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FORDATA: Made Document Sharing Simple and Secure

Aleksandra Porębska-Nowak and Aleksandra Prusator, Co-founders and Members of Board, FORDATAAleksandra Porębska-Nowak and Aleksandra Prusator, Co-founders and Members of Board
The real estate industry has traditionally been one of the slowest to adapt to the trends of the digital age. Many from the industry would argue that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digitization wave and pushed PropTech development forward, but there are many stakeholders, slouching back in their shells and not making any attempt at taking the digital transformation route. Still adhering to the legacy approach, they continue to face several unique challenges in their daily operations. One of the prominent issues confronted by the organizations in the real estate space is securing, managing and accessing data, which becomes worse as the amount of information increases. Also, as commercial real estate business involves several people, stringent regulations and strict time limits, a dynamic and secure solution is highly essential to carry out operations smoothly. To help these organizations realize the opportunities that right digital technology can bring and address the data management challenges, FORDATA has developed an intuitive Virtual Data Room (VDR) solution. It is an IT system used for the safe and controlled sharing of confidential documents with other entities, including advisers, auditors, potential investors, and business partners. “Our mission is to fill the technology void in the industry and help organizations across different sectors navigate the change and capitalize digital technology’s full potential. We want to become #1 provider in sensitive file sharing for B2B on every market we serve”, states Aleksandra Prusator, co-founder and Member of Board of FORDATA.

Established in 2009, FORDATA has been instrumental in offering effective ways to share confidential documentation online with third parties for various industry sectors. The company serves various sectors including M&A, commercial real estate, energy, and life sciences, to promote best information security practices among professionals involved in their companies’ strategic projects.

We want to become #1 provider in sensitive file sharing for B2B on every market we serve

“With the help of our online tools, the biggest local and international companies successfully conduct investment processes, audits, financing and other deals,” says Prusator.

Speed, ease, flexibility, and security has been the hallmark of FORDATA’s online tools. Whether it is a single sale of commercial real estate or the implementation of multiple transactions within the project, FORDATA solutions allow real estate companies to optimize data sharing without worrying about the documentation volume, the number of experts involved or how much attention is paid to security. Specifically, the Due Diligence projects in the real estate sector always include large numbers of documents and data. There are .dwg files along other specific file formats shared in these projects, which are large and often unsupported by popular channels. To access and transfer such files quickly and securely, one needs to have a robust system. FORDATA’s system provides the speed to load and read these files comfortably. “Moreover, our system accepts all types of files, so project owners need not worry about the files that need to be sent via other channels, which might bring chaos to the Due Diligence process and slow it down,” explains Prusator.

As an online solution, FORDATA’s VDR allows a significant number of people to work on the project simultaneously. Investors, auditors, and advisors can access documents and files securely from their workplace and communicate within expert groups and with Virtual Data Room administrators from a single location. By securing the transaction and delivering safe and fully controlled exchange of documents, FORDATA’s VDR saves cost and time for customers while conducting due diligence with investors. Real estate agencies also receive detailed reports on the activity in the data room and find out which documents were reviewed and how often, and which investor is most interested in the transaction.

What’s more? FORDATA’s online tools are flexible in terms of system components choice, duration of the project, and changing circumstances. The company also provides clients with an extensive set of documents regarding data compliance, GDPR and data security needed for internal certification of its suppliers.
Furthermore, the company’s 24/7 customer service is worth noting. It is a proactive service; meaning they can predict challenges and offer solutions before some issues take place. Ninety-five per cent of cases are solved instantly by their first line support team, which adds to speed.

"With the help of our online tools, the biggest local and international companies successfully conduct investment processes, audits, financing and other deals"

“With hundreds of finished projects involving users from around the world, we know from experience that speed translates to success in all instances, and our technology and customer support are top-class. Clients’ success proves it,” states Aleksandra Porębska-Nowak, IT Director at FORDATA. To highlight one of the customer success stories, Porębska- Nowak cites a scenario where JSW SA, the largest producer of high-quality hard coking coal in the EU, turned to them to deploy VDR. Although it was an expensive project, there were barely 500 documents to be distributed, but the information control was crucial. Each bank had to be granted a different set of access rights to files. The company feared losing control over data flow and communication via email in this project was merely impossible. FORDATA’s VDR gave them the ability to decide on the level of access to data (i.e. who uses the data and to what extent) and to track the activity of process participants (i.e. who and when downloaded the relevant materials), as well as ensuring the sending of notifications about new documents. The process went smooth, fast and fully secure. “This is what we do, we help people communicate in their super-sensitive projects and if this requires crossing frontiers, we will not stop there,” emphasizes Porębska-Nowak. Unlike big vendors in the USA or UK, FORDATA, as a boutique company, is flexible enough to provide bespoke services with the dedicated help of the team, not just pre-scripted customer support.

With such unparalleled capabilities, an exceptionally bright future awaits FORDATA. Having been in the industry for over 11 years and gaining an in-depth understanding of local markets and global trends, FORDATA strengthens its position as the top Virtual Data Room in CEE & Baltics region. Especially during this coronavirus pandemic, where remote working has become the norm, FORDATA is going extra miles to provide the highest level of data security, no matter the size and type of the enterprise, so companies can safely share confidential data internally and externally.
- Ben Jackson
    October 26, 2020

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FORDATA: First edition of FORDATA CEE Expert Report has been released

FORDATA CEE Expert Report is a new quarterly publication that involves experts in different fields, who periodically share their comments and analyses of trends in the local economies. The first edition of the report has featured experts from Artemis Group, Newton Business Development, PwC, Savills and Colliers International, among others, and is devoted to the notion of security.



According to Aleksandra Prusator, director and co-owner at FORDATA - a virtual data room provider that hosts the report, the publication is meant to be an insider’s attempt at answering questions that have arisen in the CEE region in the unprecedented situation caused by COVID-19. As markets partially collapsed, people lost their jobs and remote trends kick-started, the goal of the report is to collect a varied array of thoughts and commentaries on the CEE economy that will serve as a kaleidoscopic record of market reality, rather than be a periodic, data-centred analysis.



In this way, as it is believed, the report will help build a more relatable and engaging platform for professional dialogue.



Spring this year reminded me of the financial crisis in 2008 and the outcomes for Mergers & Acquisitions market not only in the CEE region. The experience from that time was clear. Lots of promising deals had been cancelled followed by 1-2 years of balancing the gap between the very different price expectations of buyers and sellers. Buyers were looking for a bargain price and sellers were not willing to sell based on the current bad underlying financial results leading to unattractive price conditions. This year’s summer gave me hope that it would be different in the COVID-19-lead crisis. - says Michal Tesar, Partner & Co-founder at Newton Business Development, quoted in the report.



The authors of the report leave a space for guest appearances of many various market professionals - from mergers and acquisitions, to tax, to Real Estate. Such a formula is believed to open new ways for dialogue between regional experts and help promote the CEE markets abroad.



Fear, uncertainty and doubt seem to have ceased in the third quarter of the year to a degree that sparks new hope for recovery in the CEE region. Clearly enough, though, investors and banks are now inclined toward financing assets which are least at risk of closing down, comes the second wave of lockdowns, whereas many sectors still remain non-bankable - comment the authors of the report.



Each edition of the report will focus on a different topical issue, which is common to all Central and Eastern European economies. As security has been chosen as the main topic of the first edition, the authors answer questions such as the way local communities are or aren’t safe, besides the obvious, how investors, advisers and company owners perceive this term today, how the nearest future look from the current perspective of CEE markets, or whether market participants will be able to get used to the new conditions.



The CEE region, as well as other developed regions around the world, is currently affected by recent development of financial markets and by global and national measures and restrictions following the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Till now, the activity on the M&A market in CEE has not seen significant decline. However, a decline in deal numbers and deal volume will be the most likely scenario in the period ahead – comments Torsten Adam, Founder of Atremis Group, who is a featured expert in the report.



FORDATA has prepared detailed quarterly reports on Polish M&A market since 2013. Together with invited experts, we published The Code of Best Transactional Practices and The Code of Best Restructuring Practices as part of our For Better Data Flow campaign in 2015 and 2016.