More Data, No Problem: Hamilton Lane Partners with Daphne

The Challenge 

Accurate and timely data is crucial for institutional investors to make informed decisions about their alternative asset allocations. 

The challenges traditionally associated with sharing and collecting this information can significantly impact how asset managers, their investors and channel partners navigate the fundraising process. 

It’s no secret – these groups spend hundreds of hours each month manually entering data into non-standard Excel templates, PDF documents and investment databases. This resource-intensive process involves multiple parties and systems, which can inadvertently lead to redundancies and inefficiencies. A less than ideal experience for everyone involved…

The Solution

A tech-enabled partnership designed for the new age of private markets investing.

Hamilton Lane’s Cobalt technology is leveraged by institutional investors worldwide and exemplifies the firm’s commitment to developing a leading technology ecosystem for its teams and clients. Today, Cobalt features one of the largest comprehensive databases in the private markets industry. Cobalt has designated Daphne as its preferred method for receiving data related to new fund offerings. This pre-investment integration streamlines the fund data entry and publication processing while allowing General Partners (GPs) to maintain control over their data and client experience. Using Daphne’s structured data model, GPs can provide Hamilton Lane’s investment teams and clients with consistently structured, up-to-date and automated digital fund information, supporting diligence processes, portfolio construction tools and client communications systems.

1. Daphne digitizes a GP’s funds using Daphne’s Fund Master, a centralized and standardized data model that serves as a single source of truth for fund information, capturing performance metrics and other critical data.
2. Once digitized, GPs can effortlessly publish fund data to Hamilton Lane’s Cobalt and other channels, including investment consultants, institutional LPs, independent broker dealers (IBDs), wirehouses and registered investment advisors (RIAs).
3. Fund data stored in Daphne’s Fund Master can be transmitted and accessed via a web-based interface or API, ensuring data remains current at all times.
4. Once Cobalt receives fund data from GPs, it becomes available within the platform immediately to assist Hamilton Lane’s Investment Team and clients with pre-investment diligence and selection.

Daphne allows GPs to implement a scalable distribution solution that maintains control over their brand, client experience and data while effortlessly expanding to additional distribution partners and LPs.

The Impact

Beyond publishing to Hamilton Lane’s Cobalt, advantages of using Daphne include:

Enhanced client experience across the product lifecycle

• Structured digital product data model and golden source of truth for accurate, timely fund and holdings data in a consumable format from pre-sales through to ongoing reporting 

Scalable communication platform with control of your customers’ experience

• Deliver bespoke client experiences at scale, controlling fund information with direct, accurate updates to partners and LPs
• Reduce security risks and re-keying issues associated with email communication & manual consumption

Streamlined and efficient operating environment accelerating time to market

• Eliminate months of manual effort inputting product updates and reporting (per fund) and reallocate resources to more high-value, client facing activities
• Update high frequency documents in seconds instead of days
• Shorten quarterly performance reporting time periods to days instead of months 

Outdated technology limits growth in alternative asset fundraising. Through our partnership, we share a vision to provide investors with access to the data they need for informed decision-making. 

To learn more please contact us at cobaltdemo@hamiltonlane.com.

Hamilton Lane’s Technology Solutions, anchored by Cobalt, are leveraged by hundreds of investors worldwide to conduct private markets research, analytics, investment diligence, and portfolio construction. With information on over 64,000 funds* across all private markets, clients use Cobalt for in-depth analysis on funds in market, including extensive quantitative and qualitative insights produced by Hamilton Lane’s global investment team.

*As of 3/31/25