Monument Group launches fund data portal

Placement agent Monument Group has launched a data portal, MG Connect, aiming to make the fundraising process more efficient for GPs and investors.

The password-protected portal allows LPs to view information on Monument Group’s GP clients who are raising funds, are coming to market or in some cases are in between fundraising. The portal gives investors real-time access to fund summaries, general partner videos, data rooms, pitch decks and performance data of funds.

By logging into the portal, and subject to applicable regulatory requirements, investors may access information on Monument Group’s current offerings. Through the portal, investors may ask questions, request additional information or schedule a meeting with Monument Group’s clients.

Monument Group partner Meredith Gendron said investors are often time-constrained and under-resourced and have to remember where they got information on a certain fund and who they should get back to if they’re interested in investing.

“It’s not a particularly efficient process,” she said. “But now LPs can log into MG Connect and find information on several really high-quality GPs all in one place.”

Since more than one-third of Monument Group’s clients are domiciled outside the US, Gendron said the portal is open to investors on a global basis.

For Monument Group’s clients, the portal makes the fundraising process more efficient, gives them market awareness, facilitates outreach to a broad base of pre-qualified institutional investors, streamlines the distribution of client materials and helps firms navigate complex regulatory regimes and tracking engagement in real-time through platform notifications. Gendron said MG Connect is a major step forward in the capital raising process for private market primary and secondary investments.

Gendron said Monument Group works with clients to compile the fund information needed to market to potential investors in compliance with all applicable laws, like the SEC’s marketing rule and AIFMD. The funds’ marketing information is uploaded to the portal, which LPs can access once they are pre-cleared as qualified, she explained.

Only institutional investors can access MG Connect, Gendron said.

“There’s no public marketing aspect to this. You have to either be an investor that we’re already in dialog with and for whom we’ve already done suitability checks, or we need to manually approve you if you ask for access,” she noted.

And, to comply with the different marketing regulations in different countries, there are different levels and types of information for the same offerings that are available in the portal.

“Which view you have of that information depends on where you sit geographically as an investor,” Gendron explained.

Raising capital in private equity has always been a relationship business and it is unlikely that technology will fundamentally change that. However, Gendron said the portal will make the process more efficient.

“MG Connect is not meant to replace the interpersonal aspect of fundraising; when we launch a fund, we make numerous phone calls and have many meetings with investors that could be interested. However, this portal is a nice complement since it’s a real-time way of getting information out to the universe of investors that we cover the day a fund goes live in a very efficient manner.”

While Monument Group has so far received positive feedback on the portal, Gendron said there are no plans to expand it beyond the firm’s current clients.