Is Affinity or HubSpot right for your team?
Choosing a CRM for relationship-driven dealmaking
HubSpot is a cloud-based CRM platform designed for sales and marketing automation. Known for its extensive set of email marketing and communication tools and an inbound approach to sales and marketing, HubSpot gives teams the ability to attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers in a single ecosystem. This makes it a powerful platform for tracking and managing traditional sales and marketing funnels for customer-focused industries like retail and SaaS. It also means that HubSpot is designed to do exactly what it says: sell.
In private capital, success is built on relationships, not linear marketing or sales funnels. Whether in venture capital, private equity, or investment banking, firms require platforms that manage complex workflows while uncovering relationship insights, enabling warm introductions, and supporting collaborative dealmaking. While HubSpot’s lead-focused approach serves traditional sales teams well, Affinity is purpose-built for the nuanced demands of relationship-centric workflows. Let’s take a look at how Affinity and HubSpot differ so you can choose the best CRM solution for your needs.
With Affinity:
Discover who matters most, surface meaningful connections, and turn relationship data into a competitive advantage for dealmaking.
Access comprehensive data with 40+ industry-leading data sources.
Automatically capture key takeaways and full transcripts from every meeting, synced seamlessly to the CRM.
Affinity vs. HubSpot

Single source of truth for your data
Organize and manage records, monitor deal sourcing, and track your team’s most valuable connections in a centralized CRM.
Native relationship intelligence
Uncover high-impact relationships and gain actionable insights you need to close more deals.
Automate data capture and enrichment
Instantly surface all historical interactions with people and companies from across your firm for relationship mapping and scoring.
Private capital data enrichment
Automatically enrich every company and contact profile with a dataset powered by Affinity and 40+ trusted sources, including PitchBook and Dealroom.
Scale private capital workflows
Access essential features for private capital at every license tier, ensuring your team has the necessary tools regardless of your team size.
Keep your team up to date on industry trends
Combine proprietary CRM datasets and external data partners to enrich your records with industry-specific data.
Highly relevant data for deal sourcing
Discover the right opportunities with key market data and ensure you stay ahead of the competition.
Purpose-built for private capital
A CRM designed specifically for private capital workflows, giving you the upper hand to manage your entire deal lifecycle with ease.
Integrate your tech stack with your CRM
Customize your software experience by integrating your most-used tools with your CRM.
Close deals on the go
Keep your deals in the palm of your hand with mobile apps for both iOS and Android devices with a cloud-based platform.
Real-time alerts on key relationships
Track deals and monitor your network with real-time alerts on job changes or new investments to stay ahead of the competition.
Similar companies
Generate lists of comparable companies based on the profile being viewed in the CRM.
Ease of doing business
Get the most from your CRM with top-rated customer service, trusted by users worldwide.
Onboarding support
Deploy the entire CRM platform in as little as 72 hours.
Ease of use
Navigate the CRM and complete tasks using an intuitive interface—no technical support required—at any license tier.
Security
Receive a dedicated CISO and security team focused on preventing, detecting, and responding to security threats across system operations.
Compliance
Rely on a system that meets certification against stringent global standards—including ISO 27001, ISO 27018, ISO 27019, ISO 27701, and SOC2 Type 2.
Constant vulnerability testing
Benefit from proactive CRM security measures that continuously identify and address potential weaknesses, helping safeguard sensitive customer information.
Frequently Asked Questions
HubSpot’s flywheel sales model is a standard-bearer for customer success, marketing, and sales team ecosystems. More specifically, HubSpot's dedicated sales-focused CRM tool is built on the foundation of a marketing and customer success platform. This means it also includes built-in calling features and email tools that can replace other email marketing platforms like Mailchimp. The platform’s user-oriented design and hundreds of hours of training courses make it easy to become an expert—at the expense of time spent on training.
In 2024, HubSpot introduced its Breeze AI to support tasks such as record summarization, email drafting, content generation, social media posting, customer support, and data enrichment. While this represents a strategic shift toward AI-powered functionality for customer-focused industries, user feedback varies when applied to complex workflows. HubSpot’s automation tools show inconsistency in deal and contact management, email-derived data enrichment remains limited, and third-party integrations are required for notetaking and sourcing similar companies. These constraints undermine the ability of deal teams to manage the intricate networks of stakeholders and relationships with speed, precision, and confidence.
See more reviews for Affinity vs. HubSpot Sales.
Rather than being a dedicated marketing or sales platform, Affinity is a dealmaking platform that focuses on the relationships at the heart of private capital. Firms from industries including venture capital, private equity, asset management, investment banking, and more use Affinity to make more data-driven decisions throughout their dealmaking process.
By automatically capturing “data exhaust”—details that are captured from email communications, meetings, and contact information such as names, roles, industry, and source of introduction—Affinity ensures all of your internal data is up-to-date. This data is then converted into relationship intelligence—insights that help your team find, manage, and close more deals.
Traditional sales CRM platforms end up functioning more like databases than tools built for relationship-driven dealmaking. Simply storing contact and deal data is not enough, which is why dealmakers use relationship intelligence CRM platforms to support their deals. The insights provided by platforms like Affinity are no longer add-ons, they’re table stakes for tech-forward teams that want to get—and stay—ahead of the competition. Here are a few ways teams are using Affinity’s relationship intelligence to build a better business and close more deals:
- Easily customizable views of relationships and deals mean your team can quickly make changes—at their computer or on the go—that continue to fit your specific preferences and workflows.
- Flexible integration options ensure your CRM remains the foundation of your tech stack. With built-in support for tools like Slack, Typeform, Mailchimp, Eventbrite, and email providers such as Gmail and Outlook, all your relationship data and interactions are automatically captured and centralized in one hub.
- Automated reminders and triggers ensure you never miss a follow-up with an important contact.
- AI-driven tools further automate data capture, surface real-time market insights, and provide actionable recommendations to reveal new strategic opportunities.
- Aggregated and enriched data from 40+ different trusted sources provide comprehensive insights on people and companies.
Affinity’s AI-driven algorithms automatically capture, analyze, and enrich your firm’s collective network data—from emails, messages, and meetings—to create a centralized source of relationship intelligence, complete with interaction histories, shared connections, and full engagement context.
Affinity’s AI-driven algorithms automatically capture, analyze, and enrich your firm’s collective network data—from emails, messages, and meetings—to create a centralized source of relationship intelligence, complete with interaction histories, shared connections, and full engagement context.
- Notetaker uses AI to summarize meeting notes and sync insights directly into the CRM, reducing manual input and promoting consistent knowledge sharing across teams.
- Deal Assist analyzes pitch decks, summarizes notes, and extracts key data points—expediting due diligence and investment analysis.
- Industry Insights delivers real-time competitive and market intelligence, offering quick access to funding history, hiring trends, and sector saturation to help teams identify and assess investment opportunities.
Flexible pricing options provide teams with the versatility to select the features they need, ensuring you pay for what drives ROI and nothing more. Affinity’s Advanced tier—the most popular option—provides teams with a broad and valuable set of capabilities, including:
- Premium, automatic people and company record enrichment with hard-to-find insights.
- Enhanced relationship intelligence mapping.
- Sourcing and deal management CRM extensions.
- Analytics, reports, and dashboards built to improve deal quality and velocity.
- Improved productivity with advanced AI-powered tools and capabilities.
- Native and custom integrations with popular third-party apps.
- Comprehensive support and service packages to support your growth.
Alternative pricing options are available with different combinations of features. Reach out to our sales team today to find the solution that suits your needs.
Affinity is the leading relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers. Dealmakers in industries such as venture capital, private equity, investment banking, and asset management require a deep level of relationship context as their deals are defined by longer-term, relationship-driven engagements that are unstructured and collaborative by nature. They need a platform supported by automated and enrichment insights to make their teams more effective, help them prospect smarter, and close deals faster.
Affinity Sourcing builds on the value that Affinity CRM provides to deal teams. Dealmakers can use Affinity Sourcing to expand their pipeline beyond their firm’s existing network—using data to efficiently discover, prioritize, track, and connect with the most relevant emerging companies at the ideal time. Affinity Sourcing helps dealmakers:
- Discover high-potential companies sooner: Filter and prioritize companies with screeners on selected signals.
- Monitor and engage with the best opportunities: Track opportunities over time with watchlists and alerts.
- Get the biggest ROI from an investment in sourcing: Reduce sourcing and data management costs.
If your team is ready to take back time to focus on the relationships that drive deals with advanced AI-powered solutions, choose Affinity. Talk to an Affinity sales team member today to learn more and schedule a demo.