Beyond top quartile: what deal-level benchmarking unlocks for private market investors

Beyond top quartile: what deal-level benchmarking unlocks for private market investors

June 25, 2026 · 27 min · Episode 61

About this episode

The episode discusses the significance of deal-level benchmarking for private market investors and the insights it provides beyond traditional fund-level metrics.

Host Michael Venne sits down with StepStone's Tyler Johnson and PitchBook's Paul Santarelli to discuss what's changing — and what deal-level benchmarking actually unlocks for GPs, LPs, and the market at large. In this episode: Why fund-level benchmarking leaves the most important questions unanswered How to separate alpha from beta in manager evaluation What the PitchBook × StepStone partnership makes possible — and what stays confidential Where the private markets data stack is headed as retail investors enter the asset class Key takeaway: The real unlock isn't a new data set — it's a new default. A world where "show me the comparables" is easy to answer raises the bar for how GPs pitch and how LPs pick. Now live: SPI Deal Benchmarking, the deal-level benchmarking solution from StepStone and PitchBook, is available now. Fund managers and service providers can access it through the PitchBook platform . Investors can access it through SPI by StepStone .

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