With growing competition and a challenging macroeconomic climate, private capital deals have become increasingly difficult to close. Dealmakers need more than just CRM data—which often becomes stale and incomplete—to make strategic decisions that 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 progress and close deals.
In this guide, you’ll discover the impact that CRM data enrichment can have on deal teams, and explore 10 tools that enhance data insights and elevate the dealmaking process.
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 incorrect and obsolete 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 doing deals.
Dirty data not only hinders your team’s ability to nurture relationships and string together successful 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 deals at play. 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 deal decisions. When dealmakers attempt to parse out this fragmented and unorganized data without additional context or fail to recognize the missing pieces, it can create a distorted view of firm and deal team performance. Deal decisions made with misleading 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 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 also elevates decision-making. Comprehensive datasets offer context on intent and previous interactions, empowering dealmakers to better understand who they’re talking to. 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, a recent 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 customer data. Data collection and automations give dealmakers easy access to the data they need to source and close more high-quality deals.
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Data enrichment unlocks relationship intelligence
Data enrichment extends beyond appending missing contact information 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, customer interactions, and beyond.
Data exhaust is already created by teams in the platforms and tools they use every day. Instead of leaving dealmakers to navigate through LinkedIn and existing correspondence, data enriched with this ‘exhaust’ unlocks hidden relationships that can be used to uncover the warmest paths of introduction—what's called relationship intelligence.
The 10 best CRM 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 solution that helps private capital dealmakers 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.
Top 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.
- Automated data entry makes sourcing deals more efficient. Automated record creation and engagement activity updates save teams 200+ hours every year while keeping data clean and accessible.
- Browser and inbox extensions improve CRM adoption. View prospect and deal insights and create new CRMs records throughout the deals process—from wherever dealmakers are working, whether it’s LinkedIn, their browser, or their inbox.
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 CRMs with Affinity for Salesforce.
Cons
- Unique relationship intelligence insights can be a learning curve for dealmakers who are new to relationship-driven deal management.
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2. 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).
Top 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.
3. Demandbase
Demandbase Account Intelligence, previously known as InsideView, is a CRM cleansing and enrichment tool that helps teams keep their data accurate and up-to-date.
Top features
- Prospect and customer watch lists to monitor opportunities. Keep prospective companies and contacts on your radar with daily or weekly email alerts.
- Family connections to help identify decision-makers. Access key professional connections and understand dynamics in your network that can help find and close deals.
Pros
- Deep insights, including firmographics, technographics, and segmentation to help teams understand prospects and reach the right external partners.
Cons
- Users have reported that insights and data can be difficult to navigate.
- Limited insights regarding relationship strength to pinpoint the best connections to generate pipeline.
4. 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.
Top features
- Individual and company-level insights: Access to thousands of personal and professional data attributes to target prospects based on certain personas.
Pros
- Improve outreach efforts 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.
5. 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.
Top 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.
6. Leadspace
By unifying data across multiple sources, Leadspace’s platform simplifies the deal cycle by better matching, scoring, and routing leads.
Top features
- Unify and enrich sales and marketing data on demand. Discover closeable opportunities by leveraging multiple sources of internal and external data with Leadspace’s The Graph. Teams can validate and enrich records on-demand with access to 30 third-party data sources.
Pros
- Data management tools shape and segment contact insights according to standard or personalized profiles.
- APIs make it easy to integrate first-party data and update records into your existing CRM system.
Cons
- Data sourcing and enrichment services rely on directly available third-party data sources, such as ZoomInfo.
- Engagement and intent data fail to consider the dynamics of the people involved. This impacts how effectively deal teams can use existing relationships in their network.
7. LeadGenius
LeadGenius is a lead generation platform that helps teams connect with the right contacts through data enrichment and personalized data sets.
Top features
- Personalized datasets designed to reach targets and revenue goals: LeadGenius generates unique datasets based on custom parameters—enriching existing data while reducing data overlap with competitors.
Pros
- Improve workflows by integrating LeadGenius directly with existing CRM and engagement platforms.
Cons
- Users have reported receiving outdated or irrelevant leads.
- Fewer use cases for broad private capital dealmaking.
8. UpLead
Build better prospecting lists with Uplead’s database. UpLead puts teams in front of their ideal contacts by providing verified and accurate data for over 140 million B2B contacts.
Top features
- Extensive data enrichment. Append over 50 data points to your existing contact data.
- Real-time email verification to secure real leads. Avoid dead contacts with a verification process that helps ensure you’re connecting with real leads.
Pros
- Only pay for verified data matches to reduce resource waste.
Cons
- Users have reported lower-than-expected levels of accuracy with certain data attributes, particularly related to phone number data.
9. ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is a popular database that helps teams get the data for outbound teams.
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.
10. Leandata
Close deals faster with revenue and data orchestration from Leandata. Improve the external partner experience and generate pipeline faster by routing deals to the right people.
Top features
- Precision data matching. Automated lead-to-account matching closes deals faster while preventing duplicate records and providing immediate visibility of record matches—eliminating the need for additional research and data cleaning.
Pros
- Robust data cleansing that maintains data quality while accelerating the dealmaking cycle.
Cons
- Services specific to data sourcing or data appending are limited. Comprehensive data enrichment requires layering on additional third-party tools.
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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 data enrichment impact your customer data?
Data enrichment impacts contact data by enhancing the accuracy and the number of data points you have for each contact. CRM data enrichment services can automatically update and append additional information, including:
- Flagging duplicate records
- Inputting missing contact fields
- Adding new data attributes
- Surfacing relationship history and context
Data enrichment improves the quality of data available to dealmakers so they can build better relationships and close deals efficiently.
Can data enrichment improve the customer experience?
Data enrichment improves the customer experience by equipping dealmakers with the insights to tailor messaging, funds, and more based on the external party's needs and pain points.
Comprehensive relationship, interaction, and deal insights reduce the likelihood of miscommunications within deal teams—eliminating redundancies and creating a seamless dealmaking experience.
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