Affinity’s best practices guide for private equity

How leading PE firms unlock the full value of their networks 

In private equity, the pressure to win proprietary deals and deliver value earlier in the lifecycle has never been higher. Banker-led processes drive up prices, relationship data is scattered across inboxes and spreadsheets, and deal teams lose valuable time piecing together context for ICs and exits.

The firms that outperform don’t just have more capital to deploy; they know how to activate their networks more strategically. They identify warm paths into targets before bankers are involved, eliminate crossed wires across their teams, and use relationship intelligence to accelerate the investment process.

This guide outlines seven best practices that leading PE firms follow to gain an edge, showing how relationship intelligence transforms sourcing, execution, value creation, and exit preparation.

1. Source proprietary opportunities before they hit the market

The challenge: Heavy reliance on bankers forces firms into competitive auctions where valuations peak and differentiation disappears.

What leading firms do:

• Build systematic relationships with founders, management teams, and industry executives—not just when deals are active
• Map warm introduction paths into target companies 6-12 months before they consider a sale
• Track relationship “temperature” to know when connections need nurturing

The Affinity advantage: Automated activity capture ensures every email and meeting builds your firm’s relationship map without manual data entry. Relationship intelligence highlights warm paths into target companies, helping firms access opportunities earlier and avoid paying fees for introductions they could have made themselves.

Invus Opportunities now tracks over 90% of their opportunities in one place—up from less than 50% previously—and saves hours each week on pipeline prep with Affinity.

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2. Manage prioritized banker relationships

The challenge: Bankers drive a large share of deal flow, but firms struggle to prioritize coverage across dozens of intermediaries. Without a systematic way to rank, track, and follow up with banker relationships, critical connections go stale and valuable introductions get missed.

What leading firms do:

• Maintain dedicated banker lists to centralize coverage
• Set automated reminders to stay in touch and prevent high-value relationships from going cold
• Report on banker coverage and deal flow to ensure accountability across the team

The Affinity advantage: Affinity makes it easy to centralize and manage banker coverage. Dedicated lists capture every banker contact, while priority rankings and reminder triggers keep high-value relationships active. Automated reporting shows which bankers are driving relevant deal flow, helping firms focus coverage on the relationships that matter most.

3. Eliminate crossed wires and relationship blind spots

The challenge: When relationship data is siloed in Outlook or Excel, teams miss introductions, duplicate outreach, and risk brand damage.

What leading firms do:

• Create a single source of truth for firmwide relationships
• Capture activity automatically across emails, calendars, and meetings
• Provide leadership visibility into relationship coverage across management teams, intermediaries, and co-investors
• Set automated reminders to stay connected with high-priority intermediaries and prevent relationships from going stale

The Affinity advantage: Affinity unifies every team member’s interactions into a master relationship database that’s accessible everywhere you work (e.g. on your desktop, in your inbox, or via Affinity’s mobile app). Before any outreach, teams can see who spoke with a contact last, what was discussed, and how strong the relationship is—no more “I didn’t know you knew them” moments.

Motive Partners used Affinity to create a centralized view of thousands of relationships, enabling their team to ensure coordinated coverage and uncover new opportunities across their network.

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“Affinity sits at the very core of our tools. This is, of course, a reflection of us as a firm. Since investments are our bread and butter, Affinity is at the core of our ecosystem.”
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—Julia Hubo, Investor at Motive Partners

4. Accelerate deal evaluation with complete context

The challenge: Deal teams waste hours piecing together Confidential Information Memoranda (CIMs), emails, and notes before IC meetings, and critical decisions often get made without complete context.

What leading firms do:

• Standardize deal evaluation with consistent data capture
• Use AI to extract insights from CIMs, meeting notes, and attachments
• Maintain clean deal hygiene with required fields and stage gates

The Affinity advantage: Affinity Notetaker transcribes and summarizes meetings, while DealAssist searches notes and documents to answer questions instantly. Instead of digging through dozens of attachments, teams can ask: “What’s their funding history?” and get an immediate, reliable answer.

Invus Opportunities saves hours in weekly IC preparation thanks to Affinity’s AI-powered tools.

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“Affinity saves us a couple of hours a week in the preparation and execution of our pipeline meeting, and with how expensive good people are in our industry, a couple hours a week is worth a lot of money."

—Bryan Kim, Partner at Invus Opportunities 

5. Drive value creation through strategic relationships

The challenge: With longer hold periods and pressured exit multiples, value creation is now table stakes, but most firms lack a systematic way to activate their networks.

What leading firms do:

• Centralize KPIs, board materials, and strategic initiatives for each portfolio company
• Map networks to identify add-on acquisitions and key hires
• Track progress against value creation plans in real time

The Affinity advantage: Custom lists track each portfolio company’s priorities, while relationship intelligence surfaces warm paths to potential customers, partners, and executives. For example, when a portfolio company needs a CFO, Affinity reveals who in your network has relevant experience and who can provide the warm introduction.

6. Position portfolio companies for strong exits

The challenge: Exit success hinges on timing, buyer engagement, and network activation. Firms that wait until a formal process begins miss opportunities to maximize value.

What leading firms do:

• Build buyer databases with relationship intelligence and acquisition history
• Engage potential buyers early to generate strategic interest
• Maintain complete deal records from origination through exit

The Affinity advantage: Affinity keeps a complete, searchable record of every email, meeting, and note, from first outreach through exit—without manual data entry. When it’s time to sell, your team can see prior touchpoints with potential buyers and the warmest paths into their deal teams. Because portfolio support, introductions, and board engagement live in one place, you enter a process with a clear history and the relationships to move faster and maximize value.

7. Drive adoption with tools that meet dealmakers where they work

The challenge: Legacy CRMs fail because dealmakers don’t use them. Without adoption, firms lose visibility and don’t achieve ROI.

What leading firms do:

• Choose tools that connect with email, LinkedIn, and mobile
• Automatically capture interaction data to eliminate manual data entry
• Deliver insights directly to partners without analyst prep

The Affinity advantage: Extensions for Outlook and Chrome bring relationship intelligence directly into the tools dealmakers already use, while the Affinity mobile app enables updates on the go.

Munich Re Ventures achieved 96% adoption across the firm by making Affinity accessible where their teams were already working—via Outlook and Chrome extensions.

“One of the great things that Affinity does is it creates visibility across the teams.”
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— Pedro Carrasco, Head of Operations & Technology at Munich Re Ventures

Unlock the deals and value hidden in your network

The best PE firms know that strong relationships aren’t enough on their own—it’s how effectively those relationships are managed, shared, and activated that creates an edge. With full visibility into the firm’s network, your team can see warm paths competitors can’t, move faster on the right opportunities, and create more value across the portfolio.

Affinity is purpose-built for private equity workflows, helping firms uncover proprietary opportunities earlier, execute with complete context, and turn their networks into a source of differentiated returns from origination to exit.

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