eVestment acquires TopQ to launch PE database

With the purchase of the private equity research firm, the software provider plans to create a GP database for institutional investors.

As part of a new focus on private funds, data provider eVestment acquired TopQ, a private equity research firm and tech company based in Edinburgh. eVestment, which specializes in providing traditional and hedge fund data to institutional investors, plans to use TopQ’s expertise in order to launch an “expansive private equity dataset” in the second half of 2015, according to a press release.

TopQ currently offers private equity LPs a resource for conducting due diligence both pre- and post-commitment, with the ability to screen fund facets, dissect track records and analyze investment scenarios.

The new dataset will include information on GPs; key professionals; investment funds; fund performance; fund investors and their fund line-ups; and portfolio companies. Fund information will include details on geography, vintage year, industry focus and fundraising status so that LPs can more easily compare similar funds and GPs can “more readily benchmark and compare their funds with the broader private equity market,” the release noted.

TopQ founders Graham Paterson, Graeme Faulds and Drake Paulson will all join eVestment as directors of private equity solutions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

eVestment is currently known in the industry for its annual report on fund administration in the alternatives space, which this year found that the use of third-party administrators is picking up in private equity.