Customer story
Capitalizing on digital tools: How 365 Capital saves resources by using Gain.pro
Reimagining private equity through technology
365 Capital is an independent private equity firm in the Netherlands who focus on ambitious, mid-sized companies. The fund was created in 2019 by four investors whose mission is to support their portfolio companies in achieving long-term sustainable growth and profitability through active partnerships.
With all partners coming from institutional backgrounds, including mid- and large-cap private equity investing, investment banking, and leveraged finance, the team held a wide range of industry experience to pull from when starting the fund. From these experiences, they knew that digital tools had the power to enhance their efficiency, so procuring an ideal tech stack was one of their first initiatives.
Much of the team had already used various digital tools in previous firms, so they knew which ones created noticeable efficiency. They saw the benefit of using a CRM, but certain platforms were not ideal for their industry-specific needs. Because of this, it was possible that each team member would use the tool differently, reducing their intended efficiency gains. So, 365 Capital sought out a CRM that was designed to support investors, landing on Affinity.
The need for private market intelligence
After procuring a CRM, 365 Capital actively sought out other modern tools to add to their tech stack. They knew they needed a private market intelligence platform that was specialized for their uses and would help them with the following:
Accessing information and data on the companies that interest them most
Saving time on industry research and analysis
Creating efficiency in the early stages of deal origination
Procuring Gain.pro as their private market intelligence
365 Capital procured Gain.pro when the platform was still quite young, but even in its early stages, they saw the value in its offering. What stood out to them was its specific uses for their industry and its time saving potential.
“Gain.pro is focused on investment professionals and brokers, so it’s focused on our needs, meaning it knows where we want to save time.”
Hayo van Houten
Gain.pro was made for investors by investors, so we know exactly what solutions are needed in a private market intelligence platform.
Company profiles
According to 365 Capital, what differentiates Gain.pro from other data providers is its quality and depth of content. Gain.pro’s company profiles host all relevant data and information on private market companies, curated by AI technology and a team of local-for-local analysts. This means all information is updated in real-time and validated by experts.
Hayo says,“the easiest way to learn about a company is by logging into Gain.pro and looking up the profile.” It allows for large time savings as you avoid the need to log into the Chamber of Commerce to download annual reports for initial research.
Workflow automation
While there are thousands of profiled companies and legal entities on Gain.pro, finding assets that interest you most is simple with our broad range of filters. Users can create workflow efficiency by forming active lists that notify you as new companies fall within the criteria or as existing data is updated. Through workflow automation, you can discover potential investment opportunities within your sweet spot faster than ever before.
“We can run into companies that we don’t know yet using Gain.pro. This happens quite often. If I'm looking at a company in a certain industry, I might use Gain.pro to look up competitors. We might even find potential add-ons.”
Hayo van Houten
See what Gain.pro can do for you and your team
In-depth industry reports
Gain.pro also provides full visibility into niche industries through comprehensive industry reports. These reports include market trends, the positive and negative drivers, and the key players, among other data points. To provide users with a deeper level of understanding, Gain.pro analysts partake in C-level interviews with industry professionals, gaining unique insights and insider intel.
For 365 Capital, the market reports act as a tool to spark conversations with entrepreneurs or management teams of potential target companies.
“We get emails every week that there are new updates on an industry or that a new industry has been mapped by Gain.pro. We always look at it because if we’re talking to a company in that industry, we sometimes download the report off of Gain.pro and send it to them. It serves as a nice nudge or reason to interact.”
Hayo van Houten
The effects of leveraging Gain.pro
Procuring an unrivaled private market intelligence platform has benefited 365 Capital in a myriad of ways, but most of all in time savings. “When you’re in a meeting and somebody mentions a company, you just go into Gain.pro and look it up, and immediately in 5-minutes, you have an initial idea of its focus and size.” As such, they’re able to speed up early-stage decision making by quickly determining whether a company is of interest to them or not.
“That’s the most valuable thing Gain.pro does for us – it allows us to focus our time and not spend so much time on manual tasks that cost a lot of effort early in the deal lead consideration process.” As a result, 365 Capital are able to reallocate their time to other value-add tasks.
“We need to decide on how much time we spend on portfolio, how much time we spend on sourcing, fundraising, etc. But for the more junior team, Gain.pro allows them to spend less time on processing and more time on thinking.”
Hayo van Houten
Through process efficiency and time savings, 365 Capital give themselves a competitive advantage over their peers as they can identify opportunities earlier on and create differentiating deal angles. At the end of the day, Hayo says that “time is our most valuable asset and Gain.pro enables more fit for purpose time management.”
365 Capital is proud to call themselves early adopters of Gain.pro, seeing how the platform has developed over the years. Now, they say it’s rare to come across investors in the industry who don’t leverage Gain.pro in their tech stack.
