Our WebSCAN tool objectively assessed over 3,000 European private equity (“PE”) and venture capital (“VC”) websites.
- How do PE websites and VC websites differ?
- How effective are Europeans PE and VC websites?
- Which PE and VC firms have the highest-scoring websites?
- What do top-scoring sites do better than their peers?
- How can the industry improve?
Find out how European venture, growth, buyout and other PE websites perform – click here to read the full WebSCAN report.
Your website is where you make your first impression
Today’s investors don’t wait for a meeting to learn about an asset manager. They will typically visit the manager’s website before agreeing to the meeting.
By the time they meet, an investor will have already formed a strong opinion about the firm.
Changing that opinion will be difficult.
Given the critical role played by European PE and VC websites in the fundraising (and origination) process, how effective are they?
Most website analyses are primarily subjective
This is a difficult question to answer objectively. That is because most methods of website analysis are highly subjective:
- Do we like the design?
- Does the writing resonate with us?
- Does it authentically communicate the firm’s personality to us?
All of these factors are extremely important – but they are irrelevant if visitors leave the site before seeing the design or reading the content.
A better methodology is required to capture this.
How should asset managers assess their own websites?
While there is a necessary place for subjectivity in these matters, most clients are not experts or have experience in these areas. They are generally more comfortable in the Excel sheet than the design studio.
Objective measures, such as readability and page load times, strongly influence an investor’s impression of a website and the firms they represent. All other things being equal, improving these areas will result in a more effective website.
An objective perspective
WebSCAN was developed to provide an objective score across five categories known to contribute strongly to the overall impression created by a website:
- Readability
- User journey
- User experience
- Updates frequency
- Design function and efficiency
Scores from these five categories are calculated to give a rating out of 100: the WebSCAN score. These are objective measures. They do not attempt to replace subjective assessments of websites. They supplement those assessments and help managers identify areas for improvement.
For example, our readability assessment includes length of passages of text and the complexity of the language used. It does not, however, consider how well the text communicates the manager’s key messages.
The design function and efficiency category scores websites for incorporating elements like video and animations to increase engagement. It does not tell us whether the design is good or bad.
For more information about what WebSCAN measures, click here.
Which European PE and VC websites are covered in this report?
This is the first of a series of reports which will show how alternative asset manager websites across all major strategies and geographies compare.
This report examines the websites of 3,057 European asset management companies offering PE and VC funds. These firms were sourced from well-known databases, such as Preqin. It names the companies with the highest scoring overall websites, as well as those with websites that score well in certain metrics.
Our analysis includes European companies managing VC, buyout, and growth firms. Where some comparisons have been made, we have not included UK-centric firms, which we covered in our first report. PE sub-classes including hybrids, direct secondaries, balanced, mezzanine, distressed, natural resources, and co-investment firms were grouped under “multiple/other strategies”.
To see which European PE and VC firms have the best-performing asset manager websites,
Read the full WebSCAN report now
