors, Operators, Producers, etc.
Thought Leadership
Through the course of the year, we further strengthened our market-leading position with PE webinars, media coverage of our data insights, and blog pieces and video interviews on The Source featuring deal sourcing trends and data techniques. Below are links to some our most-clicked pieces of 2021.
- Q2 PE Webinar: How to Win Top Deals in Consumer, Business Services
- Q3 PE Webinar: How Top Originators are Gearing up for 2022
- Mergers & Acquisitions: General Partners with BD Teams See More Potential Targets
- Best of 2021 Client Source Talks
- Top Advice for Junior Business Development Professionals
- Data Techniques to Avoid Getting Beaten Out by Corporate Investors
Growing Wiser
2021 has been an active year for recruiting at SPS, with the addition of several new and talented members of our team across multiple business functions. Our success would not be possible without the contribution of each member of our tight-knit team.
2021 additions to our Research team include analysts James Quinn and Kenny Hoefer. Andrew Maziarz expanded our Client Strategy & Data Insights team. Julie Solerwitz and Mike Dolan joined to give our Sales team a supercharge. The SPS marketing department took shape with the addition of Belle Verhulst.
With various new positions open, we’re showing no signs of slowing down our expansion efforts. Interested in learning more about our open positions or think you might be a good fit for our team? Visit our Careers page and email us at [email protected].
Giving Back
Each year, our team enjoys getting together for a couple of volunteer activities to do a little bit of good for our community outside of our regularly scheduled programming.
In April, the SPS team participated in a Bain & Company-wide Service Day, which invited employees to choose their preferred service activity on a brisk Spring morning. SPS employee activities included painting a mural for PS 96 to foster an engaging learning environment for young students.
During the holiday season, we worked with One Simple Wish which empowered each employee to grant a holiday wish of their choosing for someone in need. Granted wishes ranged from pantries filled to new sneakers, and SPS employees enjoyed a team lunch with a show-and-tell of the gifts each person chose.
In Good Company
We’re thrilled to be part of Bain & Company’s growing suite of proprietary data offerings, designed to support private equity firms and corporations across strategy, origination, diligence, and post-acquisition value creation. These ventures include DealEdge, Pyxis, NPS Prism and OPEXEngine – each uniquely positioned to help clients transform their approach and unlock the potential of data analytics & technology.
Just the Beginning
Our team is deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve our clients – friends who have supported us over the years and those who are new. As the PE and M&A markets rapidly evolve, it is the trust of our valued clients that drives us to continue refining our offering of best-in-class deal sourcing analytics in any market environment.
