Help: PitchBook Excel Plugin user guide (Mac and 365)

The Excel Plugin is a feature included with your PitchBook license. After downloading, it provides various tools that enable you to utilize PitchBook data in Excel in a way that suits you.

Use this article for help on using the main features of the Excel Plugin for Mac and Office 365 versions. If you’re looking for information on installing the Excel Plugin, visit the link below.

• PitchBook Excel Plugin installation guide

After installing the PitchBook Plugin, a new PitchBook 365 tab will be available in your Excel menu. Tapping the tab will open a toolbar along the top of your worksheet that houses all the available tools.

You can use the Entities feature from the toolbar to quickly find specific IDs for a company or deal that are used as references in formulas to pull data. Here’s how:

1. Tap Entities from the Excel toolbar.
2. Select the type of entity (company, fund, investor, person, or index) from the drop-down on the right-hand side.
3. Type the name of the entity into the Search field and select the correct option. This will pull the PitchBook ID or the ticker symbol of the entity.
4. You can also view deals or funds related to the entity and adjust the display format (vertical or horizontal).

As an alternative to the Identifier lookup, you can use PBMATCH formulas to pull data directly into your spreadsheet:

• =PBMATCHPBID(cell) – Use this to find the PBID for private companies (companies without a ticker).
• =PBMATCHSYMBOL(cell) – Use this to find the ticker symbol for public companies.

For example, if you want to find Apple’s ticker symbol:

1. Type the company name (e.g., “Apple”) in a cell — here it’s in A2.
2. In a blank cell (e.g., B2), enter the formula:
   =PBMATCHSYMBOL(A2)
   (because Apple is a public company).
3. Press Enter, and the ticker (AAPL) will appear.

From the toolbar, you can use the Fields feature to search for data points, view their definitions, and see where the data points exist in the formula builder. Here’s how:

1. Tap Fields from the PitchBook toolbar.
2. Type the data point into the Search bar or expand each of the upwards carets to view a list of all data points.
3. Tap any relevant data points to add it to your worksheet as text.

One important thing to note is that the Fields lookup indicates whether we track the data point and its location in the Formula Builder. This feature is designed to help you navigate the extensive list of data points available in the PitchBook Excel Plugin.

Now that you know how to pull the relevant ID for entities of interest and where to locate data points, you’re ready to start using the Formula Builder.

Select Formula Builder from the toolbar along the top of your Excel sheet.

From the top of the formula builder, find the formula you want by typing it into the Search field bar. Once located, click on the formula you want to use.

After clicking on the formula you want to use, check that it references the correct entity from the Entity Id section. You can do this by manually entering the entity’s name (company, investor, etc.), searching for the entity’s ticker or PBid, or referencing a cell in your workbook with the ticker or PBid. We recommend using cell referencing if you’re creating a template or list.

In addition to the entity you’re referencing, you need to tell the formula builder what time period you want to pull data from. For example, if you want to pull Total Revenue for the Fiscal Year of 2021 for a company, you would also need to select FY from the Period drop-down in the Period type section.

To specify the date, you should type “2021Y” in the Period box in the Date section. The “Y” at the end of the year tells the Formula Builder to pull data from the past Fiscal Year. If you wanted to pull data from a different time, like Q3 of 2021, you would write “2021Q3.”

Select which as of date logic you want to use by choosing an option from the Available as of drop-down menu. You can choose from the following options:

• TTM stands for Trailing Twelve Months, meaning it sums up the company’s revenue for the last 12 months.
• Financial data is usually reported quarterly (every 3 months).

For example:

• You want Amazon’s TTM Total Revenue as of December 15, 2023.
• However, Amazon’s Q3 2023 financial statement is used to calculate it, even though that statement might not have been officially available on December 15 yet.
• This means the data source “looks ahead” and uses the most recent quarterly data it has, even if it wasn’t technically published by your specific date.

Key point:

When you ask for “as of” a certain date, the system might use data from the latest available quarter rather than strictly sticking to what was published by that exact day.

You can show your data in Units, Thousands, Millions, or Billions. You can also choose to have your data displayed in either of our six preset currencies or the Native Currency of the companies you’re pulling data from.

In this example, because we’re pulling data from large companies in America, we will select “Billions” from the Show data in drop-down and “United States Dollars, USD” from the Currency drop-down.

Once you have your formula, you are ready to insert it into your worksheet. Click the Add Formula button to insert your formula. If applicable, point out which direction you want your data to be listed in the Insert values section before pressing the Add Formula button.

If you have a list of PBIDs or Ticker Symbols being referenced by cell, you can drag the bottom right corner of the cell where you inserted the formula to pull the data for all the entities at once. Your data will appear in the place you specified in your worksheet.

The Template Library contains a comprehensive collection of fully developed tearsheets, comparative analysis models, charts, and additional resources. These templates simplify the setup process, eliminating the need for you to build any formulas from scratch.

Within the templates, pre-existing formulas reference cells using the PitchBook identifier (PBId), the name, or the ticker of the entity for which you require data. 

The Template Library is located in the PitchBook toolbar at the top of your Excel sheet.

• Click on Template Library or the caret to open a window listing all templates created by PitchBook.
• Select Open Template Library to view PitchBook’s extensive list of ready-to-use templates.
• Once a template is selected, it opens in a new Excel window, ready for customization.

After opening a template, cells highlighted in yellow indicate that you can edit them according to your own specifications. An important field to edit is the identifier cell, which specifies the company, investor, deal, or another entity for which you seek information. Identifier cells accept PitchBook Identifiers (PBIds), names, and tickers.

Alternatively, upload any of your previous templates from the Template Library and continue to build out your sheets using PitchBook data.

1. To do that, tap Template Library from your Excel toolbar and choose Upload Template.

2. Apply a template name, privacy settings, description and then select Browse to find your template.

Enhance your presentation by using the Chart Builder in the PitchBook Excel Plugin to create multi-axis charts. This tool enables you to generate company indices, track company valuations over time, and benchmark stock price history.

To get started, click on the Chart Builder button in the top PitchBook ribbon of the Excel Plugin. A window will open on the right of the page where you enter your chart criteria.

Read below the different charting options you can apply to your chart to view the data in a way that’s relevant to you.

1. Select Chart Data Type to choose the data categorization for your charts.
2. Choose Currency from the drop-down.
3. Add companies to your chart by tapping the Add button at the bottom of the chart. You can add by the company name, ticker symbol or PBid.
4. The Add option also allows you to create custom indices and select a weighting method: Equal, Price, or Market Cap weighted.
5. Benchmark your chart against a standard index by adding an index to compare.
6. Load and view charts on new Excel tabs and edit settings at any time via Edit Chart in the builder menu.

To understand how this feature fits into a broader workflow, check out PitchBook Pioneer’s course – Public Comps Analysis.