How to Win Private Markets: Own the Intelligence Layer

💡 In today's edition:

• Data over AUM – Why market leaders are prioritizing intelligence as much as capital.
• How top firms are positioning – The thinking behind BlackRock, Morningstar, Blackstone and Apollo's latest moves.
• The infrastructure and operations race – Leading asset managers are building a new tech infrastructure. The rest risk falling behind.

A silent revolution is reshaping private markets.

The most powerful players aren't just competing for assets.

They're racing to build and control the data and intelligence layer that will determine future winners.

But key firms are taking different strategic approaches to that challenge.

The Battle Is Already Underway

The headlines tend to focus on capital: JPMorgan's $50B commitment, BlackRock's $3.2B Preqin acquisition, Blackstone's sale of its Bistro product to Clearwater, even Apollo's potential new private credit marketplace.

But these aren't just financial plays. They signal a fundamental shift in what drives competitive advantage.

The emerging dynamic is about who builds and controls the data layer.

The New Rules of Engagement

For decades, relationships determined success in private markets.

The best rolodex. The most senior bankers. The strongest connections.

That era is over.

The data architecture now determines who wins—and this transformation is happening while everyone watches the wrong metrics.

Strategic Acquisitions Reveal the Trend

Morningstar's acquisitions of Lumonic and DealX, combined with BlackRock's Preqin purchase and Blackstone's sale of its Bistro product to Clearwater, suggest a pattern forming across the industry.

Major players aren't just buying distribution or AUM—they're acquiring data capabilities and analytics platforms.

Excel-based portfolio tracking is increasingly insufficient for firms with serious growth ambitions.

The pattern suggests mastering private market data is becoming as strategically valuable as the capital itself.

Proprietary, properly structured data creates the foundation for AI applications, properly leveraged.

In other words, alpha's prerequisite.

We're seeing two distinct strategies emerge: firms building proprietary intelligence layers they control exclusively... versus firms developing and then scaling intelligence infrastructure across the market.

And each is playing out in real time...

Three Imperatives for Market Dominance

1. Build intelligence before scale

The monitoring and data architecture determines who controls distribution.

Morningstar and BlackRock recognize the fundamental truth: in asymmetric markets, intelligence beats capital.

Asset managers without real-time data capabilities risk turning into second-tier players, fast.

But there's a strategic choice about whether to own that intelligence exclusively or scale it across the industry.

2. Create liquidity, not just assets

Originators who can't provide secondary liquidity will lose to those who can.

Apollo's credit trading platform (for example) isn't peripheral—it's core to their strategy:

• $2B of products already traded
• 60+ active clients in the network

Firms still committed solely to "buy-and-hold" will be structurally disadvantaged within 24 months.

3. Rebuild operations on a new infrastructure — now

According to research from Apex Group, 76% of asset managers are embracing outsourcing, with 65% conducting lift-outs of in-house functions to third-party providers for better technology solutions.

This isn't about incremental improvement—it's about reimagining how private market operations function at scale.

All of this will require a new technology infrastructure for private markets.

Winners and Losers in the Data Era

The winners are defining themselves through:

• Data integration across thousands of private market positions
• Liquidity creation that transforms static holdings into tradable assets
• Infrastructure rebuilding that dismantles legacy systems

The losers are equally obvious:

• Excel dependents tracking positions in spreadsheets
• Relationship purists who haven't invested in data systems
• Scale-first strategists who built AUM only - without the data layer

What comes next

The real winners won't just be those who build data infrastructure first.

It will be those who create broad marketplaces where intelligence and liquidity reinforce each other.

The Apollo example demonstrates this clearly - their credit platform would be valuable for far more than its analytics.

Its one strategic approach: vertical integration where a firm owns both the marketplace and the resulting intelligence.

Blackstone's sale of Bistro product indicates another nuance: firms exposing their infrastructure to scale broader market activity.

That seems a different bet: that scaling intelligence infrastructure across the industry creates broader advantages through standardization and network effects (even if you don't exclusively own it).

Ultimately, the most valuable private market ecosystems will be those where each transaction simultaneously improves liquidity AND enhances the intelligence layer.

To sum it up...

The question isn't just 'how do we deploy capital?'

It's 'how do we build the information marketplaces that facilitate capital flow?'

Same as it ever was, perhaps.

It's a topic I'll continue to cover closely. Reach out if you're working on it.

Or join me on June 17 in NYC for The Private Markets Forum's inaugural event: The Private Credit Technology Summit.

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