3 ways to expand your deal pipeline with Affinity Sourcing

When we asked almost 300 dealmakers about the biggest opportunity for data in their investment operations, almost half told us one thing: they want to use data to source deals more efficiently.

But when 50% firms are using at least four data sources to find deals, there’s a significant risk of getting lost in the noise—while competitors move forward on the best deals. 

That’s where Affinity Sourcing comes in.

Affinity Sourcing allows dealmakers to discover thesis-aligned companies from a curated (and ever-growing) dataset of 200,000+ high-growth startups, using filters like business model, funding history, stage, and vertical. Prioritize opportunities with customizable growth scores and use watchlists to track companies so you can engage at precisely the right moment. 

With bi-directional syncing to the Affinity CRM, Affinity Sourcing makes it easy to use AI-powered relationship intelligence during discovery to uncover warm introduction paths and efficiently move opportunities to existing pipeline workflows.

Leading venture capital firms like MassMutual Ventures are already realizing these benefits, using Affinity Sourcing to discover and triage investment opportunities up to 5x faster. Eric Emmons, one of the firm’s Managing Partners, says, “Affinity’s commitment to quality data and precision gives us full visibility into the startup universe—because finding just one more great deal is what separates top quartile funds from the rest.”

Read on to learn three ways that your team can get value from Affinity Sourcing today.

1. Discover completely new companies

With the recent shift to outbound sourcing, it’s more important than ever for firms to seek out opportunities that exist beyond the bounds of their existing network and data. But this is easier said than done.

Andre Retterath, the Data-Driven Investor, warns that “most investors believe they see all relevant opportunities, collect all data available, and rely on their superior experience when making a decision. Yet, the sample of companies they look at, the information collected about them as much as the experience they rely on when making the decision are all limited. Very limited.”

Affinity Sourcing significantly expands the sample of companies that dealmakers have to evaluate. The platform provides access to an ever-growing universe of investment-ready companies—with plenty of ways to slice and dice the data to quickly reach the companies most relevant to your firm’s thesis.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Click Create a screener—or select one of Affinity’s out-of-the-box Screeners—to begin developing your chosen parameters.
2. Narrow focus to the key elements of your investment thesis using filters and description searching (which allows you to include or exclude specific keywords). You can also layer on additional criteria such as existing investors, last funding date, and growth trends like headcount and website traffic growth.
3. Customize the growth score to your investment priorities to ensure Affinity Sourcing highlights the most relevant opportunities.

GROWTH SCORE

1. Click into a company profile to see a comprehensive overview that includes additional growth metrics, network connections, critical updates like leadership hires and funding announcements.

Profiles also feature comparisons to similar companies, which leverage Affinity’s AI-powered Industry Insights to reveal information on company description, investment stage, last funding amount, and more. This helps to prioritize opportunities while fine-tuning your outreach.

2. Monitor companies found through Affinity Sourcing

Discovering the right investment opportunities for your firm is a critical first step in building a quality portfolio—but knowing when and how to engage with prospective founders and management teams is  often the deciding factor in securing the deal. 

Affinity Sourcing’s screeners and watchlist simplify the tracking of growth signals and inflection points (based on customizable growth scores) to optimize your outreach timing and strategy. As with screeners, the watchlist provides automated alerts on key growth signals, which can give you a first-mover advantage earlier in a company’s lifecycle. 

Here’s how to get started:

1. Once you’ve identified a prospect or prospects from your screener that you’d like to keep an eye on, check the box to the right of the company and select Watch.

2. Access your watchlist from the Affinity Sourcing homepage, where you’ll find an automated alerts feed that provides updates on key signals for every company you're tracking. 

3. Filter alerts based on specific metrics like leadership changes to see changes across your Watchlist in a convenient format.

1. Select Add to CRM list from any alert and choose the relevant list for seamless opportunity management between Affinity Sourcing and the Affinity CRM.

Note that Affinity Sourcing users also receive a weekly email that provides a comprehensive update on:

• New companies that match their screener criteria.
• Companies already appearing within a screener that have increased headcount, increased web traffic, raised a round of funding, or hired new executives.

3. Use an Affinity Sourcing watchlist to monitor companies in the Affinity CRM

Adding companies that are already familiar to your firm to your watchlist helps you know when to re-evaluate and reach out about opportunities that weren’t at the right stage when you first encountered them. 

Your watchlist can also reinforce portfolio monitoring and support processes, helping to ensure you don’t miss important updates on the companies you’ve already invested in.

Here’s how to get started:

1. From any list in the Affinity CRM, check the box next to the company and select Watch to start monitoring it.
2. Changes to the company will trigger an alert in the automated alerts feed on your Affinity Sourcing watchlist page (and be featured in your weekly email digest). From here, you can add a note or access the company’s CRM profile in one click to take action on an emerging opportunity.

Discover, monitor, and engage with emerging companies

Competition for top deals is intense. And while your firm’s network remains a critical path into deals, it’s no longer enough. To expand their deal pipelines, leading firms are adopting faster, smarter ways to uncover emerging companies and act at the right moment. 

Affinity Sourcing allows your investment team to surface thesis-aligned companies earlier, score and prioritize them based on network data and custom growth signals, and work more efficiently by syncing all sourcing activity directly into the Affinity CRM.

Want to see Affinity Sourcing in action? Request a demo now.