Private ABF managers are facing a critical infrastructure decision as they scale: build proprietary technology systems in-house, or partner with an established platform?

This decision has major implications for growth, risk, investor perception, operational efficiency, and long-term competitiveness. And as highlighted at the 2025 Private Credit Technology Summit earlier this year, the industry’s rapid evolution makes this decision more consequential than ever.

Below, I break down the key considerations to help private ABF investors evaluate which approach – or combination of approaches best aligns with your strategy, resources, and ambitions.

The Market Context: Why this Decision Matters More Than Ever 

A DLA Piper article summarizing the Summit made one theme clear: 
Private credit’s competitive edge is increasingly defined by technology, not just origination and underwriting. 

Several market forces are reshaping how firms should think about technology infrastructure: 

• The private credit universe now spans ABF, corporate credit, IG, HY, specialty finance, and more. 

• Scaling successfully requires clean data infrastructure, automated workflows, real-time portfolio and risk monitoring, and transparent reporting – capabilities that take significant time and expertise to build from scratch. 

• LPs are scrutinizing managers based on their data maturity and operational systems, not just portfolio performance. Technology infrastructure is becoming a competitive differentiator in fundraising. 

• Growth and diversification create enormous operational complexity. Inefficiencies can compound quickly if tech is not architected for scale. 

In this environment, the build-versus-buy decision isn’t about technology preferences – it’s about strategic positioning and where you allocate your firm’s limited resources and attention. 

When Building In-House Makes Strategic Sense?

Building in-house can be the right choice if it aligns with your core strengths and long-term strategy and you have the resources to execute well. 

Building might be right for your firm if: 

1. You expect to have ongoing capacity to maintain and evolve systems as your business grows. This includes deep expertise in private ABF workflows, data engineering, collateral management, and performance analytics. 

2. Your investment strategy requires highly specialized, proprietary workflows.
For example, if your collateral type or loan structure is so differentiated that no third-party platform can support it without major customization. 

3. You have a long time horizon and can absorb slower time-to-value.
Building can take quarters (or years) and often requires multiple rebuilds as the business grows.  

4. You’re prepared to shoulder the full cost of development and ongoing maintenance.
This includes engineering headcount, version control, data pipelines, cloud infrastructure, documentation, cybersecurity, and ongoing regulatory adaptation – costs that often exceed initial projections. 

Even so, “build” is often harder than it looks. 

The Hidden Complexity of Building 

Even when building makes strategic sense, firms often underestimate the challenge.  ABF data is messy, siloed, and heterogeneous. Legacy spreadsheets and bolt-on tools don’t scale, and homegrown systems tend to break as soon as asset volume or collateral diversity increases. The engineering talent required understands both capital markets and modern data architecture – a rare and expensive combination. 

If technology infrastructure isn’t a core competitive differentiator – if your edge is in sourcing, underwriting, or structuring – building can divert critical resources from your highest value activities. 

When Partnering Accelerates Your Strategy 

For most firms, especially those entering ABF or scaling rapidly, buying and partnering is often the more strategic path. 

Partnering might be right for your firm if: 

1. You want fast, predictable time-to-value.
A platform built for ABF lets you launch monitoring, reporting, and analytics in weeks instead of quarters – allowing you to deploy capital and focus on deals rather than infrastructure. 

2. Your team’s primary value is in origination, structuring, underwriting, or asset management.
Your highest-value people should focus on making credit decisions, not on building and debugging software. 

3. You expect rapid AUM growth or expanding asset classes.
A third-party platform offers built-in scalability, flexible data ingestion, and the ability to support new deal types without major reinvestment. 

4. You have limited internal engineering infrastructure.
Most private credit firms simply aren’t structured like fintech companies. And they don’t need to be. 

5. LPs expect institutional-grade reporting and data transparency.
LPs are now benchmarking managers on data architecture and workflow maturity alongside investment performance. Good technology is no longer a “nice-to-have” – it’s table stakes for institutional capital. 

A Framework for Your Decision 

Step back and reflect on four key questions: 

1. What is your competitive advantage? 

If your edge is underwriting, structuring, servicing, or sourcing (i.e., things other than software development) then partnering usually aligns better with your strategy. 

2. How quickly do you need to scale? 

If speed matters, buying provides immediate infrastructure and eliminates long build cycles. 

3. How complex are your investments? 

If you’re dealing with multiple asset classes, specialty finance platforms, or varied servicers, you’ll need a system that can evolve faster than most internal builds can. 

4. What do your investors expect? 

Institutional LPs increasingly demand transparency, data fidelity, and reporting consistency. Technology plays a central role in meeting those expectations. 

The Hybrid Approach: Buy the Foundation, Build the Differentiation

We see the same themes across the clients we advise and the ABF platforms we support: 

Most private credit and ABF firms benefit from buying and partnering early. 
This preserves organizational focus, accelerates operational maturity, and allows firms to stand up institutional-grade workflows much faster. 

Some firms may selectively build around a unique competitive edge. But even these tech-savvy firms often choose to buy the foundational plumbing (data ingestion, monitoring, reporting, analytics) and then build their specialized layers on top. 

In other words: 

Buy the infrastructure. 
Build the differentiation. 

This is the model we believe will dominate the next decade of private ABF technology evolution. 

The decision to build or buy isn’t binary—and it’s not permanent. The firms scaling quickly while maintaining institutional-grade operations are those that make deliberate choices about where to invest their technical resources, based on their competitive positioning and strategic priorities. If you’re evaluating your technology infrastructure options, we are happy to share more about how we’ve helped firms navigate this decision.