Morningstar Innovation & Technology Culture

PitchBook(opens in new window), the leading private capital market intelligence platform, today announced the launch of PitchBook Valuation Estimates, the industry’s first daily, standardized valuation framework designed to improve transparency in private markets by delivering a consistent, independent, and data-informed valuation signal across thousands of VC-backed companies. Built to reflect how markets are pricing companies today—not at the last funding event—the model combines machine learning with PitchBook’s best-in-class private market data, public market signals, and deep capital structure insight to deliver market-informed valuations.

Private market valuations are back in focus(opens in new window) as median valuations in 2025 have surpassed 2021 highs across most investment stages, driven by intense competition for AI-native companies. While AI startups are commanding significant valuation premiums and outsized step-ups, much of the broader venture market remains under pressure, with companies that haven’t raised since 2022 or 2023 increasingly facing valuation discounts. This disconnect is also evident at exit, where more than half of IPOs are pricing below their most recent private valuations, highlighting the risks of relying on stale private market pricing. Valuation concentration has further intensified(opens in new window), with the 10 largest US unicorns accounting for more than half of total unicorn value, even as nearly half of all unicorns have not been revalued in the past three years.

Launching with coverage of more than 15,000 VC-backed companies, Valuation Estimates provides investors, advisors, and auditors with a transparent framework they can apply consistently across portfolios, sectors, and market cycles. Unlike traditional valuation approaches that rely on lagging financials, infrequent third-party marks, or limited comparable transactions, PitchBook Valuation Estimates continuously incorporates observed public and private market data to produce a mark-to-market valuation signal. The model updates companies’ last known valuation using relevant public and private comparables and incorporating company-specific indicators such as employee growth and company age to generate a consistent, market-aligned view of private company value.

“PitchBook Valuation Estimates is a major step forward for the industry, helping investors assess private company value with greater confidence in a market that has long operated without a clear valuation benchmark,” said Rod Diefendorf, President and COO at PitchBook. “, by delivering a valuation framework built on the most comprehensive private market data available. As the pulse of the private capital markets, PitchBook is helping customers navigate complexity by setting a new standard for private market valuations.”

Integrated directly into the PitchBook platform, Valuation Estimates supports critical workflows across the private capital lifecycle, including deal sourcing and pricing, portfolio monitoring, risk management, and fund-level modeling. Investors can compare companies to peers in a more timely way, improve pricing confidence in M&A and fundraising discussions, monitor valuation risk across portfolios, and plan for liquidity with greater precision. Powered by PitchBook and Morningstar data, Valuation Estimates are refreshed daily, ensuring estimates reflect evolving market conditions while maintaining a consistent methodology across companies, sectors, and portfolios.

“Our goal was to establish a valuation standard that reflects how private markets actually function today. As the market has become more dynamic and liquidity more uneven, pricing can vary widely depending on who is transacting and why, creating real noise around private company valuations,” said Nizar Tarhuni, EVP of Research and Market Intelligence at PitchBook. “Valuation Estimates sets a consistent valuation anchor by combining what the market has been willing to pay with indicators that track company progress between funding rounds, powered by PitchBook’s extensive experience analyzing private markets, working with clients, and observing how valuation gaps emerge across market cycles. The result is a first-of-its-kind framework that provides a clearer signal investors can rely on.”

The launch builds on PitchBook’s expanding suite of AI and ML-driven tools, including further reinforcing the firm’s position as a trusted, independent authority on private market intelligence. PitchBook plans to expand Valuation Estimates with additional data inputs and deeper workflow integrations. Future enhancements will introduce greater user flexibility, including custom input analysis and complementary predictive insights designed to support portfolio planning and exit timing.

Since 2016, PitchBook has operated as a subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. 

Morningstar, Inc., a leading provider of independent investment insights, today launched Morningstar Direct AI, a reimagined, agentic software experience for its flagship platform. Live today for global users, Direct AI is designed to allow investment professionals to uncover insights, explore opportunities, and perform analysis that was previously fragmented across tools, dependent on institutional knowledge, or required considerable manual workarounds.

"AI and agents are only as valuable as the data that powers them," said Scott Brown, President, Direct Platform at Morningstar. "With Direct AI, we're putting the full breadth of our independent research, data, and insights into agents that fit naturally into clients' workflows. It accelerates our mission to empower investor success."

In addition to an all-new, browser-based interface, Direct AI initially introduces three agents built specifically for the mission-critical tasks our clients value most:

1. Product Development Agent helps asset managers fine tune their product positioning and launch decisions. It combines Morningstar flows data and category analysis to help answer questions like “Which Morningstar categories show strong demand but limited competition?” and “How long did comparable products take to reach $1 billion in assets?”
2. Distribution Agent helps sales and marketing teams working to get funds onto a firm’s approved list or into a model portfolio. Using proprietary Morningstar classifications and portfolio tools, including those designed to analyze portfolios that hold both public and private securities, this agent identifies gaps in an existing model portfolio, demonstrates where a given fund could fit, and shows how it would change the model. Then it can help prepare talking points for the review meeting.
3. Manager Research Agent helps due diligence teams vet investment strategies. It applies the same framework Morningstar's analysts use to evaluate portfolios, using Morningstar’s deep datasets to help answer questions like “Has this fund’s trading behavior changed recently?” and “Which market environments have helped or hurt performance?”

Each of the agents is grounded in Morningstar's data, analytics, research, and ratings that span millions of securities and entities across a diverse range of asset classes, including funds, equities, fixed income, and a variety of other financial products. Backed by the firm’s more than 1,100 research analysts globally, Morningstar’s investment experience and proprietary frameworks—from Morningstar Categories and Medalist Ratings to the new Active/Passive Strategy Type and Semiliquid Adjusted Cost Estimate—are built into the logic, and can help investment professionals make more informed, defensible decisions.

Alongside Direct AI, Morningstar is making its investment intelligence available through Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and ChatGPT, aimed at helping users access answers and insights wherever they choose to work

To learn more about Direct AI, visit www.morningstar.com/business/products/direct/direct-ai.