Episode summary
Intapp's Ben Harrison - using data and automation to transform private markets
Alt Goes Mainstream
· · Hosts: Michael Sidgmore · Guests: Ben Harrison
Summary
Ben Harrison argued that private markets software works best when it is built around the actual workflow of investors, fundraisers, and advisors rather than around a generic CRM model. DealCloud started as an internal tool to add procedure and efficiency to fundraising and investment work, then became a commercial product after limited partners and other GPs wanted similar functionality. He said the core challenge in these markets is managing a huge funnel of opportunities, complex decision-making, and relationship data that horizontal software was never designed to handle.
He described Intapp DealCloud as a front-office platform that has expanded with the market: it now serves multi-strategy firms, supports larger organizations, and integrates with portfolio, back-office, and data systems. Harrison said the company has more than 2,500 customers and sees about 14,000 to 15,000 alternative firms globally as its addressable market. He also emphasized that the biggest firms increasingly want technology to help them raise more money, move faster, and make better decisions, not simply cut headcount.
A major theme was AI’s role in turning proprietary firm data into usable intelligence. Harrison said summarization, search, relationship scoring, and automated data capture are already saving large amounts of time, but the broader promise is helping professionals spend more time on judgment and less on manual work. He argued the industry is still early in that shift, and that better user experience plus embedded AI should raise adoption, retention, and the value of the platform.
Key takeaways
- Ben Harrison said DealCloud was built to replace manual workflow, not just to act as a generic CRM, because private markets operate around a very different decision process.
- Harrison said Intapp DealCloud now serves more than 2,500 customers and sees roughly 14,000 to 15,000 alternative firms globally as potential users.
- Harrison said the biggest firms are driving product development, but improvements from those clients flow down to smaller users on the same cloud platform.
- Harrison said AI is most valuable today for summarizing data, surfacing knowledge inside firms, and reducing time spent on menial work rather than replacing investment judgment.
- Harrison said private markets customers want technology to help them raise more capital, deploy it faster, and make better decisions, not simply eliminate jobs.
Notable quotes
“They've integrated a CRM function with business development, marketing, pipeline, deal management, fundraising, and investor relations features into a single platform”
“the procedure of getting your firm to agree to put a billion dollars into something is pretty complicated”
“We're very pleased to serve the really big firms because it makes our software better and it makes our company better”
“the conversation today is not about driving headcount down. It's about how do we raise more money? How do we decrease friction”
“I think the hype is appropriate. Probably underhyped. Honestly, the technology markets go goes through these major shifts every, you know, 10 to 15 and this is definitely one of them”
How the episode opens
Everybody gets a piece. We're going mainream. Everybody's going to eat.
We're going mainream. All my family see. See you on.
We're going mainream. From Wall Street to Melrose Avenue. We're going mainream.
venture capitalists to athletes to creators to the person who's collecting trading cards main collision of culture and finance. Welcome back to the Algo's mainstream podcast. Today's episode is a special show with Ben Harrison, the co-founder of DealCloud, which is now part of INTAP, where he is president of industries.
Ben is a former banker and private equity professional at Falfurious Capital Partners who went on to co-found DealCloud to make the process of managing deals and relationships for alternative asset managers and related industry service providers more streamlined and seamless. Ben and team have done just that at Intap DealCloud. They've built a unified deal and relationship management software business that is more than just a CRM.
They've integrated a CRM function with business development, marketing, pipeline, deal management, fundraising, and investor relations features into a single platform to enable firms in private markets to better run their day-to-day processes. They have a roster over 2,500 customers, which includes many of the industry's leading alternative asset managers and some of our own fund managers. Ben and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of enterprise software that serves private markets and why it's such a large and growing opportunity which was shared through the lens of an experienced and successful operator in this space who has grown his business to hundreds of millions of ARR that both alternative asset managers and founders and operators in private market software will find interesting.
We discussed why scale matters in enterprise software just like it does in alternative asset management. the strategic question of building a comprehensive endto-end software solution versus building a point solution.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- alternative asset managers software
- private markets data strategy
- enterprise crm automation
- ai for fund operations
- software tam growth
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Intapp
- DealCloud
- Falfurrias Capital Partners
Watch the episode
Watch “Intapp's Ben Harrison - using data and automation to transform private markets” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Alt Goes Mainstream, this episode and its artwork belong to Michael Sidgmore. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
