Affinity is a CRM designed to manage complex deal flow pipelines by automating manual processes like data entry and contact management. By consolidating deal flow management and relationship network management in one place, teams can focus on making new connections and driving new deals without losing track of valuable information.
Our relationship intelligence algorithms and enriched data sets help investment professionals better understand how their team is connected. Let’s take a look at how some of our customers use Affinity to discover new opportunities, gain new insights, and close more deals.
Why venture capital firms choose Affinity for their CRM
There are many reasons why venture capital firms choose Affinity. For Pear Ventures, it was a case of needing relationship intelligence in order to create a network of warm introductions. Affinity enables Market One Capital to pursue portfolio support and management with a people-first approach. For MassMutual Ventures, Affinity's advantage lies in being able to support existing portfolio companies and new deals in one place. Redalpine Ventures uses Affinity to streamline fundraising and investor relations across a global team. And for Sorenson Capital, Affinity's data automation has led to higher CRM adoption and saved time. Continue reading to learn more about all these customer success stories.
Pear Ventures
Founded
2013
Industry
Venture Capital
Website
pear.vc
Pear is an early-stage venture fund founded by Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson. Their co-founding managers have historically seeded very early-stage tech start-ups such as Dropbox, Lending Club, Zoosk, Addepar, Path, and many others.
11,467 introduction paths to new prospects created by Affinity’s AI
Relationship intelligence creates a network of warm introductions
The problem
Before Affinity, Pear sourced introductions for its founders by manually exchanging names and spreadsheets with them over email chains. The process was tedious and inefficient. As Hershenson describes, “Every founder had a different way of asking us for intros. Some sent us long lists of contacts they were trying to get into. Others sent us the types of prospects they were targeting.”
This drove the Pear Ventures team to find a CRM software that would make this process simple and easy. Their two core needs for their CRM were:
- Maximizing the number of useful introductions that Pear Ventures could offer their portfolio companies.
- Minimizing the manual work her team spent sifting through and handling introduction requests.
The solution
According to Hershenson, she and her investment team leaned on Affinity to help organize their collective network and empower their portfolio companies.
Affinity’s AI was able to instantly surface 11,467 introduction paths to new prospects in sales, BD, and fundraising that they could share with the 11 B2B startups in the Pear Summer 2017 cohort. With its whole investment team on Affinity, Pear can be confident it is contributing its network’s maximum value in helping its portfolio companies succeed.
"As an early stage investor, my constant focus is finding new ways to turn my connections into my portfolio’s next hundred opportunities."
- Mar Hershenson, Founding Managing Partner, Pear Ventures
Learn more about how Hershenson turns insights into investments in this Q&A.
Market One Capital
Founded
2017
Industry
Venture Capital
Website
moc.vc
Market One Capital (MOC) is a Pan-European venture capital firm focused on network effects platforms with offices in Warsaw, Barcelona, and Luxembourg.
9,000+ people in Market One Capital’s network, all tracked by Affinity
Portfolio management with a people-first approach
The problem
MOC relies on its network to connect with new companies and entrepreneurs. They use data from multiple sources to get a complete overview of their relationship network, but their previous CRM solution lacked visibility. The manually managed system also became cluttered with outdated data, leaving their system of record incomplete.
The solution
MOC chose Affinity because it’s built with a people-first mentality, one of MOC’s core values. MOC prioritizes building strong relationships with its founders, regardless of where they are in the pipeline.
Affinity helps MOC keep tabs on the approximately 200 companies it conducts due diligence on each week and its approximately 9,000-person strong collective network.
The cyclical nature of venture capital means that MOC constantly re-evaluates companies it has established relationships with in the past. MOC relies on Affinity’s board view to precisely understand where companies are in its pipeline and focus on maintaining their most valuable relationships.
With Affinity, MOC's CRM works the way their team does: by putting their network first.
Affinity is a very useful, tailor-made product for such a venture capital fund like us. The biggest advantage is having all of our data and communication in one place. We talk to thousands of startups and hundreds of VCs, and Affinity lets us keep track of those relationships over time.
- Marcin Zabielski, Partner, Market One Capital
MassMutual Ventures
Founded
2014
Industry
Venture Capital
Website
massmutualventures.com
MassMutual Ventures (MMV) is a turn-focused venture capital firm, investing in early to growth stage companies across North America, Europe, Israel, and Southeast Asia. Key areas of investment focus include financial technology, digital health, data analytics, cybersecurity, and enterprise software.
60 days: Time it took to implement Affinity and surface over 20,000 email communications
Support existing portfolio companies and new deals in one place
The problem
MassMutual Venture was interested in tapping into the latest technology to help them use and manage their various complex relationships. As part of a 10,000+ person organization, their venture arm struggled to keep track of contacts, deal flow, pipeline, vendors, and other critical information. Because of this large team and a high volume of deal and relationship data, MMV’s valuable data was highly siloed.
Within weeks of moving to Affinity, we were able to easily discover and manage the 1,000s of entrepreneur and venture community relationships already latent within our team.
- Eric Emmons, Managing Partner, MassMutual Ventures
The solution
MassMutual Ventures chose Affinity for the 30 day setup time, implementation within 60 days, and wall-to-wall email and AWS integration. This included instantly surfacing email communications with more than 20,000 individuals across 3,400 organizations over the past four years of their operations.
All team members now have insight into the context and status of relationships with portfolio companies and the steps needed to manage their most valuable deals.
Learn more about the way MassMutual Ventures manages relationships to drive deals and portfolio growth in this interview with Samantha Santaniello, Head of Business Development and Partnerships at MassMutual Ventures.
Redalpine Ventures
Founded
2007
Industry
Venture Capital
Website
redalpine.com
Redalpine is a seed and early-stage venture capital firm based in Zurich, Switzerland focused on investing in disruptive technologies in the ICT and life sciences sectors.
3500+ deals screened per annum by the Redalpine team
Fundraising and investor relations with a global team
The problem
Throughout the process of raising four funds, Redalpine developed relationships with hundreds of different LPs. Recognizing that it could no longer confidently and effectively manage these relationships using spreadsheets and traditional CRM platforms, Redalpine turned to Affinity for a scalable solution.
The solution
Redalpine is unique compared to its counterparts in the US and the EU because it encompasses a very broad LP base. Whereas other venture capital firms may engage with a select number of LPs (primarily institutional investors), Redalpine engages with hundreds of different LPs throughout the fundraising process, mostly entrepreneurs and family offices. This meant they needed a CRM that could support long-term relationship building spanning multiple funding rounds. Using Affinity, the Redalpine team effectively manages the fundraising process from the initial conversation to the final handshake.
Fundraising is easy to handle with Affinity. From the moment we first talk to a potential LP until the time they sign the subscription agreement, Affinity comes to the rescue.
- Carlo Egle, Investment Manager, Redalpine
Sorenson Capital
Founded
2011
Industry
Private Equity
Website
sorensoncapital.com
Founded in 2002, Sorenson Capital is a private equity firm that specializes in middle-market buyout and growth equity investments. With more than $1 billion in capital under management, Sorenson is the largest private equity firm based in Utah.
$1 Billion capital under management by Sorenson Capital
Automated data entry encourages adoption and saves time
The problem
Sorenson was interested in finding the best way to manage its relationships. The team tried adopting several solutions over the years (including private equity focused CRMs, Salesforce, Salesforce consultants, etc.). Despite all the effort, adoption was lackluster and each initiative eventually failed.
Their relationship network was spread across the firm and visibility was nonexistent. The team estimated that it would need to spend 5+ hours per week per person manually entering contact and relationship data.
When that information wasn’t properly or promptly logged, team members could easily step on each others’ toes and overlap their sourcing efforts.
The solution
Sorenson turned to Affinity for its auto-populating capabilities, intuitive platform, and ease-of-use. The results have been transformative. Affinity is now ingrained in the team’s daily workflow and is used to manage both inbound and outbound sourcing.
They were able to save time by automating their data entry processes and creating cross-team visibility and alignment with up-to-date records.
With these systems in place, the team has been able to identify and use long-standing relationships at the senior level and democratize them without manual input. There’s less duplication of work.
Team members can instantly understand who knows who and where the the strongest relationships lie. This has led to better firm coordination and stronger relationships with potential investment targets and portfolio companies.
Affinity has become a daily tool that is ingrained in our workflow. I get a richness of data that didn’t exist before. When I am connecting with someone, knowing if anyone at my firm already has a solid relationship or has recently connected with them is key. It enables us to be able to move fast in the same direction without stepping over each other.
- Burke Davis, President, Sorenson Capital
The power of a CRM for venture capital
Relationship and deal data management seems straightforward: keep track of contact information, follow up on your prospects, close deals. The reality is that maintaining your team’s vast network of contacts and opportunities can quickly become unruly without clear alignment around consistent, efficient processes.
When you have clean, automatically logged deal and relationship records available, you can utilize your team’s collective data to make more informed business decisions with relationship intelligence. These decisions impact both internal processes and external deal and relationship management that all culminate in scaling and improving as a unit, so you can close more quality deals faster.
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