The last decade has shifted the way private capital dealmakers approach opportunities. We saw an increase in dealmaking during the pandemic, followed by a rapid retreat as interest rates rose. Because of this the bar for what constituted a high-quality deal got a lot higher, and closing those high-quality deals became more competitive.
In the wake of these changes, dealmakers need more than just CRM data—which often becomes stale and incomplete—to make strategic decisions that help them identify the best deals, and keep the deal cycle moving. The key to making better data-driven decisions? Data enrichment.
Data enrichment surfaces actionable data and relationship insights to increase the information available to find, progress, and close deals.
In this guide, you’ll discover the impact that CRM data enrichment can have on deal teams, and explore 8 tools that enhance data insights and elevate the dealmaking process.
Key takeaways
- Incomplete data in CRMs can lead to inefficiencies, wasted resources, and poor decision-making.
- CRM data enrichment enhances decision-making by providing deal teams with unified, accurate data from external sources.
- Enriched data is a powerful tool for dealmakers that can be used throughout the entire dealmaking process.
- Affinity is a CRM data enrichment tool designed for the unique business needs of private capital firms.
What is CRM data enrichment?
Customer relationship management data enrichment, or CRM data enrichment, is the process of elevating the quality of your existing contact data.
There are two ways you can approach data enrichment:
- Data appending, which brings together multiple data sources, including third-party data, and appends them to your existing CRM database. The result is a unified dataset with additional data points and attributes that offer a more complete contact profile.
- Data cleansing, which removes obsolete and inaccurate data to reduce contact profile errors and identify incomplete data points. This increase in data hygiene reduces informational gaps that delay or can block the dealmaking process altogether.
A CRM with enriched data consolidates all available relationship insights, contact information, and deal intelligence to surface a complete dataset that deal teams can use to drive deals forward.
How incomplete data can affect your CRM efficiency
A CRM system is only as useful as the data it houses. Without data enrichment, dealmakers often face fragmented, incorrect, or even absent records. This forces them to spend valuable time tracking down and validating information—instead of working on deals.
Dirty data not only hinders your team’s ability to nurture relationships and successfully close deals; it can render your CRM unusable.
Incomplete customer data risks harming your firm's reputation
Successful private capital deals are built on relationships. Incomplete datasets make it challenging for deal teams to easily understand the full picture of their relationships, particularly in collaborative pipelines.
When wires get crossed, dealmakers risk sounding ill-informed and out of touch with the intricacies of each deal. This compromises carefully built relationships, tarnishes your firm's reputation, and puts prospective deals in jeopardy.
Incomplete data leads to bad decisions
Data requires context in order to be useful.
A CRM with siloed and raw data is unusable until it’s processed into actionable insights that dealmakers can use to make data-driven decisions. When dealmakers attempt to parse out this fragmented and unorganized data without additional context or fail to recognize the missing pieces, it can be the difference between closing and losing a deal.
Deal decisions made with incomplete information often lead to inefficiencies and pursuing deals with a low likelihood of success. This wastes resources and causes missed opportunities.
Incomplete data costs your business time and money
Visibility into founder or LP profiles, current pipelines, and prospective deals is critical for closing deals as efficiently as possible.
Inconsistent and incomplete information makes it difficult—if not impossible—to create effective workflows. Limited data sets force dealmakers to spend valuable time threading together various sources of information to move deals forward. The process of sourcing and validating company and contact information creates delays in the deal pipeline while simultaneously pulling deals teams away from sourcing more high-quality deals.
What are the benefits of enriching your CRM data?
All firms collect data. However, enriching that data is what makes the insights valuable to a deal team. When dealmakers have access to clean and richer contact profiles, it becomes a powerful tool they can use throughout the entire dealmaking process.
Data enrichment helps dealmakers manage and close deals faster
Unified data removes the need for compiling and sourcing accurate information. It frees up dealmakers so they can focus on finding and closing deals.
Enriched data improves decision-making in private capital firms by providing comprehensive, accurate insights into investments, relationships, and market trends, enabling more informed and timely decisions. Robust relationship insights give dealmakers the confidence to shortlist deals quickly and identify new opportunities with ease.
Automated data enrichment boosts adoption of CRM tools
Improve CRM adoption, close more deals. It’s simple in theory.
However, an Affinity survey found that 73% of respondents believe that record creation and updates take too much of their team’s time.* When dealmakers are burdened with manual entry, maintaining accurate records quickly becomes a neglected task—particularly in today’s high-velocity private capital environment.
Incomplete and inaccurate records make it difficult for dealmakers to rely on CRM data in the dealmaking process, causing further data deterioration and even lower adoption rates.
Automating the enrichment of data takes the administrative work out of the deal process, turning CRM records into usable data. Data collection and automations give dealmakers easy access to the data they need to source and close more high-quality deals.
Data enrichment unlocks relationship intelligence
Data enrichment extends beyond appending missing contact information, like phone numbers, and key insights through external data sources. Traditional CRMs often neglect to draw out valuable first-party relationship insights. These data points are trapped in inboxes, calendars, notes, one-on-one interactions, and beyond.
Instead of leaving dealmakers to navigate through LinkedIn and existing correspondence, data enriched with all the information dealmakers receive in their inbox each day unlocks hidden relationships that can be used to uncover the warmest paths of introduction—what's called relationship intelligence.
The 8 best data enrichment tools
The need for enhanced decision-making has pushed many private capital firms to adopt innovative CRM tools that offer data enrichment services.
Below are some of the most popular CRM data enrichment tools for private capital.
1. Affinity
Affinity is a CRM data enrichment CRM that helps dealmakers in venture capital, private equity, and others make relationship-driven decisions when managing deals. In addition to automatically creating and updating CRM records, Affinity goes beyond basic enrichment capabilities by delivering network and relationship insights to help uncover warm intros and new opportunities.
Key features
- Automatic data enrichment to enable better deal sourcing.Affinity’s automatic data enrichment process augments records with relevant data, including biographic and firmographic data.
- Enriched relationship data to find and close more deals. Affinity’s AI-powered relationship intelligence insights help dealmakers understand the strength of every relationship within their firm's shared network. Access engagement history and relationship scores right within Affinity to find warm introductions to leads, identify opportunities, and close deals up to 25% faster.
- Chrome extension reduces context-switching. Affinity’s Chrome extension, Pathfinder, delivers relationship intelligence, business insights about potential investments, and the ability to update the Affinity CRM all from the same web browser.
- AI-powered tools to improve efficiency. With the help of Affinity’s proprietary AI tools, firms can become more productive and streamlined.
- Deal assist is a conversational interface that lets you ask questions and provides answers based on your notes, transcripts, research, and attachments, saving you from searching through data to find an answer.
- Activity capture syncs with your email and meeting calendar, and automatically updates your CRM so you can capture data consistently and continuously.
- Affinity Notetaker joins you in your virtual meetings to create concise meeting notes and next steps so you don’t have to.
- Industry Insights uses Affinity’s proprietary data covering thousands of private and public companies to surface a list of companies that match specific criteria.
- Automated data entry saves valuable time. Automated record creation and engagement activity updates allows teams to reallocate 200+ hours every year while keeping data clean and accessible.
Pros
- Full view of every relationship across your organization right within your CRM—no additional tools needed.
- Affinity insights and automations are available directly in your inbox and browser, enabling dealteams to access and update records seamlessly without having to open any additional tools.
- User-friendly experience makes accessing clean, enriched data seamless for deal teams.
- Firms using Salesforce can seamlessly integrate these insights into their existing CRM with Affinity for Salesforce.
- Affinity was designed to meet the unique use cases of deals teams in private capital.
Cons
- Unique relationship intelligence insights can be a learning curve for dealmakers who are new to relationship-driven deal management.
Pricing
- Starting at $2,000 per user/per year.
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2. Dealcloud
Dealcloud provides business management solutions for professional services firms including investment banking and other private capital industries. One of its software solutions is a CRM that includes a data enrichment platform. The CRM integrates with external sources to provide users with deeper insights about clients, prospects, and the overall market.
Key features
- Private capital CRM with data enrichment. Dealcloud’s CRM integrates external data to enrich profiles, providing real-time insights for better investment.
- Enhanced risk management. Dealcloud enhances risk and compliance efforts by enriching internal data with external sources to improve due diligence and regulatory adherence.
Pros
- Streamline business processes like client management, risk assessment, and compliance.
Cons
- Dealcloud’s solutions can require significant time and resources to implement, especially for large firms with complex tech stacks in place.
- Users may face a steep learning curve when trying to learn the features and functionality of the platform. Proper training is recommended.
3. Meridian
Meridian is an AI-powered CRM that aims to improve business operations for those in the private markets. It takes raw, unstructured data and turns it into actionable insights that can be used to drive business strategy and growth.
Key features
- AI data enrichment. Meridian gathers insights from external sources like LinkedIn profiles and public databases, and incorporates the data into business processes.
- Automation to improve efficiency. By automating the process of data extraction and enrichment, Meridian enables firms to efficiently process company data.
Pros
- Using advanced AI ensures that data processed and enriched with Meridian is accurate and high quality data.
Cons
- Integrating Meridian into existing systems requires time, technical expertise and resources to ensure a smooth adoption.
- The effectiveness of Meridian’s AI enrichment relies on data quality—if poor-quality data is entered it can lead to less useful insights.
4. HubSpot
HubSpot is a CRM platform that can help private capital firms manage relationships with investors, portfolio companies, and prospects. It was not designed specifically for private capital firms, but has the tools needed to help streamline operations, track deal flow, and nurture relationships. It also has everything you need to support your marketing efforts.
Key features
- Track and manage investment opportunities. HubSpot helps manage deal flow, by organizing and monitoring deals, ensuring follow-ups are conducted with potential investment opportunities.
- Integrates with external data for enrichment. HubSpot pulls in valuable insights such as company name, financial metrics, and social media activity about potential investments to create a complete view of the company they’re working with.
Pros
- Improve communication and relationship building by organizing all company communications in the HubSpot CRM.
Cons
- HubSpot was not designed for the unique business needs of private capital firms.
- Although HubSpot offers customization options, some may find its flexibility limited compared to other platforms.
5. Clearbit
Clearbit helps organizations access more complete CRM data records by providing real-time data enrichment and data sourcing services through public, proprietary data, and language learning models (LLMs).
Key features
- Data sourcing for more comprehensive CRM data. Clearbit accesses over 250 public and private data sources to update CRM records and customer contact information.
- Lead scores and intent data to find opportunities. Identify high-fit leads and route them to the right reps for efficient deal management.
Pros
- Access global data with 100+ firmographic, demographic, and technographic attributes.
Cons
- Users have reported limited accuracy and availability of certain data points and contact information.
- Limited to no relationship insights for dealmakers to find warm leads and identify opportunities.
6. FullContact
FullContact is a CRM platform designed to support individuals and companies with unified contact management. The FullContact Enrich product provides teams access to a data ecosystem that fills the gaps in their existing CRM data.
Key features
- Individual and company-level insights: Access to thousands of personal and professional data attributes to target prospects based on certain personas.
Pros
- Outreach efforts can improve with detailed prospect data ranging from the consumer to the company level.
- Teams can call insights into existing CRM platforms with FullContact API integrations.
Cons
- Users have reported limited matches for certain types of data reducing the quality of data.
- Consumer-level data may have limited usefulness for private capital deal teams.
7. Openprise
Openprise is a no-code data orchestration tool designed to help teams organize, filter, and sort through data. Openprise data enrichment synthesizes data across multiple sources to improve data standardization.
Key features
- Open Data Catalog to augment first-party data. Get immediate access to clean and robust data to enrich lead data and customer records to find and source new opportunities.
- Data standardization across multiple external sources. Teams can use Openprise to manage, clean, and unify data across multiple providers simultaneously.
Pros
- Additional data is available for purchase from third-party data providers through Openprise Data Marketplace.
Cons
- New users may find the platform and interface to navigate. Additional training may be required.
8. ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is a popular database that helps teams get the data for outbound deal sourcing.
Top features
- Access a robust database. Get access to an extensive database, including firmographics, technographics, including company size, job titles, and contact information for key decision-makers within organizations.
- An entire suite of prospecting tools in one platform. ZoomInfo has a suite of additional tools to support the dealmaking process including conversation intelligence, engagement, and data orchestration.
Pros
- Various levels of data enrichment services to meet your firm's needs.
Cons
- A lack of relationship intelligence insights limits dealmakers’ ability to prioritize and find deals within your firm's shared network.
- Users have reported instances of inaccurate or obsolete data.
The CRM data enrichment tool for private capital firms
Move beyond the limitations of traditional CRMs with the CRM designed for the unique needs of private capital firms. Affinity brings together real-time automation, relationship intelligence, advanced analytics, and data enrichment right where you work.
Designed to drive deals and foster better collaboration, Affinity helps you manage your network effortlessly. Quickly uncover the best introductions and ensure you never miss out on an important opportunity.
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CRM data enrichment FAQs
What’s the importance of CRM data enrichment?
CRM data enrichment provides deal teams with a holistic view of their pipelines and contacts. Enriched data enhances the information and insights available to dealmakers, allowing them to close more high-quality deals faster.
Low-quality and incomplete data leaves dealmakers stuck sourcing and validating contact information. It creates wasted resources and hinders the ability of deals teams to close deals effectively.
How does CRM data enrichment benefit private capital firms?
CRM data enrichment benefits private capital firms by integrating external data sources into their CRM systems, improving data management, and providing more accurate, actionable insights for identifying investment opportunities, managing relationships, and making informed decisions.
Can CRM data enrichment improve decision-making for VC firms?
Yes, CRM data enrichment improves decision-making for venture capital and private equity firms by enabling CRM integration with external data sources, providing relevant information that enhances investment analysis, relationship management, and strategic planning.
How does CRM data enrichment help with risk management in private capital firms?
CRM data enrichment helps with risk management in private capital firms by integrating external sources of accurate data into their systems, allowing for better identification of potential risks and improving the assessment of investment opportunities.
* Data from Affinity’s 2024 survey of 250+ business leaders across investment banking, media and communications, real estate, professional services, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and enterprise technology.
