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Virtual Vaults (Drooms) is a European VDR built for real estate and M&A — but it requires sales contact, lengthy onboarding, and project-based pricing. Peony is a modern data room with screenshot protection, dynamic watermarks, NDA gating, and page-by-page analytics that you can set up yourself.Set up in under 5 minutes. No sales call required.
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Side-by-side comparison
Virtual Vaults (Drooms) is a European virtual data room focused on real estate and M&A in the DACH region. Peony is a complete virtual data room with analytics, security, and AI built in — designed for fundraising, M&A, and investor relations worldwide.
PeonyWhy teams switch from Virtual Vaults to Peony
Virtual Vaults was built as a traditional European VDR with sales-driven onboarding. Modern deal teams need self-serve data rooms with granular security, real-time analytics, and AI-powered document intelligence — without waiting for a sales call.
Self-serve setup
Virtual Vaults requires contacting sales, scheduling demos, and going through onboarding. Peony lets you create your first data room in under 5 minutes — sign up, upload documents, and share a secure link immediately.
Screenshot protection
Virtual Vaults has no screenshot protection. Anyone who opens your documents can capture and forward them. Peony blocks screen captures, adds dynamic watermarks, and gates access behind NDAs to keep your deal documents confidential.
AI document chat
Peony lets investors and partners ask questions about your documents and get instant AI-powered answers around the clock. Virtual Vaults offers no document intelligence — viewers are left to read everything on their own.
Transparent pricing
Virtual Vaults charges EUR 3,000 to EUR 15,000 per project with no public pricing. Peony offers a free plan ($0) with transparent per-admin pricing. Pro ($20/admin/mo) gives you 200 GB with password protection and e-signatures. Business ($40/admin/mo) unlocks data rooms, watermarks, screenshot protection, and AI — no hidden costs.
Pricing comparison
Peony gives you page-by-page analytics on every plan. The Business plan ($40/admin/mo) adds data rooms, screenshot protection, dynamic watermarks, and AI document chat. Virtual Vaults charges thousands per project with no self-serve option.
Peony
Free
$0
2 GB storage, per-page analytics
Pro
$20/admin/mo
200 GB storage
Business
$40/admin/mo
1 TB storage
Analytics on every plan. Pro adds e-signatures. Business adds data rooms, screenshot protection, watermarks, NDA gating, and AI chat.
Virtual Vaults
Custom Quote
EUR 3K-15K/project
Requires sales contact
Enterprise
Custom
Volume licensing for large organizations
No free tier. No self-serve signup. No public pricing. No screenshot protection. No AI features. No dynamic watermarks.
When to use each platform
Virtual Vaults works for large European enterprises with dedicated deal teams and procurement budgets. Peony is the better choice when you need a fast, affordable, and AI-powered data room for any deal size.
Choose Virtual Vaults when you need
A traditional European VDR with DACH-region compliance
Sales-assisted onboarding with dedicated account management
Large-scale real estate portfolio transactions in Europe
Enterprise procurement processes with custom contracts
Choose Peony when you need
A secure data room for fundraising, M&A, or due diligence
Page-by-page analytics to see exactly which documents investors care about
Screenshot protection, dynamic watermarks, and NDA gating to protect confidential deal documents
AI document chat so investors get instant answers without waiting for your team
Built-in e-signatures for NDAs, term sheets, and closing documents
Self-serve setup with a free tier — no sales call, no credit card
What Peony gives you that Virtual Vaults does not
Stop unauthorized screenshots of your deal documents
Virtual Vaults has no screenshot protection. Anyone who opens your documents can capture every page and forward it. Peony blocks screen captures and stamps every page with the viewer's identity and timestamp — so if a document leaks, you know exactly who shared it.
Screenshot protection
Block screen captures of sensitive documents. Virtual Vaults has no equivalent — once a document is viewed, it can be screenshotted freely.
Dynamic watermarks
Every page stamped with the viewer's email and timestamp. Trace the source of any leak instantly — Virtual Vaults offers only static watermarks that cannot identify the viewer.
NDA-gated access
Require investors to sign an NDA before they see a single page. Built-in e-signatures make it seamless — no separate signing tool needed.
Know exactly which pages your investors care about
Virtual Vaults provides basic activity logs showing who accessed the data room. Peony shows you which pages were read, how long each investor spent per page, and their total viewing time. Prioritize your follow-up calls based on real engagement data, not guesswork.
Let investors ask questions and get instant answers
Virtual Vaults has no AI capabilities. Peony's AI document chat lets investors and partners ask questions about your data room and receive instant, accurate answers pulled directly from your documents — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Close deals faster by removing information bottlenecks.
"Not often I make recommendations, but I started using Peony to share presentations etc with external people. It works so well & makes us look really organized."
Anthony Gale
Founder & CEO, PromoLens
Frequently asked questions
Is Peony a good Virtual Vaults alternative for European M&A transactions?
Yes. Peony gives European sell-side advisors and M&A teams a modern data room with page-by-page analytics on every plan so you can track which bidders are seriously engaged with your CIM and diligence files. The Business plan ($40/admin/mo) adds screenshot protection, dynamic watermarks, NDA gating, and controlled redaction — everything a Benelux or pan-European sell-side process requires. Virtual Vaults (Drooms) is a legacy European VDR that requires sales contact, lengthy onboarding, and project-based pricing typically ranging from EUR 3,000 to EUR 15,000 per mandate. Peony delivers the same security with self-serve setup in under 5 minutes.
How does Peony pricing compare to Virtual Vaults for sell-side M&A advisory?
Peony starts free ($0) with 2 GB of storage. The Pro plan is $20 per admin per month (200 GB) and adds password protection and e-signatures for NDAs and engagement letters. Business is $40 per admin per month (1 TB) and includes data rooms, screenshot protection, dynamic watermarks, NDA gating, controlled redaction, and AI document chat — everything a sell-side advisor needs for a competitive auction. Virtual Vaults uses custom project-based pricing, typically EUR 3,000 to EUR 15,000 per mandate, with no free tier and no self-serve option. For a mid-market M&A advisor running three concurrent sell-side mandates, Peony Business costs $480 per year versus EUR 9,000 to EUR 45,000 on Virtual Vaults.
Does Peony work for European real estate and cross-border M&A deals?
Yes. Peony is built for cross-border deal workflows — exactly the European real estate transactions and M&A due diligence processes that Virtual Vaults targets. Sell-side advisors in the Benelux, DACH, and Nordics use Peony to distribute CIMs, financial models, and property portfolios to international bidder groups. Every plan includes page-by-page analytics. The Business plan ($40/admin/mo) adds data rooms with separate bidder-group permissions, screenshot protection, dynamic watermarks, NDA gating, controlled redaction, and AI document chat — with self-serve setup in under 5 minutes and no geographic restrictions. GDPR compliance is built into every tier.
Does Peony have better security than Virtual Vaults for M&A due diligence?
Peony includes screenshot protection, dynamic watermarks, and NDA gating on the Business plan ($40/admin/mo). For M&A due diligence, this means every bidder is blocked from capturing your CIM, financial models, or management presentations, and dynamic watermarks trace any leak back to the individual viewer — critical when sharing materials with multiple bidder groups in a competitive auction. Every plan includes AES-256 encryption, 2FA, link expiry, and per-page analytics so your sell-side team knows which bidders reviewed which sections. The Pro plan adds password protection, and the Business plan adds controlled redaction to permanently black out sensitive financial figures, customer names, or employee PII before sharing with early-stage bidders — all backed by TLS 1.3 in transit on SOC 2-ready, GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA compliant infrastructure. Virtual Vaults provides standard VDR security but does not offer screenshot protection or dynamic watermarking.
Does Peony have AI features for M&A workflows that Virtual Vaults lacks?
Yes. Peony includes AI document chat that lets bidders ask questions about your CIM, financial models, and diligence files and receive instant, cited answers — reducing the volume of buyer questions your sell-side team fields during a competitive process. Peony also provides Smart Q&A, a structured 4-step workflow where bidders submit questions, AI drafts answers from your documents, your advisory team reviews, and approved responses are published — keeping the sell-side in control of every disclosure. Peony's auto-indexing applies OCR to scanned contracts and builds a full-text search index automatically, so bidders find what they need without emailing your deal team. Virtual Vaults has no AI document intelligence capabilities.
How fast can a sell-side M&A team set up Peony compared to Virtual Vaults?
Peony is designed for self-serve setup — a sell-side M&A team can create its first data room in under 5 minutes with a median setup time of 4 minutes 19 seconds. Sign up, upload your CIM and diligence files, configure bidder-group permissions and NDA gating, and share a branded link with your bidder list. When a mandate moves fast, your data room is live the same day. Virtual Vaults requires contacting their sales team, going through a demo process, negotiating project-based pricing, and completing onboarding — a process that can take days or weeks and stall your deal timeline.
Can I use Peony instead of Virtual Vaults for due diligence?
Yes. Peony provides everything a sell-side advisor needs for due diligence data rooms: unlimited folder structures organized by diligence category (financial, legal, tax, commercial), granular bidder-group permissions so each buyer only sees authorized materials, page-by-page analytics that show which bidders are seriously engaged, screenshot protection, dynamic watermarks, NDA gating, AI document chat for instant buyer answers, and controlled redaction to black out customer names, revenue figures, or employee PII before sharing with early-stage bidders. Peony also generates AI-powered due diligence checklists tailored to your deal type, tracking uploaded vs missing documents with completeness scoring. Peony supports the same M&A, CRE, and corporate due diligence workflows as Virtual Vaults, with faster setup and transparent pricing.
Can an M&A advisory team migrate from Virtual Vaults to Peony mid-transaction?
Yes. Peony is designed for quick migration — your M&A advisory team can set up a new data room in under 5 minutes, even mid-transaction. Upload your CIM, financial models, and diligence files, configure bidder-group permissions, NDA gating, and dynamic watermarks, and share a branded link with your bidder list. Most sell-side teams complete their Virtual Vaults-to-Peony migration in one session without disrupting bidder access timelines, and without needing to contact a sales team or wait for provisioning.