Last reviewed: · By the pcithbook.com editorial team
Private equity and M&A research asks different questions from venture work. The focus moves from early signals to ownership, financing structure, comparable transactions and exit routes. The vendor lists deal sourcing, deal execution, due diligence, fundraising, benchmarking and portfolio management among PitchBook's use cases; this guide shows how those pieces fit into a buyout or corporate development process.
Origination: finding platform companies
Start with a sector thesis and a size band. Filter for companies by industry, geography and ownership status — for example, founder-owned or backed by a sponsor that has held the asset for several years. Holding period is a practical signal: a sponsor approaching the later years of a typical hold may be preparing an exit. Treat any revenue or employee figures as indicative until confirmed.
Add-on mapping for buy-and-build
For a portfolio company pursuing add-on acquisitions, build a map of smaller businesses in adjacent niches or regions. Use market maps and keyword searches to group candidates, then note which ones already have institutional investors — they will behave very differently in a sale process from founder-owned businesses. Export the list and score candidates on strategic fit, likely availability and integration complexity.
Precedent transactions and comparables
Deal records can help assemble precedent transactions: buyer, seller, date, deal type and, where disclosed, value and multiples. Expect gaps — many private deals never disclose a price. A good practice is to tag each data point by source quality:
| Tag | Meaning | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Disclosed | Value published by a party to the deal or in a filing | Usable in the main comps table |
| Reported | Value reported by press citing sources | Use with a footnote |
| Estimated | Value inferred or modelled | Context only; exclude from medians |
| Undisclosed | No value available | Count the deal, but not in valuation statistics |
Due diligence support
- Financing history: prior rounds, sponsors and lenders give clues to capital structure.
- People: management backgrounds and board composition.
- Service providers: which advisers, lenders and law firms worked on earlier transactions.
- Competitive landscape: competitors' funding and recent acquisitions.
- Credit context: LCD research on leveraged loan and private credit conditions when sizing financing.
Remember: a database profile is not a substitute for the data room, management interviews or quality-of-earnings work.
Fundraising and LP research
For general partners raising a fund, limited partner records show commitments and stated mandates where available. Use them to prioritise allocators that have backed similar strategies and fund sizes, and to understand pacing. Fund performance benchmarks — using IRR, TVPI and DPI by vintage and strategy — help you present results against a relevant peer group. Always state which benchmark and as-of date you used.
For corporate development teams
Corporate acquirers often use the same tools to watch competitors' acquisitions, identify venture-backed companies that could become targets and see which sponsors own assets in their space. Alerts on competitors and saved searches by category keep the landscape current between strategy reviews.
Portfolio monitoring
PitchBook markets Lumonic as a portfolio monitoring product that helps teams organise portfolio company data. If portfolio reporting is part of your evaluation, ask the vendor how it is packaged and whether it is part of your plan.
Evaluating access for a deal team?
Seat pricing, Direct Data and CRM integration are quoted by the vendor. Read our independence note first.
Frequently asked questions
Where values and financials are disclosed or reported, deal records may include multiples. Many private transactions are undisclosed, so tag each figure by source quality.
It can help build candidate lists through keyword searches, market maps and ownership filters. Final screening still depends on direct outreach and diligence.
IRR is the annualised return on a fund's cash flows; TVPI is total value relative to paid-in capital; DPI is distributions relative to paid-in capital. See our glossary for fuller definitions.