Case study
Case study: How Coller Capital fills sustainability data gaps across thousands of companies with Upright
Secondaries investors face a problem spreadsheets can't solve: accessing credible sustainability data on portfolio companies they don't manage directly. Coller Capital turned to Upright to deliver it at the pace deal flow demands.
Arttu Narhi
Communications Lead, Upright
Published May 26, 2026
In brief:
- The problem: Secondaries managers inherit thousands of underlying companies they can't engage directly, with multiple investment committees a week. GP-by-GP outreach for sustainability data doesn't scale.
- The consequence: Credible sustainability data for reporting and fund classifications are widely thought impossible to deliver credibly in secondaries.
- The solution: Upright's product-level, science-based data covers the full portfolio of thousands of private companies without depending on what each GP discloses, fulfilling Coller's PAI commitments and giving the ESG team a credible LP benchmark.
- Triangulation: Upright’s data compliments other data points from several other sources as well as in-house proprietary information and the technical expertise of the Team helping form a more accurate picture, deal by deal.
Starting point: managing risk & leveraging impact data in an asset class sustainability regulations were not built for
London-based, globally operating Coller Capital is a pioneer in private market secondaries. The firm now manages approximately $54 billion in committed capital across multiple funds spanning private equity, credit, and private wealth.
When Coller positioned its flagship secondaries fund under SFDR (version 1.0) as Article 8, it committed to providing enhanced sustainability data and insights for the largest applicable portfolio level exposures. This was something that was viewed as impossible by some and imperfect at best by others, including the team, using traditional methods (reaching out directly to GPs).
We have been analysing fund portfolios for sustainability risk through ESG for many years, securing plaudits for our approach, and so if we can't do this then who else? Some in the market will and we wanted to live up to our reputation for innovation and excellence in secondaries. That's when we turned to Upright.
As an investor in private market secondaries, Coller can't engage with portfolio companies directly. Moreover, the team has no meaningful control over what GPs elect to disclose in all cases, and faces high volumes of deal flow for analysis ahead of multiple investment committees each week. Their previous approach – reaching out to applicable portfolio GPs directly for granular data on individual (larger) portfolio level exposures in funds – was time consuming and inconsistent, and unworkable at scale for the demands of SFDR in the market.
Solution: Product-level, science-based data across thousands of portfolio companies
After reviewing providers, Coller selected Upright for its ability to provide a new, unique data set and sustainability data on private companies, independent of what each GP chooses to disclose. Primarily, Coller now uses two of Upright’s datasets: SFDR PAI indicators for applicable regulatory reporting and for investors that ask, and Upright's net impact quantification for LP-facing benchmarking. Both draw from the same product-level data Coller uses to screen new deals.
Other data obtained from Upright, such as that related to SDG alignment and Double Materiality Assessment (DMA), for selected exposures in applicable funds enhances Coller’s wider risk-opportunity management processes.
Upright’s data enables the following for Coller:
- Article 8 commitments delivered at secondaries scale. The fund's PAI commitment for applicable exposures is fulfilled efficiently without case-by-case GP outreach for every data point, and signposts the team to exposures where selective enhanced engagement in person might be required.
- A sharper edge in LP discussions. Upright's net impact quantification lets Coller benchmark its flagship fund against various named funds, including primary buy-out and dedicated impact funds, when LPs ask how a secondaries fund thinks about positive contribution. Historically, the private secondary market has relied primarily on negative screening from a risk management perspective. This data-point is particularly valuable as it enhances downside risk identification and provides a positive indicator of portfolio quality and impact, giving a more holistic understanding of the investments.
First-pass screening in week one of every deal. Coller has the ability to assess a transaction with additional insights from Upright alongside deal teams and adding to data from other sources and the ESG team’s experience. This helps signpost where additional work (AI-driven and/or human analyst) might be necessary and mitigates the risk of material work on deals that might not proceed.
In private markets, there is a lack of meaningful sustainability data that is backed by science and has the correct background. That's where we find Upright really fills a need for us.
Results: Clarity on what’s in private market funds, faster than the competition
With Upright's data running from day one of every deal, Coller's three-person ESG team – which sits inside the investment team and reports into the CIO's office – prioritises investment decisions over the pursuit of data.
PAI responses to European LPs replace patchy, GP-reported numbers with consistent, science-grounded figures across the portfolio. And in a market where deal teams turn over books quickly, knowledge of what’s inside its funds in a much more granular (science-based) manner provides an edge.
Upright’s private markets data not only helps with our compliance and in meeting our commitments. It adds to the quality of our work and to our speed of delivery. Being able to move fast in a fast moving market – without compromising on the (ESG) quality of our work – positions us well in a competitive market.
Looking to close the ESG data gap in your private markets portfolio? Book a demo below.
Arttu Narhi
Communications Lead, Upright
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