Episode 48 - Dev Ops

We're back with another episode on the state of Tech Due Diligence. This time we're joined by Dan Bender and Lukas Ingelheim, founding partners of Berlin-headquartered Code & Co, who perform Tech Due Diligence around the world. We cover some basics of tech due diligence for those of you unfamiliar, discuss the differences between US and European tech diligence, and look into the future to see how tech diligence is evolving to help PE firms create value. You can learn more about Code & Co. here: www.codeandco.com

In private equity, it is becoming widely recognized that technology-enabled growth and innovation within portfolio companies is a major spur to productivity and value creation. The mechanisms through which technology is developed, adopted and used in production are complex. How are private equity firms handling the evaluation of technology-enabled growth pre-acquisition, and how are they then helping their portfolio companies execute once acquired? As we've highlighted in past episodes, approaches vary. One approach that has been gaining momentum is the creation of an in-house team of technology experts to assist in everything from diligence to execution. Verdane, a European private equity firm that has taken this approach of building out a team of in-house, specialized technology experts, is the focus of today's episode. Verdane has even named this team: Elevate. Within Elevate is CTO Henrik Berg, today's guest. Henrik talks us through the formation of Elevate and how the firm leverages his team.

Triton Partners, the large European private equity firm, has long understood that optimizing the technologies that run its portfolio companies can bring meaningful value to its investments. Anders Thulin joined Triton 6 years ago as its head of the firm's digital & technology practice. He and his team are engaged in due diligence as well as execution, helping to uncover opportunities that others may be missing.

Our guest this episode is Doug Laney, Data & Analytics Innovation Fellow at West Monroe and author of "Infonomics: How to Monetize, Manage, and Measure Information as an Asset for Competitive Advantage". Doug discusses why "Data Diligence" should be added to your ever-growing list of diligences and opportunities for monetizing the data that exists within your organization. Links: + Doug Laney: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglaney/ + Infonomics: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075QM8P2T

Having technology experience and leadership within Private Equity firms is becoming increasingly critical – people with the resilience, speed and partnering skills necessary to drive growth by leveraging technology. Incline Equity Partners provides a glimpse into it has chose to tackle this challenge. Our bet is that PE firms start to look more and more like the Inclines of the world in the next 5 years. Juliane Stephan and Kyle Roemer join us.

We invited Alice Murray, Editor at The Drawdown, to discuss her recent article "Great Techspectations", critical observations on Private Equity’s technology upgrade since the pandemic catalyzed upgrade plans. Alice shares sharp insights on not only technology but also on a much deeper theme of employee well-being and the criticality of ‘G’ in ESG.

For the first time, we turn our attention to the data quality and accuracy *within* Private Equity firms. Ian Rubenstein, CEO at Exchangelodge, talks us through the state of data within PE firms and where the industry needs to go next to provide timely, accurate, and actionable data for both LPs and portfolio company decision making. Links https://www.exchangelodge.com/

If your portfolio company builds software applications, whether as its core business or in support of its core business, the speed and quality of delivering that software can have a major impact on the success of the business. Dev Ops is a collaboration between software development, operations, and other teams, collectively tasked with achieving common business goals through delivering software to the organization efficiently and effectively. Dave Mangot, of Mangoteque, has been preaching Dev Ops for over a decade. We talk about what Dev Ops means, its importance to software development, and its impact on your portfolio companies.

A quick rant on how you, as a private equity firm, need to be engaging Microsoft, Amazon, and/or Google to help drive meaningful cost savings across your portfolio companies through the optimization and scale opportunities they provide.

One of the most important things you learn in Private Equity is to work with partners to achieve the investment thesis. To this end, a strategic partnership with Microsoft can be pivotal to saving time and money, and enabling growth. Into the pod comes Microsoft's Casey McGee, VP of ISV Partner Sales. We discuss how Microsoft supports Private Equity firms and their portfolio companies. We continue with a recent theme of how/why you should be aggregating your portfolio company spend technology spend (thing business apps and cloud) with the big, global technology providers. Reach out to Casey and the Microsoft team here: Casey McGee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-mcgee-4b0128/ US: [email protected] UK: [email protected] EMEA/APAC: email one of the above and we will put you in touch with the right team