Customer Success Spotlight: Business Valuation Resources

Our mission at Intrinio is to power a generation of applications that will fundamentally change the way our broken financial system works. Intrinio data feeds form the basis of everything from large enterprise business reporting applications to startup fintech apps. It’s rewarding to see our product come to life at the hands of today’s most innovative developers building powerful things.

We’re lucky to be in a business where we grow together with our customers, and we’re proud to show off their hard work. Each blog in this series will highlight a customer that has leveraged our financial data feeds to build something incredible.

Meet Business Valuation Resources, LLC, the leading information provider to the business appraisal market. We spoke to Adam Manson, the Director of Valuation Data at BVR, about the company’s growth, what sets them apart, and why they chose to partner with Intrinio.

Give us the elevator pitch for your company.

We like to describe ourselves as “the Bloomberg for small, private companies” – an area of finance that often goes unnoticed and overlooked. BVR publishes best-in-class data, research, training, and news to inform all aspects of pricing small entities for litigation, shareholder disputes, and M&A.

What is your professional background?

I began working with BVR as a financial analyst, conducting research for DealStats (which was Pratt’s Stats at the time), BVR’s flagship data offering, and creating economic reports. Sixteen years later, I am the Director of Valuation Data, managing BVR’s data offerings, including in-house data research and partner relationships. Prior to my time at BVR, I worked in marketing/sales for a tech company in Seattle.

What inspired the creation of your company?

Shannon Pratt – long considered the “father of private company valuation” and an appraiser himself – started BVR in the mid-90’s and built the foundation for this area of finance. He was the steward for professional education in this area, and also a visionary with the creation of Pratt’s Stats (now DealStats) – long considered the linchpin for transaction data and the market approach. David Foster, BVR CEO, bought the publishing interest from Shannon in 2005 and since then, under David and BVR President Lucretia Lyons’ leadership, BVR has thrived by building upon and expanding products and services for the BV community. Much of our success is thanks to input from and partnership with the esteemed practitioners who work with business owners every day.

What have been your biggest challenges, and what did you learn from them?

There was a statistic published a while back showing that fewer than 2% of private companies undergo – or have need for – a rigorous valuation as BVR and our community would define them. Many of our customers serve as financial experts in a litigation setting – BV usually takes center stage when a dispute around business asset value comes into play. So the reality is that the vast majority of private company owners who are looking to sell, transition ownership, or change capital structure do not pursue a valuation as BVR knows it. We have struggled with making ourselves known – and needed – by the world outside of our core appraisal market. But we persevere with products like our Guideline Public Company Comps Tool (GPCCT), the platform we recently launched using Intrinio data.

What have been your biggest successes?

Our core market and the BV community is strong and intellectually disciplined. BVR has succeeded in going as “deeply” as possible into this core market by staying true to the tenets of the profession such as using the best of market-based evidence for our data sets and by ongoing learning with and from our customers. BVR’s team of data analysts is second to none, as is our editorial leadership.

How do you set yourself apart from your competitors?

BVR is extremely proud of our relationships with customers and the bonds we have created with so many “friends” in the profession, incorporating their thinking as we continue to provide innovative solutions. Our “best in class” mantra drives our mission to deliver fully vetted and peer-reviewed thought leadership and tools to the community. And, of course, our people at BVR are the ones who set us apart every day. We have the best employees any company could ask for!

Why did you choose to work with Intrinio?

We vetted various providers and were drawn to Intrinio’s meticulous data and attentiveness to our questions as a data partner. Everyone was friendly and personable, and it just felt like a good fit. Also, Intrinio is a small privately-held firm, like BVR, and working with a similar company was very appealing. It’s sometimes hard to build those personal relationships with large, publicly-held firms.

How would you describe your experience working with Intrinio?

Working with Intrinio has been great. The team is knowledgeable, helpful, and responsive. I can say that I think it’s clear that we made the right choice.

Interested in working with Intrinio? Visit intrinio.com to learn more.