Private equity and venture capital investment in the global financial media and data solutions industry reached $1.28 billion as of November 30, surpassing $1.20 billion of investments in all of 2023, data from S&P Global Market Intelligence shows.

Private equity's share of transactions in the sector grew to 41% at the end of November, up from 29% at the end of 2019.

– Download a spreadsheet with data featured in this story. – Read about private equity and venture capital investment in the US solar industry. – Explore more private equity coverage.

Interest from asset managers

As of Nov. 30, BlackRock Inc.'s $3.22 billion offer to acquire Preqin Ltd. has been the largest deal overall in the financial media and data solutions sector, including deals with and without private equity participation. Blackrock, which manages over $10 trillion of assets, is acquiring Preqin to accelerate its expansion into private markets.

"Information about capital has become almost as important as capital itself," BlackRock CFO and Global Head of Corporate Strategy Martin Small said during the firm's third-quarter earnings call Oct. 11.

"Private markets are becoming increasingly important in the financing of the economy. Growing public deficits are only going to expand the role of private markets and powering economic growth," Chairman and CEO Laurence Douglas Fink said during the call. "Standardized, transparent private market data and analytics will be increasingly important."

Top private equity deals

For transactions involving private equity, market intelligence and search platform AlphaSense Inc.'s $650 million round of funding was the top deal between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30. Viking Global Investors LP and BDT & MSD Partners LLC co-led the round. New investors J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners, SoftBank Vision Fund II-2 LP, Blue Owl Capital Inc., Alkeon Capital Management LLC as well as existing investors Alphabet's CapitalG Management Co. LLC and Goldman Sachs Asset Management LP participated. AlphaSense's valuation reached $4 billion following the round of funding.

AlphaSense acquired another financial media and data solutions company, Tegus Inc., as part of the deal.