In a fast-paced industry like Venture Capital (VC), CRMs can be a life saver. A CRM not only assists in deal sourcing and deal flow management but can also be one of the pivotal networking tools in building and maintaining investor relations. A great CRM can add structure, transparency and save time, but where do you start in finding one that's right for your team? This article presents an overview of the venture capital CRM landscape and discusses key considerations when choosing a CRM for your fund.

Why Do Venture Capital (VC) Investors Need a CRM?

In the venture capital ecosystem, having a strong professional network is critical to delivering outlier returns for your fund. Whether it is to raise capital from Limited Partners (LPs), deal sourcing, or simply stay on top of industry trends, a team’s professional network can be a competitive advantage. However, managing a vast network without the right tools can be a headache and result in missed opportunities or awkward situations (e.g. writing a cold LinkedIn reach out to startup founders, only to later discover that they have already spoken to someone in your team). Within the large VC tech stack, CRMs offer the clear solution for professional network management. Using a CRM enables venture capitalists to leverage their professional relationships more effectively and unlock greater value across all stages of the investment process. 

A CRM can mainly assist your team in the following:  

• Deal sourcing
• Deal flow management 
• Due diligence 
• Portfolio support 
• Investor relations

How to Choose a CRM for Your Venture Capital Fund?

To select the ideal CRM for your venture capital fund, consider the following:

• Time Investment: How much time does your team invest in setting up and keeping your CRM up-to-date? A data-driven CRM should enable your team to automate and streamline processes, in order to spend less time doing tedious work.

• Company/Startup Enrichment Features: Does your CRM collect useful and actionable company insights all in one place? Your CRM should show relevant information on startups in your deal flow (e.g. existing investors, total raising capital, year founded etc.) to save time on basic desktop research. 

• Network/Contact Enrichment Features: Does your CRM show a complete and up-to-date picture of your team’s professional relationships? Your CRM should gather, merge and enrich contact information across various channels such as email, phone, LinkedIn etc. CRM information gaps can result in awkward situations or even damage the reputation of your fund. 

• Workflow Integrations: To what extent does your CRM integrate with other tools? Integrations with platforms like Notion, Slack and Google Workspace can help automate your team’s workflows and save precious time. 

• Pricing: How much should you pay for a CRM? This highly depends on your team size and sophistication of the CRM software e.g. number of integrations, automations, quality of data enrichment. In a nutshell, the more time a CRM saves your investment team, the more expensive it tends to be. 

Venture Capital CRM Overview

Some venture capitalists start by building up a CRM in existing no-code workspaces like Notion and Airtable, while others subscribe to multi-purpose CRMs like Pipedrive and Hubspot. However, there are significant limitations to using such CRMs that are not tailored for the venture capital industry: 

• Lack of data enrichment on startups 
• Little network and contact profile enrichment
• Insufficient customisation to suit the VC workflow
• Limited deal flow analytics and reporting

This is why venture capital investors often end up migrating to CRMs that are specifically built for their workflows. 

Here's a breakdown of some of the best CRMs used in venture capital: 

Although venture capital CRMs made a big leap forward, there are still some drawbacks when in comes contact management:

• Limited network import: Venture capital CRMs typically import contacts from work email or csv files, overlooking social networks like LinkedIn. The entire investment team’s network is not centralised in one place, resulting in information asymmetry. 

• Limited network search: Venture capital CRMs typically offer very basic network search capabilities, where you filter contacts by their full name or company name. However, it is not possible to do more complex thematic search, such as identifying all venture capital investors that do early stage investment in fintech and are based in London. Absence of granular contact search features limit your ability to fully utilise your investment team’s network.

• Outdated information: The data in CRMs can quickly become outdated as people transition between jobs, cities and industries. This results in a persistent need for manual updates to keep information current.

• Absence of notifications: CRMs do not proactively alert your investment team on key network events and startup growth milestones. For example, if someone in your team’s network quits their job and becomes a founder in stealth mode, your CRM should notify you. However, this feature is not offered by incumbent Venture Capital CRMs.

Benefits of Tiva

By combining the advantages of the best venture capital CRMs with unique contact data enrichment features, Tiva allows investors to fully leverage their network. 

Tiva is the only data-driven CRM that enables full network visibility by offering a wider range of integrations, advanced search capabilities, and intelligent lists that update automatically based on parameters that you predefine. You can also stay on top of relevant network changes by customizing notifications for key events. For example, you can receive immediate updates on job changes for certain people (or lists) and alerts on new startups founded in your team’s network. 

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Further Reading

👉 CRMs for Angel Investors: Use Cases, CRM Software Examples & Selection Criteria

👉 Which Type of CRM is Best for You?

👉 LinkedIn CRM Integration: How To Pull Data from LinkedIn into Your CRM

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