All-in-one venture capital CRM: Speeding up data retrieval by 78% with deep search
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Project overview
Countless spreadsheets, emails, and disparate documents are the reality of managing deals for venture capital (VC) funds — even if they use a CRM system.
Most customer relationship management (CRM) systems can’t successfully centralize all workflows in a single place. They lack email sync, solid search capabilities, or due diligence management features — or all of the above. Tools like Salesforce, DealCloud, and Affinity are also notoriously difficult to customize without coding and come with a steep learning curve for business users.
Where VC funds saw a significant challenge, our client, a UK-based startup, saw an opportunity to create an all-in-one CRM system tailored to VC workflows — the first of its kind. This CRM system would stand out with its project-based workflows, deep search capabilities, and email and other integrations.
To set the product up for success, robust customization capabilities, intuitive UI/UX, and top performance and scalability were non-negotiable. Our client also needed a development partner with AI and data analytics expertise to implement deep search and data analytics, including predictive insights.
That’s why our client turned to Darly Solutions.
Services
Challenges
Our client’s main challenge concerned the product’s core features. Its robust deep search would enable users to find information across structured and unstructured data sources (emails, files, etc.). To provide a tangible value to its users, it had to be highly accurate and convenient to use.
The same applied to the product’s AI-powered real-time and predictive analytics: accuracy and convenience were crucial.
As the CRM system would handle large amounts of sensitive data (personal information, deal details, etc.), security was also among our client's main concerns. To address this, we designed and implemented a full range of security measures, from encryption to role-based access management.
Since the product was meant to save VC funds time and money, all workflows had to be optimized for convenience, intuitiveness, and seamless experience. That meant paying extra attention to the layouts, information architecture, and visual communication.
Finally, the client also wanted to be certain the product could support user growth without dips in performance. So, we had to consider scalability and performance requirements from the get-go to create an optimized application architecture.
Following an extensive discovery phase, our team zeroed in on our client’s key business needs and technical requirements:
Strategic business needs
01 Launch a web-based CRM system with deep search, data analytics, and email and data integrations
02 Achieve the CSAT score of at least 85% among early adopters (users acquired within the first year)
03 Keep customer churn under 10% within the first year
04 Achieve an average monthly user growth of at least 20% within the first year
05 Reach an average annual recurring revenue growth of at least 25% within the first three years
Technical requirements
01 Design a responsive, human-centered UI/UX for the CRM system with a streamlined information architecture and decluttered layouts
02 Minimize the time on task and achieve an average task success rate of at least 80% for all user flows
03 Organize information and workflows around projects
04 Optimize the application architecture for performance and scalability
05 Implement a deep search for files, emails, and CRM data
06 Integrate the platform with email services, project management tools, other CRMs, spreadsheets, calendars, and messengers
07 Allow users to easily customize the platform’s workflows without coding
08 Implement AI-powered real-time and predictive data analytics with intuitive visualizations
09 Achieve the accuracy rate for deep search and data analytics features of at least 95%
10 Minimize the latency for data streaming to ensure real-time analytics and notifications
11 Enable dedicated server tenancy for each user without performance or scalability dips
12 Implement multi-factor authentication, role-based access management, encryption, and daily backups to secure user data
Our human-centered design philosophy and AI and data analytics expertise can help you drive revenue and boost customer retention.
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Solutions
The final product centralizes all features that VC funds may need in a single platform for deal management. These features include:
- Deep search across company data, emails, and files
- Email, calendar, and data integrations
- Deal management workflow templates with no-code customization
- Due diligence process management and ESG tracking
- Investment KPI tracking
- Portfolio and company overview
- Security features: multi-factor authentication, role-based access management, encryption, and daily backups
- Team collaboration features: file sharing, communication tools, task management
- Smart reminders and notifications
To drive product adoption and CSAT score, we streamlined the information architecture, ensured user flow consistency and ease, and decluttered all layouts. Our attention to smooth workflows delivered tangible value to the product’s early adopters in the form of:
- Faster deal management workflows, data retrieval, and communication
- Reduced deal management costs
- Increased deal ROI
Thanks to our data analytics and AI expertise, deep search and advanced analytics features attained a 99.1% accuracy rate. Our API-first, cloud-ready architecture, in turn, ensured the system’s scalability and performance, allowing for real-time data streaming with minimum latency.
Deep search
The Smart Deep Search was conceived as the product’s key value proposition. We ensured users could easily perform a semantic search across the CRM system itself (structured data) and all synced emails and attached files (unstructured data). Search results are automatically grouped by types of queries, with extra filters enabling users to refine them further.
As per our client’s requirements, we minimized the response time and secured a 99.1% accuracy rate to make the deep search dependable and convenient. Combined with a comprehensive range of integrations, this feature sped up data retrieval by 78% among the system’s early adopters.
Email, calendar, and data integrations
To become a truly all-in-one CRM for VC funds, the platform required a wide range of integrations: email, calendar, project management tools, messengers, etc. We enabled users to import historical data from these tools (as well as spreadsheet files like .csv) and sync it in real time with the selected sources. Our integrations spanned Gmail, Google Calendar, HubSpot, Slack, Notion, Trello, and more.
To take it one step further, we also implemented email automations, mass mailing, and automated data enrichment. So, in addition to centralizing all data, the CRM system also speeds up routine communications and eliminates manual data entry for its users.
These integrations, together with deep search, sped up data retrieval and helped streamline communication, reducing the time spent on it by 56%.
Real-time and predictive data analytics
Our client wanted users to gain insights from both structured and unstructured data. We paid close attention to the system’s data integration and analytics capabilities to do this. Guide by our user research and our client’s input, we implemented historical and real-time data integration and analytics to power ESG and KPI tracking and portfolio dashboards.
On top of real-time charts, graphs, and dashboards, the platform also uses predictive analytics to forecast portfolio performance and identify “soonicorns,” startups with the potential to become unicorns. With an accuracy rate of 99.1%, these predictive algorithms enabled early adopters to increase the deal ROI by 16%.
Project-based, customizable workflows
Unlike other CRM systems on the market, our client’s product was conceived to organize information around projects. This approach provides an at-a-glance overview of every deal’s progress, associated tasks, communication history, and more.
To ensure all users can adapt the CRM system to their needs, we designed and implemented template-based workflows with no-code customization capabilities. Out of the box, users can use templates to tailor workflows to fundraising, investment management, and more. An intuitive workflow builder, in turn, enables users to create custom automations and dashboards.
Streamlined deal workflows combined with easy customization features helped early adopters speed up deal management processes by 37% and the associated costs by 24%.
CRM database and communication tools
Of course, the product also provides traditional CRM features. Users can add and manage investor and company contact details, communicate with them, and review contact history — all without leaving the system.
What’s more, we added automated data enrichment for potential leads and their contact details to help users save time. Users can also send bulk emails and set up automated campaigns with built-in features.
The intuitive layout for the contact list and profiles, along with a thoroughly tested information architecture, helped users speed up communication and outreach efforts by 56%.
Security features
As VC funds handle sensitive data, our client had strict requirements regarding its security. We rose to the challenge, implementing two-factor authentication and role-based access management with multi-level permissions. We also encrypted all data and ensured it can be easily recovered thanks to daily backups.
On top of that, our client wanted to enable each VC fund to operate within a dedicated instance on an encrypted server to maintain regulatory compliance and ensure data security. That required us to design the solution’s architecture using a modular, API-first, cloud-ready approach with scalability and performance in mind.
Thanks to these security measures, our client could easily address common security and regulatory compliance concerns among its target users. This helped our client secure a 27% monthly user growth within the first year and 31% annual recurring revenue growth within the first three years.
Due diligence process management
Our client’s market research identified due diligence management as a major time waster among VC funds as it typically involves a lot of manual data entry and retrieval. So, we were tasked with facilitating this process.
To that end, we implemented data integrations to bring all relevant information from external sources to one place, enhanced with the CRM system’s deal, company, and investor data.
Thanks to advanced data analytics and easy-to-comprehend dashboards, the product’s early adopters reported their due diligence assessments became 31% faster with the CRM system.
Advanced task management and collaboration tools
To boost user productivity further, we implemented robust task management features within the platform, removing the need to use external tools like Trello.
The Kanban-style project management boards enable users to keep track of team members’ current and upcoming responsibilities. Smart notifications and reminders, in turn, ensure all team members stay updated on the project’s progress. Finally, internal communication tools and file sharing enable a seamless information flow within teams.
These features were frequently praised in early user feedback and contributed to speeding up deal management workflows by 37% among early adopters.
Tech stack
Impact
As a result, our client received a powerful CRM system for VC funds that offers tangible value to its users. Our focus on streamlined user flows, intuitive information architecture, visual communication, and top performance allowed our client to reap multiple benefits, including:
Our AI and data experts can enhance your product with accurate real-time and predictive insights wrapped in intuitive data visualizations.
Contact usTestimonials
The responsiveness, attention to detail and high-level communication from Darly Solutions was outstanding. Communication with the team was all online and was absolutely seamless. They were highly responsive, worked to tight deadlines and provided great feedback and communication throughout the entire project to ensure it remained on schedule and all quality requirements were being met. They exceeded all of our expectations, from design through to delivery.
LLC Darly Solutions's team performs well since the collaboration started. They are fluent in specific programming languages, they are also fluent in English, and they have a great response time. What is most unique and impressive about Darly Solutions is that everyone in the team is inherently communicative and understands the expertise of their respective fields. The team is very agile and can predict stress situations in which we work together to fix and maintain.
Darly Solutions' work so far inspires confidence, as they're skilled and trustworthy. The health platform is incredibly happy with their work. The team at Darly is communicative, responsive, and responsible. I’d recommend them to people looking to do more than build a simple little software.
By collaborating with Darly Solutions, there is a significant improvement in the project's quality of codes compared to their original codebase. They lead efficient project management and keep the client updated with their reports. They're a flexible team that delivers promising results. They don't just do as they're told, they actively participate in the design process, which is going to yield us a much better platform in the end.
Darly Solutions was able to develop the site with all functions running. The team was responsive throughout the engagement. They excelled at scheduling and delivered projects on the specified timeline. The whole team was a pleasure to work with. I am very glad that I entrusted them with my project, this is the best company for me!
The quality of their work is very high, and we get very good customer feedback on what our site looks like. They're very reliable and have a great overview of the technologies they're using. They meet our deadlines and are very accurate with their time estimations on a project. In addition, they're responsive and great with communication with a great command of English — it's very easy to talk to them. Moreover, we've integrated them into our development and scrum process, where we have daily stand-ups with their project manager and developers through Slack.
LLC Darly Solutions are highly skilled at UI/UX and follow very good engineering standards, and have been very professional in its approach to all the work to date (including the initial consultancy, which was the deciding factor). They have taken ownership of the work in way that demonstrates how much they value the work they are doing and consequently the work we are doing. I am gaining confidence that the decisions they make are good decisions and that this will result in a product that will exceed our initial expectations.
Darly Solutions developed the app in a quick manner, and the code quality was excellent. The professional team was committed to building a successful product. The code quality was good, and the app has been built in a little more than 1 month, which is a result I'm very happy with. They were laid back but professional at the same time.
Darly Solutions’ work helped my business tremendously. They were able to identify key areas for growth and improvement. The team was communicative and professional throughout the entire engagement. LLC Darly Solutions is a solutions-oriented vendor that drives results. They’re really professional and they know what they’re doing. The team knows how to identify my problems and solve them.
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