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Should Private Credit Build New Data Rails?

Or should it adopt from others... Plus: infra takes Apollo + Motive, TPG Twin Brook + Coller Capital, Cliffwater, Alto... Your 5 min lens on private markets is here →

August 20, 2025

Private credit is a $2+ trillion market running on fragmented data infrastructure.

Incorporate asset-backed finance (ABF) and it expands to $20 trillion. That kind of data complexity breaks things.

Which raises the question: broadly syndicated loans and CLOs have already built infrastructure for this level of complexity.

So should private credit builds it own shared data infra… or adapt what others have built?

$20+ TRILLION CAN’T RUN ON SPREADSHEETS

Cynthia Sachs, CEO at Versana, and I were talking about this challenge this week. Her point: broadly syndicated loans (BSL) - the $6 trillion corporate loan market - has made real progress on data infrastructure on her digital data platform, which private credit still lacks.

To me, this clarifies a strategic choice for private credit: should the industry leverage existing solutions that handle similar complexity, or build fresh infrastructure? This recent profile of why Omers Ventures invested in Octaura is another great example.

With retail money coming fast, the choice now matters more than most realize.

The Infrastructure Gap

Private credit grew from $100 billion to $2 trillion in 15 years. The plumbing hasn't evolved.

LPs still get reports in PDFs. GPs track covenants in spreadsheets. No common identifiers across deals. No way to compare investments across managers without manual translation.

The pressure is mounting: LPs push for transparency, regulators see "severe data gaps," and retail channels drive public-market-like standards as alternatives enter 401(k)s.

What Adjacent Markets Have Built

While private credit struggles with spreadsheets, nearby markets have invested and built tangible solutions.

BSL Infrastructure: Since 2022, consortium-backed Versana raised $80+ million to build a real-time, API first data infrastructure for the $6 trillion broadly syndicated loan market. They're processing:

  • Over 6,000 active loan facilities

  • Over $4.0 trillion in loan commitments

  • Employ standardized identifiers and data protocols

  • Real-time transactions – cash flows, SOFR contracts, and settled trades

Electronic Trading Success: Octaura reached 4.6% of total BSL trading volume in just two years, with CLOs among their key buyers. Their consortium-driven platform shows that fragmented, bespoke markets can adopt shared infrastructure without losing deal flexibility.

The Strategic Choice

Private credit faces two paths:

  1. Build From Scratch: New platforms purpose-built for private credit's specific needs. Players like Bloomberg and FactSet could extend their infrastructure. Industry consortiums could emerge with banks and asset managers jointly governing neutral utilities.

  2. Leverage Adjacent Success: Adapt existing BSL platforms already processing trillions in similar credit assets. Versana's platform handles loan-level data that private credit needs. Octaura proves electronic trading works for complex credit markets (and that every market will eventually be digitized).

What's at Stake

The winner ships products that transform private credit: live pricing benchmarks, real-time LP reporting, and AI-ready data infrastructure.

But the timeline pressure is real. 401(k)s and managed accounts create massive scale demands that current infrastructure can't handle. Model portfolios will trigger millions of private credit subscriptions overnight. 

Building from scratch while retail deadlines approach creates real risk. Some argue private credit should join existing platforms now rather than risk being unprepared when trillions in regulated money becomes accessible.

What to Watch For:

  • Infrastructure decisions at major GPs: Whether they choose custom solutions or adapt BSL platforms

  • LP mandates: Requirements for real-time data access that force infrastructure choices

  • Retail product launches: Whether they use existing rails or demand purpose-built solutions

  • Cross-market adoption: Signs that BSL infrastructure is expanding into private credit

This will be a central focus of our next Private Credit Technology Summit on March 3 (email if you want more info).

The infrastructure will get built. The question is whether private credit leverages what adjacent markets have already proven or starts over.

The clock is ticking.

INFRA TAKES (Who’s Building What)

Apollo's Lyra Client Solutions partnered with Motive Partners to combine with Alchelyst and create a "next-generation private markets servicing platform." The big idea: This is private markets' Amazon moment - customer obsession backed by technology infrastructure. The old GP mindset ("LPs should be grateful for access") is dead. The new mindset is tech-enhanced client delight. More here

TPG Twin Brook and Coller Capital closed the largest credit secondaries deal ever: a $3 billion continuation vehicle that provides  LPs a choice between liquidity and staying invested. The big idea: Private credit has built a $2T+ market but liquidity remains a challenge . Sophisticated secondary structures are still nascent - and institutional capital is flooding in to solve it. More here

Cliffwater appointed Liz Campbell, former CIO at Portfolio Advisors, to lead its $3.4B Cascade Private Capital Fund as evergreen PE gains momentum in wealth channels. The big idea: Evergreen structures are moving from niche experiment to core infrastructure for democratizing private equity - note our piece on the need for a massive increase in transactions here. Firms combining scale with targeted leadership in new structures will shape how PE reaches retail. More here

Alto hired Tomek Siergiejuk (former J.P. Morgan Wealth Management CFO) as CFO and Tom Eidt (former Securitize General Counsel and SEC senior official) as General Counsel. The big idea: Retirement accounts are the biggest untapped distribution channel for alternatives, but scaling requires institutional-grade infrastructure - especially after last week's White House EO on alts. This is becoming a race for the most capable operators. More here

DATA SNAPSHOTS:

  • Secondaries Strength: Continuation vehicle-related exits reached $22B across 70 funds in H1 2025: a 44% YoY increase | source: NEPC

  • Liquidity in Secondaries: Global secondaries deal volume is on track to surpass US $200 billion in 2025, up from a record US $162 billion in 2024 | source: Clearly Acquired

  • Credit Surge: Direct lending volume supporting LBOs hit $22B in Q2, the highest since Q2 2022 | source: NEPC

  • Mega-Deal Tilt: Deals of $10B+ accounted for 27% of all private equity deal spend in 2025 YTD, versus just 11% in 2024 | source: EY

  • Headline Transactions: PE’s Top 3 Deals in Q2 2025: $11.5 B (TXNM Energy), $10.5 B (Boeing DAS), and $9.4 B (Skechers) | source: KPMG

OVERHEARD IN PMF CONVERSATION THIS WEEK:

“The biggest white space for exponential growth is the scale and throughput of transactions.”

— Private Markets Tech Founder

“Every AI project is an excuse to fix their data problem. When you go into that engagement and you talk about, 'Hey, where is the data? What is the context behind the data?' AI is not gonna run on, you know, on magic...”

— Technology Advisor at a Major Consulting Firm

“Just like banks, the big firms compete hard during the day, but they recognize the need to collaborate to create better solutions and ensure more money flows into the market.”

— Private Credit Tech Founder

“No longer is it sufficient to kind of meet minimum expectations of being a fiduciary, which includes investor reporting and accurate accounting. You actually need to build profitable management companies that have enterprise value.”

— Fund Admin Lead

Check out who is speaking at The LP Tech Summit in Toronto on Oct 9: