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 strategy behind Apollo, BlackRock, and Morningstar’s latest moves.
• The infrastructure and operations race – 76% of asset managers are rebuilding. The rest risk falling behind.

A (not-so) 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 architecture that will determine future winners:

The Battle Is Already Underway

The headlines focus on capital moves: JPMorgan's $50B commitment, BlackRock's $3.2B Preqin acquisition, Apollo's new trading platform.

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

The emerging battle isn't primarily about capital deployment. It's increasingly 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, 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 prereq.

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 always beats capital.

Asset managers without real-time data capabilities are becoming second-tier players.

2. Create liquidity, not just assets

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

Apollo's trading platform 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 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.

And nearly 70% of asset managers are implementing digital platforms to enable retail participation.

This isn't about incremental improvement—it's about reimagining how private markets 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 without the data layer

The Strategic Decision

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

It's "how do we build the data layer that controls capital flow?"

The next five years won't be defined by balance sheet size.

They'll be defined by who builds the data infrastructure that connects all participants.

And that battle is already underway.

What comes next

In The Private Letter, I track the strategic shifts and technological transformations reshaping private markets.

Not the standard press release fodder or conference circuit talking points.

The structural changes that actually matter.

Because while everyone else is focused on traditional metrics, the real opportunities lie in the data architecture being built beneath the surface.

That's where the next decade's market leaders will emerge.

See you next week.

‍

‍