How TELUS Global Ventures creates more efficient workflows with Affinity

Introduction

TELUS Global Ventures (TGV) relied on spreadsheets to manage their investment pipeline. Data was regularly out of date and difficult to share across the firm, and the team lacked a way to easily evaluate investments and report on pipeline progress to their stakeholders.

This changed by introducing Affinity, which centralized the data from all of the firm’s contacts, meetings, and emails. Affinity’s automation and AI-powered tools help the firm eliminate tedious tasks while maintaining data accuracy across their entire investment pipeline .,

With Affinity, TGV can now:

• Streamline investment l management processes with Affinity’s Automation Builder, using logic-based rules and triggers to ensure investments progress through the pipeline with manual intervention
• Automatically capture standardized meeting notes with Affinity’s AI Notetaker and easily retrieve relevant company information with Deal Assist
• Build and automatically deliver reports tailored to TGV’s needs with Affinity’s native reporting and integrations

Challenge

Manual processes with little clarity

Every industry is navigating a world increasingly defined by AI—and private capital is no different.  Scarcity, competitiveness, and efficiency are common themes, with firms striving to find and win the best investments with as much speed and agility as possible. Often faced with limited resources, firms are seeing where technology can eliminate tedious tasks and augment the capabilities of investment teams. 

TGV faced this issue. The firm relied heavily on manual processes and spreadsheets, resulting in inefficient workarounds and siloed information.

“While we already had a strong process in place, we needed more real-time visibility into capital deployment and a centralized, consistent view across the team. Investors were spending a disproportionate amount of time on administrative tasks," says Mike Titkov, Investor at TGV.

Kat Nicanorova, Operations Manager, echoes these sentiments, noting the manual work created risks around data cleanliness. "Data quality and accuracy were our arch-nemeses,” she says. “We had messy data labels and two separate pipeline views, and there was a lack of incentives for investors to make updates.” 

Without a clear view of the pipeline or accurate data, TGV struggled to communicate progress back to leadership. "As a CVC, we have a lot of internal stakeholders who need real-time pipeline views, from M&A to accounting and senior leadership teams," says Nicanorova.

The firm needed a solution that would allow investors to focus on decision-making versus data entry.

Solution

Automated and accurate data workflows

TGV has used Affinity CRM to transform their investment operations. The system automates many previously manual tasks and makes information accessible in one central place. 

Using Affinity’s Automation Builder together with automated data triggers, the team set up automated workflows to streamline their investment process and ensure automatic data accuracy. "Using automation rules, we created IF/THEN logic that ensures key data fields are updated automatically," says Nicanorova. 

"If an investment reaches a certain stage, the automation rules update other data labels that trigger weighted pipeline calculations. This means less data entry work; Affinity just updates the data! If an investment reaches a certain stage, it automatically prompts the investment team to add missing details—no more nagging emails!"

The firm implemented Affinity's AI tools to improve their due diligence process. "One of the most valuable tools we've implemented is Affinity's Deal Assist. It significantly enhances our due diligence process by automatically extracting key insights from call notes, emails, and attachments," says Titkov.

"Notetaker has been a game changer for us. With the sheer number of meetings we take, it's impossible to attend everything. Now, we can send Notetaker to meetings we can't join and still get all the insights.”  Mike Titkov, Investor

Before Deal Assist, investors spent time manually searching the CRM for answers to their questions. Now, Titkov shares, "instead of sifting through extensive notes from dozens of internal and external meetings, we can quickly access summaries of key takeaways, outstanding questions, and relevant KPIs. Combined with Notetaker, these tools save our team an estimated 1–2.5 hours per person each week by streamlining note retrieval and admin tasks." 

Affinity’s Notetaker has streamlined how TGV captures notes, which makes meeting information available to all, regardless of attendance. "Notetaker has been a game changer for us," Titkov says. "With the sheer number of meetings we take, it's impossible to attend everything. Now, we can send Notetaker to meetings we can't join and still get all the insights.” 

Firmwide adoption of Notetaker has been quick. Titkov notes, “What's been surprising is how receptive people within TELUS Corporation have been to having Notetaker in meetings; they actually like it because it means better knowledge sharing across teams."

Streamlining and tailoring reporting

TGV has specific metrics that align with their parent company’s overall objectives. "We have a unique blend of traditional VC metrics and our own methodology,” Nicanorova says. “Our focus is on top-of-the-funnel insights, funnel velocity, conversion rates, and balancing the quantity and quality of opportunities.” 

Titkov elaborates on the breadth of that reporting:  "Since we're truly global, one of the key things we track is where our deals sit across different geographies. This visibility helps us ensure we're covering markets effectively and diversifying our investments. We also track how much we've invested per vertical and what potential commercial impact these investments could have on TELUS Corporation. It's not just about putting money to work—it's about making sure our investments align with our broader strategic goals."

“Leadership wants to know where capital is flowing, how the pipeline is evolving, and what we expect in terms of capital deployment—without waiting for a manual update," says Titkov.

The firm uses Affinity’s reporting capabilities to capture and send updates to their leadership. "Affinity automatically compiles and sends pipeline updates every two weeks, so we can focus on actual investing instead of playing data analysts," says Nicanorova.

Titkov says, “Our leadership team gets the full picture without us having to compile slides every other week. Instead, we focus on making investment decisions rather than updating spreadsheets."

This also includes taking advantage of Affinity’s integrative capabilities to further curate relevant metrics for their stakeholders: “While we use a lot of Affinity's native Looker reporting, we also used the API to build an external Looker report that calculates additional metrics, giving us even more tailored insights and TGV-specific reporting,” Nicanorova adds.

Results

With Affinity at the center of their investment operations, TGV has seen significant improvements in efficiency, data quality, and strategic insights. “With the automation capabilities, Affinity does the heavy lifting. Triggers ensure we get the right data at the right time, and reports are automated and have a scheduled delivery,” says Nicanorova. “Since implementing these features, we’ve seen around a 60% improvement in data completeness and saved two and a half hours per person each week—making investors’ lives significantly easier!”

By implementing Affinity as their deal flow and relationship management platform, TGV has transformed from following manual, spreadsheet-driven processes to an automated, data-driven approach that enables their team to focus on what matters most: making strategic investments that drive value for TELUS Global Ventures and their portfolio companies.