eFront, Preqin and the Private SideNarrow moat

BlackRock (BLK) — moat facet

Public markets became indexable because they became measurable — BlackRock has bought the measuring apparatus for the ones that are not.

Public markets have prices. Every listed security has a quoted value that arrives continuously and is the same for everyone. Portfolio analytics on public assets is a solved problem and has been for years.

Technology services and subscription revenue ($m)$1,485m2023$1,603m2024$1,981m2025$935mH1 2025$1,096mH1 2026BlackRock Form 10-K FY2025 and BlackRock Form 10-Q, Q2 2026
Preqin closed in March 2025, so it is in most of H1 2025 too; with it in both halves, growth slowed to 17%.

Private markets have none of that. A private credit position, an infrastructure stake or a buyout fund holding is valued quarterly, by the manager, using a methodology that varies by firm. There is no consolidated tape. Institutions with a fifth of their portfolio in private assets have historically had no coherent way to see the whole thing at once, and the reporting arrives as PDFs.

BlackRock has bought its way at this problem twice. eFront supplies the workflow — the plumbing for capital calls, valuations and fund administration. Preqin, acquired in March 2025 for roughly $3.2 billion1, supplies the data: the fund-level performance, terms and holdings information that the industry uses as its reference source. BlackRock describes the combination as creating a preeminent private markets technology and data provider2, and about $210 million of 2025 technology revenue came from Preqin3.

The strategic logic is unusually clean, and it extends well past software. If private markets ever get transparent enough to be benchmarked, they can be indexed. If they can be indexed, they can be sold in a wrapper to investors who currently cannot access them. The firm that owns the reference data is well placed to build those benchmarks — and BlackRock owns both that and the largest index-fund distribution machine in existence.

The catch is that BlackRock is now selling data about private markets to institutions while simultaneously being one of the largest private markets managers, after GIP and HPS. That is the Aladdin tension again, in a business where the conflict is more visible and the clients are more sensitive to it.

Moat trajectory: Widening

Preqin added about $210 million of revenue in its first year and gives Aladdin coverage of the one asset class where institutions currently have no coherent view of what they own. The direction is right; the conflict with BlackRock's own private-markets business is the thing that could stop it.

The number that tests this moat
Reported
Technology services and subscription revenue, first half
$1,096M in H1 2026, +17% on $935M

The half still includes Preqin's first-quarter contribution; organic growth near 10% would say the private-markets data is not selling Aladdin.

Source: BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-Q, quarter ended 30 June 2026 ↗
⚠ Threats to the moat
⚠ THREAT 01
Selling Data to People You Compete With for Deals
A dataset whose value depends on competitors continuing to feed it, now owned by their largest rival.
References
  1. ReportedPreqin, acquired in March 2025 for roughly $3.2 billion, supplies the data: the fund-level performance, terms and holdings information that the industry uses as its reference source
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, acquisitions and equity — Aperio (approximately $41 billion of AUM, February 2021), Kreos (approximately $2 billion, August 2023), SpiderRock (approximately $4 billion, May 2024), Global Infrastructure Partners (approximately $70 billion, October 2024), Preqin (March 2025), HPS Investment Partners (approximately $118 billion, closed 1 July 2025) and ElmTree (approximately $3 billion, September 2025); the HPS consideration was paid substantially in Class B-2 common units of a consolidated subsidiary, BlackRock Saturn Subco, LLC, "which are exchangeable on a one-for-one basis into common stock of the registrant", with 7,614,515 such units included in the fully diluted share count on the cover of the Form 10-K — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  2. ReportedBlackRock describes the combination as creating a preeminent private markets technology and data provider, and about $210 million of 2025 technology revenue came from Preqin
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, Item 1 Business — Aladdin Enterprise, Aladdin Risk, Aladdin Wealth, eFront, Preqin and Cachematrix; "while Aladdin is a multi-asset system, the majority of positions managed on the platform are fixed income"; the March 2025 Preqin acquisition "added private markets data capabilities to its existing Aladdin and eFront workflow offerings, creating a preeminent private markets technology and data provider" and "as clients' private market allocations continue to grow, they will require more standardized and transparent data on their investments, creating an additional growth opportunity for Preqin"; index AUM within or above applicable tolerance of 95%, 96% and 99% across the disclosed periods; retail investors "are served principally through intermediaries, including broker-dealers, banks, trust companies, insurance companies and independent financial advisors" and "technology solutions, digital distribution tools and a shift toward portfolio construction are increasing the number of financial advisors and end-retail investors using BlackRock products" — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  3. ReportedBlackRock describes the combination as creating a preeminent private markets technology and data provider, and about $210 million of 2025 technology revenue came from Preqin
    BlackRock, Inc. Form 10-K, FY2025, Item 1 Business — Aladdin Enterprise, Aladdin Risk, Aladdin Wealth, eFront, Preqin and Cachematrix; "while Aladdin is a multi-asset system, the majority of positions managed on the platform are fixed income"; the March 2025 Preqin acquisition "added private markets data capabilities to its existing Aladdin and eFront workflow offerings, creating a preeminent private markets technology and data provider" and "as clients' private market allocations continue to grow, they will require more standardized and transparent data on their investments, creating an additional growth opportunity for Preqin"; index AUM within or above applicable tolerance of 95%, 96% and 99% across the disclosed periods; retail investors "are served principally through intermediaries, including broker-dealers, banks, trust companies, insurance companies and independent financial advisors" and "technology solutions, digital distribution tools and a shift toward portfolio construction are increasing the number of financial advisors and end-retail investors using BlackRock products" — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
Sources
Generated September 23, 2026