A key player in the alternative investment sector, Hlayisani Capital wanted to streamline operational efficiencies in Investment Management and Investor Reporting. The team depended on traditional methods built around Excel, which involved extensive manual processes.  As the Hlayisani Capital team geared up to launch new funds and expand operations, they decided to modernize and enhance their investment management and investor reporting.

Business Challenges:

• Investment Management
  • Deal Tracking
    • A substantial volume of deals, and a manual evaluation process led to a time-consuming and error-prone deal capture process
    • This manual handling further posed challenges in promptly updating stakeholders or promoters about the status of the deals. Additionally, internal reporting was also manual.
  • Investment Valuations
    • The team’s requirement of tracking multiple valuations based on different valuation methods increased the complexity of analysis and reporting.
  • Investor Reporting
    • Fund Operations- The Drawdown/Distribution Operations were managed manually, leading to increased reporting turn-around time.
    • Reporting- The process of generating key reports like Investor statements, Investor updates, and Executive summary was manual, time-consuming, and inefficient.

The Solution:

Following a comprehensive examination of the above-mentioned challenges, PE Front Office presented a tailored solution that effectively addressed all the identified pain points.

A collaborative approach allowed for a strategic and customized solution for Hlayisani Capital’s challenges, showcasing the flexibility of the PEFO framework to meet customer-specific requirements.

• Investment Management
  • Deal Tracking
    • PE Front Office enhanced the deal tracking process at Hlayisani Capital by integrating a web form on the website to automatically create the deals onto the PE Front Office platform.
    • The stakeholder communication challenge was addressed by introducing an automatic email notification feature, allowing the Hlayisani Capital team to efficiently communicate deal statuses to stakeholders using pre-defined email templates with a single click.
  • Investment Valuations
    • PE Front Office implemented a specific customization that allowed for capturing multiple valuations i.e. Audited and Fund Manager valuations. This not only enabled the team to capture multiple valuations but also automatically calculate the IRRs and incorporate the same into key reports
• Investor Reporting
  • Fund Operations
    • PE Front Office automated the Drawdown/Distribution process, facilitating the generation of personalized notices for investors. Further leveraging the mass email feature allowed direct sharing of these notices from the platform, enhancing communication accuracy and alleviating time constraints for the team.
  • Reporting
    • Hlayisani Capital transitioned from a manual report creation process to leveraging PE Front Office’s Reports & Analytics engine, enabling effortless generation of various reports such as Investor Capital Account statements and Fund Quarterly in Hlaysani Capital’s preferred format. Furthermore, such reports are distributed using the personalized mass email feature.

“Hlayisani Capital is continuously looking for efficient ways to enhance our processes. The PE Front Office solution is affording us the opportunity to consolidate all portfolio and deal information into a centralized source and provides sufficient monitoring and reporting tools. The customized reporting capability caters to our specific investor’s needs” – Rochelle Moodley, Head of Operations (Hlayisani Capital)

Business Outcomes with PE Front Office:

• Streamlined deal due diligence process.
• Automation of key Investment Management processes, specifically Valuations.
• Streamlined Drawdown and Distribution operations.
• Automated Reporting process.

About Hlayisani Capital:

• A PE and VC fund manager focused on unlocking unique high-growth investment opportunities.
• Focused on South Africa and Africa region.
• Founded by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs, a level 2 B-BBEE black-owned fund manager.
• AUM worth R1 Billion.
• Hlayisani administers a Private Equity holding company in the Telco and Energy sectors.
• Hlayisani currently has two active Venture Capital funds under management: The Hlayisani Growth Fund and the Hlayisani Venture Fund II.
• Hlayisani Growth Fund is a growth equity fund that is fully deployed into 8 high growth businesses.
• Hlayisani Venture Fund II is a venture capital fund that is currently investing in Edtech, Fin-tech, IOT, SAAS, Mobility Tech, and Communication businesses that have a South African link.

Published In: Inc.Africa