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Taylor Culver
May 2025
10 Takeaways from the Freshfields x Grata Roundtable on Data as a Strategic Asset Last week, I had the opportunity to join a roundtable hosted by Freshfields and Grata on a topic that is at the heart of my work at XenoDATA: how investors are rethinking the role of data in transactions—not just as a risk or cost center but as a core value driver. The room was full of investors, legal experts, and operators evaluating data through a new lens: Where does it fit into our long-term strategy? How does it accelerate integration, improve visibility, or shape future growth? This resonates deeply with my mission. At XenoDATA, we help data leaders operationalize their strategy, bridging the gap between intent and execution so that data becomes the lever for growth, not just a spreadsheet or catalog gathering dust. Here are my 10 key takeaways from the event:
Grata is a modern company intelligence engine for dealmakers. Whether you’re sourcing acquisition targets or evaluating private companies, Grata gives you deep visibility into the private market—beyond what's on PitchBook or Crunchbase. Their search is built around how companies describe themselves, not just SIC codes or NAICS. If you care about where data fits into a business model, Grata is one of the few platforms that helps you find those patterns at scale.
Freshfields is a global law firm known for navigating high-stakes transactions and complex regulatory environments. In this roundtable, they brought insight into how legal structures, data rights, and compliance frameworks affect the actual usability and valuation of data during M&A.
Together, they framed the discussion around practical, high-impact ways to assess and unlock value from data—not just as an IT asset, but as an operational and legal asset too.
More data ≠ more value. Investors are prioritizing relevance—how a target’s data connects to existing systems, accelerates insight, or drives synergy.
Behavioral or product feedback data shortens time-to-market and sharpens product iterations. Think of it as a built-in focus group.
Due diligence now includes questions like: Is this data accurate? How was it generated—organically or synthetically? Bad inputs lead to bad outcomes.
Investors are less interested in dashboards and more interested in whether the data shapes decisions: product features, customer segments, pricing tiers.
Having data isn’t enough. Cloud platforms, lineage tracking, access controls—investors are scanning for operational readiness to support growth.
Data tied to health, geolocation, or minors introduces compliance risk. The burden of governance scales with sensitivity.
You need clarity on rights to use data—especially for AI model training or cross-border analytics. A great dataset with poor contracts is a liability.
What’s unique, hard to replicate, and baked into your differentiation? That’s what investors want—especially if it unlocks unexpected insight.
A clean dataset that can’t be integrated is a sunk cost. Compatibility, metadata, and architecture readiness directly impact acquisition value.
Data linked to revenue, cost savings, or product decisions carries real weight in valuations. The closer it is to business outcomes, the higher its perceived value.
Investors are catching up to what data leaders have always known—that if treated right, data isn’t just exhaust. It’s fuel. But turning that potential into performance requires clarity, structure, and alignment across tech, legal, and business stakeholders.
That’s the work we’re doing every day at XenoDATA: embedding strategy into execution so your data doesn’t just sit—it moves the business forward.
—Taylor Culver, Founder, XenoDATA
