Privcap Academy: Learn All About It

Privcap co-founder David Snow explains the format and the target student for the new online learning platform.

I’m pleased to announce the launch of Privcap Academy, an authoritative and convenient online platform for you and your team members to learn the fundamentals and language of private equity.

As the private equity industry has grown in size, reach, and complexity—and as the asset class has been made accessible to an ever-larger pool of investors—the need for education about the asset class has become critical.

With this in mind, Privcap Media is creating a series of online, video-based courses that we hope will become trusted resources for market participants.

The first offering from Privcap Academy, available now, is Course 101: Fundamentals of the Private Equity Asset Class, taught by Kelly DePonte of Probitas Partners and Brian Rich of Catalyst Investors. You will not find a better way to learn about the inner workings of the private equity asset class. DePonte and Rich are seasoned professionals currently working in the industry—the former is head of research at a major placement agent and the latter is a founding partner at a veteran growth capital firm.

DePonte and Rich will teach you about how private equity differs from other asset classes, how its vintage-year based performance dynamics are unique, and about the 10-year-plus life cycle of a PE fund. You will also take a deep dive into five important strategies under the broad private equity umbrella: buyouts, venture capital, growth capital, distressed and turnaround, and mezzanine and credit.

The roughly 2.5-hour, on-demand course is perfect for a busy professional who doesn’t have the time or budget to travel to an in-person training program. Privcap Academy courses are structured much like online-learning systems used in other sectors. The course pairs a series of video lessons with corresponding slide decks that contain bullet points, charts, and other visual aids. Students may take as long to complete the course as they would like. After each lesson module is complete, students take an online quiz covering the topics just presented and must pass in order to advance to the next module. Students who complete the final module quiz receive a certificate of course completion from Privcap Academy.

The format is ideal for organizations that routinely “onboard” and advance employees who need to understand private equity. Its online accessibility makes it convenient for a professional or student anywhere in the world to gain a learning certificate from a highly authoritative source.

But a Privcap Academy course delivers far more than just the core curriculum. Privcap, having served the private equity market as a media company for more than four years, has amassed upwards of 1,400 video interviews and panel discussions with top industry thought leaders. Each course module offers supplemental (but optional) learning resources to help students deeply explore a topic and gain insights directly from practitioners.

For example, Module 5 of Course 101—a primer on buyout transactions—closes with an overview of a well-known deal, the 2006 buyout of Dunkin’ Brands by THL Partners. The course also offers you Privcap’s exclusive video interview with THL co-president Scott Sperling discussing that specific deal.

Similarly, the course module on venture capital investing includes an interview with the head of private equity at the Princeton University endowment, talking about his institution’s approach to building a venture allocation.

There are plenty of good training courses out there, but none that will also deliver the kind of first-person, expert intelligence that Privcap inserts into your course material.

Privcap Academy will be offering a variety of courses for different types of market participants at various levels. We believe that Course 101 would be appropriate for many types of students, including:

•  New professionals at LP organizations
•  Board members of LP organizations
•  Professionals at service providers with PE firms as clients
• Wealth advisors and RIAs that have the opportunity to offer private equity vehicles to their clients, but aren’t confident about explaining how the underlying market works
•  Non-investing and back office staff at private equity firms
•  Management of portfolio companies that have been recently acquired and who need better information about how the PE industry works
•  Students interested in a career in or around private equity

By the end of Course 101, you will be able to speak confidently about the opportunities and practices in private equity—a key to greater professional success, whether you plan to work at a PE firm or service the growing number of companies that are owned by one.

If you need to master private equity, Privcap Academy should be your starting point.