The Drawdown Awards winners: 73 Strings

The Drawdown speaks to Yann Magnan, CEO and co-founder of 73 Strings, winner in the Technology: Innovation category at The Drawdown Awards 2023.

The Drawdown (TDD): What made 2022 such an exceptional year for 73 Strings?

Yann Magnan (YM): Overall, 2022 was just fantastic for 73 Strings. We got all of our platform solutions out of the factory from the end of 2021 to mid-2022 and from there, we really started to go aggressively commercial. We managed to sign quite a few new clients in the US, Canada, the UK and the Middle East. Within more or less six months, we attracted clients with more than $2trn assets under management (AUM) and are engaged with prospects that total more than $3trn AUM. So, it's been a fantastic ride.

Besides signing new clients, what we're seeing as well is that we have prospects that we don't know but who have reached out to us because we have what they are looking for. That's really exciting. And last but not least, we won an award from The Drawdown, which was kind of unexpected, because we are not yet really well known, but we are delighted for our work to be recognised.

TDD: The award recognises the innovation in your products – what makes you unique?

YM: We are the new kids on the block but, importantly, we are the only solution, as of today, which is an integrated tech stack that covers data collection, monitoring, valuation and reporting for alternative investment funds. That means data flows totally seamlessly from A to Z, and from Z to A, across our platform. In terms of valuation, we cover valuation of equity instruments – private equity, growth equity and venture capital structures – and also valuations of private credit.

TDD: The judges praised 73 Strings for providing a targeted and effective solution. How have you gone about expanding your offering?

YM: We started by being very targeted. We wanted to solve the valuation pain points, specifically for private equity. And then from there, we built our platform and realised we also could and should be able to solve the valuation pain points for private credit. The valuation methodology is different but the approach and concept that we have put into our platform means the work is replicable. Then we realised, we are solving the valuation pain points but we hear a lot about data collection pain points. And now after working on this, we have a solution for that too.

While I can’t give you high-level details on our strategic roadmap, if we see further opportunities to expand and extend our tech stack and solve more pain points for our clients, then we will strive to do that. Our mindset is that everything we add to the tech stack must be of the highest quality, and we have to continue to serve smaller funds as well as the largest funds. That is what has made us successful and we’re going to continue down that path.

TDD: Given the proliferation of tech firms looking to address those pain points, how do you plan to stay ahead of the competition?

YM: I think this market is going to continue to grow very, very fast. What we've been seeing almost all over the world, but starting in the Anglo-Saxon world – the US, the UK and Canada – is that GPs have realised there is a lot to gain in terms of efficiency, risk management, intelligence and analytics, from digitalising post-investment processes.

When you look into how a very significant chunk of the GP market is still operating post-investment, it is still Google search, email and Excel. So there is a vast market here that needs to be addressed. We are seeing more and more GPs realising how much there is to gain in this area, and that interest is going to help us move the market forward. And for GPs who have started to equip themselves already, we are bringing a new one-stop-shop and best-in-class approach that helps create more value and intelligence out of the process, which is very relevant in the current environment, in particular in terms of fundraising.

We will continue to bring new features and intelligence into our platform so that investment funds can focus on investment and generate more value out of it.

A full list of all the winners at The Drawdown Awards 2023 can be read here. 

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