Data analytics is one of the hottest areas in business these days. Companies are increasingly adopting it to transform human resources, sales and marketing, business development, operations and other areas, across a wide spectrum of industries. The approach holds the promise of more objective decision-making and a stronger bottom line.

But when it comes to the world of private equity it’s a different story, according to Sajjad Jaffer, co-founder of the advisory and investment firm Two Six Capital. He said that when he and Ian Picache started their analytics-based firm in 2013, there had been “no technological innovation in private equity since the invention of the Excel spreadsheet.”

Jaffer and Picache noted that Two Six Capital has pioneered the use of data science in private equity, and to date has been involved in over $27 billion worth of closed private equity transactions. They think of their company as “launching the next wave around data-powered investing.”

They delivered the keynote, “Pardon the Disruption: How Data Analytics Is Revolutionizing Private Equity,” at a recent Wharton Customer Analyticsconference at Wharton San Francisco. Their talk was followed by a panel discussion by veteran private equity professionals from both general partner and limited partner firms.