Celebrating excellence: meet the 2025 Dealmaker Award winners

At Campfire San Francisco on October 1, we had the privilege of recognizing five exceptional organizations pushing the boundaries of what's possible with relationship intelligence.

The Dealmaker Awards honor firms that have shown outstanding innovation in their use of Affinity and are redefining how relationship intelligence technology drives opportunities, frees up time, and builds confidence across dealmaking teams.

The 2025 winners

Dealmaker Award: Bessemer Venture Partners

This award recognizes the most active, largest group of Affinity power users. Bessemer Venture Partners, a global venture capital firm with a legacy dating back to 1911, has backed category-defining companies like Shopify, LinkedIn, and Twilio. Their data-driven approach combines proprietary insights with deep operator networks, and they've built a custom sourcing platform called The Brain that integrates Affinity data with providers like Harmonic, Spector, and LinkedIn, using AI for semantic search and advanced analysis.

Innovation Award (North America): BDev Ventures

Recognizing the most interesting and innovative use of Affinity, BDev Ventures transformed their operations in just six months. After moving from a fragmented CRM to Affinity in January 2025, they created a true single source of truth that retired spreadsheets and saved countless coordination hours. They've integrated Affinity with all internal systems, connected to external providers, simplified workflows with a single pipeline list, and partnered closely with our team to shape future product improvements.

Innovation Award (EMEA): Speedinvest

Speedinvest stands out as one of the most advanced users of the Affinity API, helping shape our roadmap and set the bar for relationship intelligence. They transitioned from a fragmented CRM to a fully integrated system connecting Gmail, Calendar, Zoom, Slack, Gatsby, and more. Their custom Softr and Airtable portal powered by Affinity's API enabled 2,100+ introductions and 200+ portfolio projects in 2024. With team members across five cities and six verticals, Affinity unifies their siloed data and empowers real-time insights.

Relationship Intelligence for Good Award: Energize Capital

This award celebrates firms using their funds, technology, and resources for good. Energize Capital is a leading investor in climate solutions, striving to scale sustainable innovation for a better future. Deeply committed to diversity in their own hiring and across their portfolio, they manage their pipeline with Affinity to prioritize and invest in the best deals while supporting portfolio companies. They actively use relationship intelligence to unlock connections for commercialization opportunities and beyond, turning networks into impact.

Rising Star Award: Charlesbank Capital Partners

Recognizing firms with Affinity for less than one year doing great things with the platform, Charlesbank Capital Partners is a top quartile private equity firm focused on leveraged buyouts and growth investments in middle-market companies across North America and Europe. Since joining Affinity last fall, they've rolled out the platform across multiple teams, begun building a robust tech stack connecting Affinity to tools like Sourcescrub, and positioned themselves to use Affinity with their AI tools once the MCP Server is released.

Join us at Campfire London

Want to be part of the relationship intelligence community and see innovation in action? Join us at Campfire London on October 28 to connect with dealmakers, learn best practices, and discover what's next for Affinity. Register today to secure your spot.

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