Merrill DataSite
When using the Merrill data room, what immediately jumps out is that it is intended for large enterprises who are engaged in extremely complex projects or transactions. This is reflected in their pricing plans. However, if you were hoping to try out the Merrill data room before buying a plan, there is no free trial available. Also, there are no live training available, so it is almost as if they want you to buy a super expensive product that has a lot of question marks surrounding it and without a flexible pricing plan, you could get locked into an expensive price that could really hurt the entire project.
The Merrill VDR has a long history dating back to 1967 and compliments other services that Merrill provides. The Merrill datasite will be able to take a load of handling content off your shoulders and delegate this responsibility to Merill datasite so that you can focus on all of the nuances that come with running your business. They do their absolute best to provide the best interaction and collaboration between both internal and external teams and this is really evident when having to handle complex projects that require a lot of data.
“The reports Merrill data room offers were the key feature that attracted us to this provider. They’re very detailed and informative, and the information is laid out in an appealing and understandable way. We’re often using these reports as a part of our board meetings to see what we can improve.”
However, it appears that you would be able to enjoy all of the benefits that data room software in conjunction with other software that Merrill offers Bridge, Connect, and DPA. This really makes it much more expensive than other data room providers because the electronic data room is expensive all by itself, not to mention the abundance of other tools that you are forced to pay for, regardless of whether you will be needing them or not. Therefore, be sure to come up with a list of exactly what you will be needing besides a data room, then it would be better to shop for other virtual data rooms that will provide with the services that you actually need.
Also, customization is virtually nonexistent in the Merrill datasite. There are no custom domains, agreements for accessing the data room, active directory integration or integration through APIs. If you are fine with conforming to what Merrill offers, then there will not be any problems, but if you are looking to customize the data room or access it through an iOS or Android application you will run into many problems since these services are not supported.
Features Checklist:
| Bankruptcy | yes |
| Biotech Licensing | yes |
| Board Portals | no |
| Clinical Studies | no |
| Debt Financing | yes |
| Distressed Real Estate | no |
| Document Repository | yes |
| Due Diligence | yes |
| Fundraising | yes |
| Hedge Funds | no |
| IPO & Exits | yes |
| Litigation | yes |
| M&A Buy Side | yes |
| M&A Sell Side | yes |
| Post Merger | no |
| Private Equity | yes |
| Procurement Management | no |
| Restructuring | no |
| File Formats Supported | Any file types can be uploaded. PDF and MS Office files can be viewed, any other file types must be downloaded to view |
| Automatic Numerical Indexing of Files & Folders | yes |
| Drag & Drop Upload of Multiple Files and Folders | yes |
| Desktop Synchronization | no |
| Archives Upload & Extraction | no |
| Export of Data Room Index to Excel | yes |
| Document Version Control | no |
| Multilingual Documents Index | no |
| Granular Document Permissions | yes |
| View-Only Access | yes |
| Prevention of Download, Print and Copy | yes |
| Remote Shredding of Documents | no |
| Customizable Document Watermarks | yes |
| Secure Fence View | no |
| Document Access Expiry | no |
| 256-Bit SSL/TLS Encryption | yes |
| Data at Rest Encryption | yes |
| 99.9% Uptime Guarantee | yes |
| ISO 27001 Certified | yes |
| SOC 2 Certified | no |
| SSAE 16 Certified | no |
| Data Backup | yes |
| Virus Scanning | no |
| Two-Factor Authentications | yes |
| Mobile Device Management | yes |
| Granular User Permissions | yes |
| Permission Groups | yes |
| Access Expiration | yes |
| Access Limitation by IP Address | no |
| No Plugins | no |
| Scroll-Through Web-Based Document Viewer | yes |
| Web-Based Excel Spreadsheets Viewer | yes |
| iOS Application | no |
| Android Application | no |
| Mobile Device Interface | no |
| User Interface Languages | English |
| Search by Name | yes |
| Search by Content (Full Text Search) | yes |
| OCR (Optical Character Recognition) | no |
| Filtering by Parameters | no |
| Basic Questions & Answers Module | no |
| Advanced Questions & Answers Module | no |
| Secure User Messaging | no |
| New Document Email Notifications | yes |
| Files & Folders Notes | no |
| Tracking of All User Activity | yes |
| Real-Time Audit Trail | yes |
| Graphic Reports | no |
| Exporting Reports to Excel | yes |
| Tracking of Document Viewing Time | yes |
| Scheduled Reports (Sending to Email) | no |
| Branded User Interface | yes |
| Custom Domain | no |
| Custom Login Page | no |
| Custom User Invitation Letter | yes |
| Custom Agreements for Accessing Data Room | no |
| Active Directory Integration | no |
| Single Sign-On Integration | no |
| Customer-Managed Encryption Keys | no |
| Integrations Through APIs | no |
| Custom Workflows and Features | no |
| Business Hours Support | yes |
| 24/7 Email Support | yes |
| 24/7 Phone & Email Support | yes |
| Online Help Center | no |
| Live Trainings | no |
| Dedicated Project Manager | no |
| Data Room Archive on DVD or USB Drive | yes |
| Translation Services | no |
| Support Languages | English |
| Cloud (Web-Based) | yes |
| On-Premise (Installed) | no |
| Multiple Datacenter Locations | yes |
| Free Demo | yes |
| Free Trial | 14-day trial |
| Price | ANNUAL: $200/month, 3 MONTH PLAN: $300/month, 1 MONTH PLAN: $400/month |
| Established | 2012 |
| Locations | United States |
| Employees | no data |
| Clients | LogicMonitor, AppScale Systems, AcuFocus, Inc., PlantForm, Sovance, LLC, Strategic Finance, Tracon Pharmaceuticals, Ansible Works, Clean Diesel Technologies, Lastline, Inc, Inogen, The Corum Group, Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth |
Financial Engineer
My company uses Merrill dataroom to keep all documents online, accessible and well-structured. So far, the service does this job perfectly well. We didn’t use it for deals yet, but I think, it will work fine during due diligence or some other process.
Equity Director
We’re using DataSite Diligence for a year now, and we’re satisfied with it. The service works for us and provides us with all the functions we need. The only issue we’ve encountered is the search that doesn’t seem to work properly. Hopefully, they will fix it soon.
Lawyer
Merrill datasite is a solid data room that can support the activity of my quite large company. We find it easy to use, and our partners don’t have problems using it as well. The VDR is always available and we didn’t encounter any downtimes yet.
Investor
We use Merrill DataSite for due diligence and internal data management. It’s a decent data room that offers essential features. It makes the processes that involve documents much easier. This provider is not as customizable as we’d want it to be, but that’s not a big deal for us.
Administrative Director
Merrill dataroom made it simple for us to exchange documents with our partners. Now our repository is organized and easy to access. We didn’t use this app for anything more than the data exchange so far. But at this point, it fits our needs.
Fundraising Assistant
We like Merrill data room for how much it simplifies the work with corporate data. Now we don’t have to struggle trying to find a single document or upload a file in a specific format. We’ve used this software for a deal only once so far, and the process went successfully for us.