Houlihan Lokey Advises With Intelligence

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that With Intelligence, a portfolio company of ICG and the leading provider of investment data and intelligence for allocating, fundraising, and business development in the public and private markets, has received a majority investment from Motive Partners (Motive). The transaction closed on 3 August 2023. 

Founded in 1998 and with currently more than 500 employees and a geographic footprint across Europe, North America, and Asia, With Intelligence is a leading provider of data, intelligence, and connectivity to the global asset management industry, with an integrated product portfolio of data, insights, and events covering hedge funds, private credit, private equity, real estate, and traditional asset management. With Intelligence blends data from a variety of the platform’s proprietary brands, delivering insights that include profiles, fund information, performance metrics, and analyst perspectives. As the alternative investment landscape continues to evolve, With Intelligence is uniquely positioned to provide solutions that support mission-critical decision-making across the fundraising and allocation lifecycle for all participants in the value chain.

ICG is a global alternative asset manager based in 15 global cities, with $80 billion of total assets under management. The firm has a proven track record of partnering with ambitious businesses to deliver outstanding investment performance to clients. ICG’s European middle-market strategy focuses on supporting entrepreneurial founders, management teams, and other financial investors to grow their businesses, providing flexible debt and equity solutions tailored to meet their specific objectives. ICG has a 32-year track record of supporting midsized companies in Europe.

Motive is a specialist private equity firm with offices in New York City, London, and Berlin focusing on growth equity and buyout investments in software and information services companies based in North America and Europe and serving five primary subsectors: banking and payments, capital markets, data and analytics, investment management, and insurance. Motive Partners brings differentiated expertise, connectivity, and capabilities to create long-term value in financial technology companies.

The investment by Motive and ICG will support With Intelligence to accelerate its data strategy and technology capabilities, continue to develop tailored offerings across various asset classes, grow the private markets offerings, and execute the next phase of the partnership and M&A strategies. It will also enable the company to further accelerate the pace of talent acquisition. In addition, Motive's integrated operating model, combining investors, operators and innovators, will see a number of Motive team members collaborate with the With Intelligence team, including Charles Teschner (Industry Partner at Motive and the former CEO of Data and Analytics Solutions at BNY Mellon), Andy Stewart (Industry Partner at Motive, current CEO of Wilshire, and the former Co-Head of Blackrock's Alternative Investment Platform), and a team from Motive's innovation division, Motive Create.

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to With Intelligence and ICG and assisted in initiating, structuring, and negotiating the transaction, as well as performing lender education on behalf of the shareholders. This transaction further enhances the Technology Group’s market-leading B2B data and analytics and information services franchise.