
1. iDeals

2. Intralinks

3. SmartRoom

4. Box

5. Citrix

6. Dealroom

7. Brainloop

8. Ansarada

9. Datasite

A virtual data room is a secure online meeting place for all transaction parties. These secure cloud solutions give users full control while performing online due diligence processes, simplifying the cooperation among all parties.
Besides, a virtual deal room has evolved into a tool that helps users throughout the entire deal process, not just during the due diligence stage. As a result, companies use virtual data rooms for mergers and acquisitions and other financial transactions such as loan syndication, private equity, investment banking, confidential information sharing, venture capital funding, and others.
Small companies, medium and large businesses prefer virtual data rooms to physical data rooms (or traditional data rooms) for various reasons, including instant 24/7/365 remote access from any location and device, secure data management, and saving time and money.
Virtual data room solutions are also used wide-range of industries, including:
While most data rooms offer similar services, their functions may vary. The best online data rooms provide military-level security, support in multiple languages, full-text search, in-document linking, and a wide range of other advanced functions.
Online data rooms are popular among different business industries because they provide the following solutions to corporate transactions:
The number of potential data room uses is close to infinity. Firms that are in the legal, real estate, life science, biotech, and other industries use this software for different purposes, including:
M&A deal includes a due diligence process with a large volume of confidential information that requires robust protection with several security layers. Therefore, a data room for M&A is a must.
Small companies, medium and large businesses cannot get this level of security from such solutions as Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Box, or physical data rooms. So a proper virtual data room for due diligence becomes a necessity.
Potential bidders in the M&A deal have access to the information in the online data room 24/7/365 as long as the seller’s side grants this access. On the seller’s side, it has transparency on user data room activity, documents, or buyer requests analytics, which allows the seller to grant users full control over the deal or its bottlenecks.
The process of setting up a virtual data room when getting ready to sell a business is a four-step procedure:
After all digital documents are collected, setting up a data room for selling a business can take less than an hour. Virtual data room software collaboration options and the capacity to update existing files on the fly also cut down negotiation time from several months to days.
Fundraising can last long and engage many teams to review, comment, or update financial documents. That’s why the software for sharing data quickly and safely becomes an integral part for raising money.
In addition, virtual data room features like a Q&A module and comments section allow all parties to communicate and stay on the same page. Furthermore, virtual data rooms simplify the cooperation process by offering direct messaging, task managers, and other additional functions that significantly streamline teamwork.
Safety is crucial for legal businesses. And this is why law firms, corporate legal departments, courts, and banks use virtual data rooms daily. Once uploaded to the data room, sensitive documents become safe yet easily accessible. In addition, when several lawyers are involved in the same process, they get granular access to all the required information. In the meantime, unauthorized individuals or companies never corrupt, copy, or share sensitive data.
Significant changes in the business environment or legislation pose risks, and companies must act to manage them. Secure data room service providers help businesses mitigate risks through the following:
Data rooms provide two main benefits in real estate transactions – the ability to work with large files and the anonymity of potential buyers.
The first main benefit of a data room is that it allows real estate agents to share as much data as they need from the beginning of the deal to its closing.
The second main benefit allows real estate agents and property owners to hide the fact that several potential buyers study the property in the data room and then pick the best option.
The purpose of any virtual data room software is to keep, manage, and share confidential documents during the deal-making process. Online data room providers help the seller become better prepared for the deal and create a well-planned strategy. On the other hand, the buyer can examine all documents and foresee risks.
To maximize the benefit, look for virtual data room vendors offering the following:
In addition to these, look for the best virtual data rooms that offer other advanced security options such as:
Also, look for a data room provider that offers personal training, if needed.
iDeals Virtual Data Room is a secure virtual data room solution used by more than 4,000 companies worldwide, including many Fortune 1,000 companies since 2008. The best virtual data room solutions from iDeals are based on a continuous innovation approach, including constant R&D efforts, powerful cloud infrastructure, and instantly available customer services. With iDeals’ advanced document sharing technology and shatterproof security, dealmakers worldwide can fully comply with due diligence requirements.
Intralinks is a global technology provider of secure content management and collaboration solutions. Founded in 1996, Intralinks data room enables the exchange, control, and management of information between organizations through their virtual data rooms and deal space solutions, suitable for data sharing inside and outside of the corporate firewall. The company’s key product, Intralinks VIA, supports strategic collaboration solutions for a range of industries, including financial services, life sciences, technology, and manufacturing.
SmartRoom provides virtual data room services for numerous business areas, such as capital markets, legal solutions, and corporate exchange. Secure document hosting and sharing among partners, convenient management of sensitive data and intellectual property, confidential discussion of the data directly within the platform – all these key features attract deal-makers (investment bankers, private equity managers, etc.) and make them look for the most protected, efficient, functional and convenient data room available.
Box Virtual Data Room is a secure content management and collaboration platform founded in 2005. Recently, Box introduced a virtual data room service with advanced protection features and a convenient file storage system to upload contracts, financial statements, and other due diligence files. Multiple layers of protection keep business-critical information safe and secure while helping teams and enterprises across industries easily share, manage, and collaborate on their most important information from anywhere, on any device.
ShareFile online data room provider is a cloud-based data room appropriate for the deals executed by various professionals such as financial advisors, brokers, government contractors, biotech and bio-licensing companies, real estate firms, investment banking, private equity firms, etc. ShareFile virtual data room is equipped with a multi-level security system: the data is encrypted, the documents contain dynamic watermarks that prevent unauthorized dissemination, and access is allowed only based on two-step verification.
This Chicago-based data room provider offers secure data room solutions for M&A, due diligence, project management, and other kinds of complex business transactions. Dealroom provides a wide range of security features, as well as integrations with Microsoft Office, Slack, and Google Apps. Also, their Agile framework may be effective for corporations working with massive amounts of data.
Brainloop Secure Dataroom is an advanced virtual data room with complete security architecture, global 24/7 availability via a web browser, and its own tablet apps. Brainloop data room ensures secure collaboration in a transparently secure online workspace while delivering end-to-end protection for confidential documents. Enterprises worldwide use Brainloop for boardroom communications, research and development processes, legal work, and any other area where you need to share confidential documents.
Ansarada’s virtual data room solutions have proved to be helpful in a wide selection of deals and issues, from M&A due diligence to board communications. While offering quite standard document management functionality, their use of AI and a custom Deal workflow is a feature that makes Ansarada a great provider, along with collaboration and time-management tools.
DataSite is a powerful data room solution that streamlines the due diligence in M&As, disposals, IPO, or any transaction requiring due diligence process. These features from DataSite enable customers to complete faster, smarter, and better transactions. DataSite’s data room dramatically reduces transaction times and deal expenses through the presentation of documents in the data room.
Donnelley Financial Solutions is a great workspace disregarding the type of the deal, project, or industry requiring a virtual data room service. Data rooms by Donnelley Financial Solutions are equally suitable for due diligence processes, fundraising, intellectual property management, communication with investors, for developing and managing document repositories.
Deciding on the best virtual data room services can be challenging, especially if you’re a newbie to the data room industry and have never dealt with data room service providers.
There are many VDR providers on the market with advantages and disadvantages.
How to select the best data room for your needs, then? Naturally, it would be best to rely on your business needs.
First, determine what goals you have and what results you want to achieve.
Second, compare virtual data rooms on the web, considering expertise, pricing, security measures, storage capacity, virtual data room reviews, mobile applications, etc.
The data room comparison table above might significantly save time on the investigation. There, you already have the top ten vendors that are industry leaders. Just rely on the rating, review, and comments of each provider and decide which one is the best for you.
Still, you can make a virtual data room comparison on your own.
If you choose this alternative, we recommend considering these criteria when reviewing virtual deal rooms:
Now, check each of the points in more detail and compare three of the best data rooms — iDeals, Citrix, and Datasite.
First, search for clients’ feedback if you’re seeking the best virtual data rooms.
For this, monitor such popular reviewer platforms as Capterra and G2. Mind the overall rating, how many reviews a particular vendor receives, and whether the feedback is positive or negative.
When it comes to the providers we reviewed, this is what we’ve found out:
The interface of your future software is more important than you think.
Specifically, crucial things are how folders are organized and whether there are any automatic indexing options. In addition, it must be easy to navigate, regardless of your technical background.
Here is what users say about iDeals, Citrix, and Datasite:
Your initial goal of using a virtual data room software is probably to securely exchange confidential documents with multiple parties.
Obviously, it will be vital for you to control the permissions of each virtual data room user.
The best data rooms offer such basic features as multi-factor authentication, granular user permissions, and more.
The safety of your documentation is one of the first things you expect from a secure VDR vendor.
All the online data room providers ensure your security with the help of different features. The most common are dynamic watermarking, two-factor authentication, access permissions, and more.
We’ve investigated what our top-3 VDR providers have, and here are our observations:
Users should be able to manage all the documents they have efficiently.
Naturally, the range of features from a particular vendor mainly depends on the size of your business. For instance, if you have a startup, the volume of your documentation will be considerably lower than an enterprise would have. Thus, you won’t need numerous management tools.
We’ve investigated how iDeals, Citrix, and Datasite offer to manage the documentation.
Tracking all the activity in your virtual data room during the project greatly adds to its effectiveness.
Search for what analytics and reports feature a particular vendor offers and decide depending on how those services fit your needs.
When it’s hard to decide, pay attention to what makes each virtual data room vendor stand out.
Here is what we’ve found out about iDeals, Citrix, and Datasite.
When searching for the best virtual data room solutions, consider the quality of customer support.
Pay attention to what ways of contact are on offer, how fast you get the answer, and how knowledgeable the team is.
Naturally, price is one of the critical factors that might influence your decision.
The pricing models of modern virtual data room providers are different, so you should focus on your needs and make sure the price and quality ratio is justified.
Here is what we found out about iDeals, Citrix, and Datasite pricing.
Considering the detailed comparison of iDeals, Citrix, and Datasite above, each vendor has its advantages and disadvantages. When choosing virtual data room solutions, focus on your needs and pay attention to the factors we’ve relied on when comparing those three best data room providers.
With these tips, you can now understand what is a virtual data room and compare the VDR providers to determine the best virtual data room solutions for your business.
1. | iDeals |
An agile VDR service that can satisfy any needs of various sized companies in any industry |
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2. | Intralinks Dealspace |
Works swiftly with enormous volumes of information |
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3. | SmartRoom VDR |
A practical and functional data room solution. |
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4. | BOX |
Full customization, easy installation, access expiry, and detailed tracking possibilities |
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5. | Citrix Sharefile |
Multi-level security system, reliable and intuitive service |
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6. | Dealroom |
An agile data room solution for many kinds of projects |
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7. | Brainloop |
Its main focus: providing an environment for safe information exchange |
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8. | Ansarada |
Virtual data room known by their successful use of AI |
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9. | Datasite |
Focuses on large enterprises, has a highly intuitive interface |
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10. | Venue by DFin |
Ease of use, 24/7 qualified support, safe information exchange |
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