Private equity just got a smarter search bar.
S&P Global has launched iLEVEL Document Search, a new AI-powered feature designed to give private market investors the kind of insight that spreadsheets alone can’t surface. By allowing users to run natural language queries across financial documents, this tool is meant to transform the way asset managers explore portfolio data—especially in a market stuck between record dry powder and limited exit opportunities.
As private equity portfolios age in place and liquidity events grow rare, firms are under pressure to extract more value from the assets they already hold. iLEVEL Document Search promises to help by unlocking previously hidden insights buried in files like board decks, quarterly and annual reports, and fund financials.
“We’re moving from an era of portfolio monitoring to one of portfolio intelligence,” said Christopher Sparenberg, Head of iLEVEL at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Beyond Pivot Tables: Search Like You Mean It
At the core of iLEVEL Document Search is the ability to ask open-ended, natural language questions—like “What are the biggest margin pressures across our portfolio?” or “Which portfolio companies mentioned supply chain risks in Q2?”
The results aren’t just keyword matches. They include granular annotations that trace each answer back to its original source, giving users both confidence and compliance coverage.
And yes, confidentiality is baked in. Results are filtered based on user permissions, meaning sensitive material stays in the right hands.
Why Now?
Private equity firms are sitting on mountains of unstructured data—hundreds of thousands of documents stored across platforms, often only partially tagged or indexed. With deal flow slowing and exit windows narrowing, the firms most likely to win are the ones that can find insights others overlook.
S&P Global’s timing aligns with this shift. By integrating AI into the research workflow, iLEVEL Document Search helps investment teams identify patterns, risks, and opportunities with far more agility than traditional methods allow.
It’s not just about working smarter—it’s about competing smarter.
Part of a Bigger Play
This isn’t S&P Global’s first AI enhancement for iLEVEL. The launch follows a series of recent upgrades to the platform, including:
- Automated Data Ingestion
- Capital Structure Analysis
- Covenant Monitoring
- Financial Spreading (especially within the iLEVEL Credit solution)
Together, these tools represent a broader move by S&P Global to build a comprehensive private market intelligence suite, serving needs from risk analytics to valuations to operational alpha.
Competitive Context
While iLEVEL is widely used among top private equity firms, AI-powered document intelligence is becoming a hot space. Competitors like Chronograph, Preqin, and Burgiss are also investing in AI tools—but S&P’s access to deep proprietary data and decades of market analytics give it a significant edge.
With iLEVEL Document Search, the company positions itself not just as a reporting platform, but as a true intelligence engine for private market investors.
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