The problem with private fund data pricing
Private fund data has historically been expensive. Preqin, PitchBook, and similar platforms charge institutional prices — $2,000 to $20,000+ per year — for access to fundraising data that, in the case of Form D filings, is entirely public information from the SEC.
The pricing exists because these platforms built proprietary databases and research teams to collect, normalize, and present the data before the SEC's EDGAR system became easily queryable. That moat is eroding.
What's actually free vs. what costs money
What is genuinely free — from the SEC:
- Every Form D filing, in raw XML format, at EDGAR
- Searchable by company name, date range, and form type
- Updated daily
What costs money — from Preqin, PitchBook, et al.:
- Normalized, cleaned data without parsing errors
- Strategy classification (hedge fund vs. PE vs. VC)
- Manager name disambiguation (same GP filing under multiple entity names)
- Historical database going back 10-15 years
- Fund performance data (returns, IRRs) — this is truly proprietary and not available from EDGAR
The honest comparison: If you only need Form D data — who is raising, how much, in what strategy, and when — you don't need Preqin. You need a tool that makes EDGAR's public data usable.
What 37A Research provides — free
37A Research is a free platform built specifically on SEC Form D data. Every business day, we ingest every new Form D filing from EDGAR and present it with:
- Readable filing pages — fund name, strategy, offering amount, exemption type, GP names, filing date
- AI-generated analysis — fund structure signals, manager context, LP due diligence flags
- Strategy filtering — browse by hedge fund, private equity, venture capital, real estate, private credit
- Manager profiles — all Form D filings by a specific GP across their entire history
- In-depth articles — analysis of notable raises ($100M+) from recognized managers
The free tier includes full access to the filing database with no credit card required. The pro tier at $29/month adds alerts and priority features.
What Preqin has that 37A Research doesn't
To be direct about the tradeoffs:
Preqin has:
- Fund performance data (IRRs, multiples, DPIs) — this is truly proprietary, not derivable from EDGAR
- Historical fundraising data going back 15+ years
- LP relationship intelligence (who invests in what, derived from pension fund disclosures)
- Broader asset class coverage including infrastructure and private debt with more granularity
- Enterprise workflow tools (CRM integration, benchmarking, fund manager due diligence reports)
37A Research has:
- Every Form D filing, free
- Real-time EDGAR ingestion — filings appear same day
- AI analysis that Preqin doesn't provide at the filing level
- No paywall for the core data
Who should use 37A Research instead of Preqin
37A Research is the right fit if you:
- Primarily need to monitor who is raising and at what scale in real time
- Are an analyst, journalist, emerging manager, or smaller allocator who doesn't need institutional workflow tools
- Want Form D data without paying $2,000–$20,000/year for a platform primarily used for its performance database
- Need to search for a specific fund's filing history quickly and for free
Preqin is worth the price if you:
- Need historical performance data (IRRs, multiples) — this is not available from EDGAR
- Are running an institutional due diligence process that requires LP relationship intelligence
- Need enterprise workflow integration
For Form D coverage specifically, the public data is the same. The question is whether you want to pay for the wrapper.