Educating Your Investments to Generate Greater Returns

Human beings have always had the means to do plenty, and yet they still cannot do anything better than growing on a consistent basis. This progressive approach, on our part, has already got the world to hit upon some huge milestones, with technology appearing as a major member of the stated group. The reason why technology enjoys such an esteemed stature among people is, by and large, predicated upon its skill-set, which ushered us towards a reality that nobody could have ever imagined otherwise. Nevertheless, if we look up close for a second, it will become clear how the whole runner was also very much inspired from the way we applied those skills across a real world environment. The latter component was, in fact, what gave the creation a spectrum-wide presence, and consequentially, kickstarted a tech revolution. Of course, this revolution then went on to scale up the human experience through some outright unique avenues, but even after achieving such a monumental feat, technology will somehow continue to produce the right goods. The same has grown increasingly evident over the recent past, and assuming one new fintech-themed development shakes out just like we envision, it will only make that trend bigger and better moving forward.

StepStone Group Inc, a global private markets investment firm focused on providing customized investment, advisory, and data services, has officially announced the launch of SPI by StepStone, a suite of applications providing proprietary data, research, and tools to StepStone’s clients and investment teams. According to certain reports, the suite in question has been built and expanded over several years for the purpose of giving it the best chance to service private markets participants. Holistically speaking, SPI by StepStone is one web-based platform packing firm’s existing research, data, and private markets tools into a single place. Talk about what the users can expect on a more granular note, we begin from the solution’s SPI Research functionality. This application is essentially meant to serve as a repository of extensive research and data, a role which should make it nothing less than an operational backbone for StepStone’s investment activities. Next up, we have SPI Reporting, an intuitive portfolio monitoring and reporting tool. Here, the core idea is to apply an assortment of robust analytics and generate reports that, in turn, will inform you on different aspects of private markets. Then, we have an application known by the name of SPI Pacing. Supported by StepStone’s extensive dataset of private market performance, SPI Pacing is a portfolio forecasting and optimization tool purposed around manufacturing customized commitment plans to more effectively manage allocation targets, while simultaneously anticipating liquidity needs of the near future. In layman terms, this tool cultivates for you a better understanding on how a portfolio is likely to evolve under different market scenarios.

“We realized early on that better data leads to better investment decisions, but that data didn’t exist digitally in one place. So we built it ourselves,” said Tom Keck, Partner and Head of Research & Portfolio Management at StepStone. “SPI by StepStone combines multiple tools that we have developed over time onto one platform: manager research and due diligence, performance reporting, portfolio exposures, commitment pacing, and benchmarking. Regardless of an investor’s strategy or goals, SPI can deliver the tools to help optimize their decisions.”

Rounding up the highlights is SPI Benchmarking functionality, which like its name suggests, allows investors to evaluate strengths, weaknesses, and trends within the private markets. Such a feat is made possible by its ability to let you analyze data across the GP, fund, and deal-level. Once the analysis is done, you will have enough at your disposal to summarize performance, operating metrics, legal terms, and more, into one cohesive and easy-to-infer information source.

Founded in, StepStone’s rise is largely orchestrated by its success with customizing investment, data, and administrative solutions. Given the stated ability, the company has managed to make clients in public defined benefit contribution pension funds, private defined benefit contribution pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and insurance companies. Apart from that StepStone also looks after the interests of prominent endowments, foundations, family offices, and private wealth clients. For these clients, the company provides assistance to meet specific objectives across the private equity, infrastructure, private debt, and real estate asset classes.

“StepStone’s global presence, specialized teams, and proprietary databases offer SPI users critical insights across asset classes and geographies,” said Samuel Scherf, Partner and Co-Head of Data & Software Engineering at StepStone. “We are proud to offer our clients and investment managers access to data and analytics that we believe are unparalleled in depth, scope, and quality in order to make the most informed decisions for their investment portfolios and programs.”