Fundraising

Investor CRM: Seamlessly Manage Relationships and Finances

Matt Preuss
Marketing Manager
What is an Investor CRM? Benefits of a CRM Tool for Startups Features to Look for in an Investor CRM Manage Your Investor Relationships With Visible
Unlock your investor relationships. Try Visible for free for 14 days.
Start your free trial

Raise capital, update investors and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days.

At Visible, we compare a venture fundraise to a traditional B2B sales and marketing funnel. At the top of your “fundraising funnel” you are bringing in qualified investors (leads), moving them through the middle of your funnel with meetings, pitches, monthly updates, etc., and hopefully closing them at the bottom of the funnel as a new investor. Ideally, once you close a new investor you’ll delight them with regular communication.

Related Reading: An Essential Guide on Capital Raising Software

Just as a sales and marketing team have dedicated tools, shouldnt a fundraise? By implementing an investor CRM, you will be able to stay on top of your communication and relationships with both current and potential investors.

What is an Investor CRM?

As put by the originator of the CRM, Salesforce, “Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business relationships to grow your business. A CRM system helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.”

However, an investor CRM is slightly different. Whereas a traditional CRM is focused on current and potential customer, an investor CRM stays focused on your current and potential investors.

Related Resource: Why a CRM is Essential for Investor Relations

This means tools to send updates, share pitch decks, monitor conversations, track status, etc. Learn more about the benefits of using a CRM for your investor relations below:

Benefits of a CRM Tool for Startups

Fundraising is a difficult. Implementing an investor CRM will not be a silver bullet that will close a round of funding for your business. It will help you build a system and organization into your process to improve your odds of success and allow you to focus on what truly matters, building your business.

Learn more about the benefits of using an investor CRM for your investor relations below:

1) CRM Gives Real-Time Insight on Your Pipeline

Any sales team wants to know the status of their pipeline. The same is true for a founder and a fundraise. Over the course of a venture fundraise, you will likely talk to anywhere between 50 and 100 investors.

To give you an accurate idea of the status of your round, founders should have a CRM in place to give you an idea of your current pipeline. For example, for new “leads” a sales & marketing team might give them a 10% chance to become a customer. You can set up the same idea for a fundraise. A new investor might be a 10% chance, an investor after a successful meeting might be 25%, etc.

2) All Investor Interactions and Conversations are Tracked

The sheer number of conversations during a fundraise should not be overlooked. As we mentioned, you will likely be talking to 50-100 investors. An investor CRM, will allow you to stay on top of your conversations.

Inevitably during the course of a fundraise, investors will pass for different reasons, request you follow up later, etc. A CRM is a surefire way to stay on top of these conversations and notes that will arise during a raise.

3) CRM Ensures You’ll Never Miss a Follow-Up

Follow ups and communication are vital to a successful sales & marketing process. The same can be said for a fundraise. Of course, there are companies that be so intriguing to investors that they’ll be ready to write a check after 1 meeting. However, for the majority of companies they will need to run a process for following up with investors.

At the end of the day, your job is to create FOMO with your potential investors so they are motivated to move quickly.

4) Seamlessly Monitors Fundraising

As we’ve alluded to throughout the post, an investor CRM is the best way to monitor the overall status of your fundraise. Using different stages and properties, you’ll be able to closely monitor the status of your raise.

This is not only beneficial to yourself but also your stakeholders. You can share the status of your fundraise with existing investors and advisors so they can help make introductions to potential investors and move you closer to a successful round.

5) Improves Relationships With Investors

One of the best benefits of using an investor CRM is that it strengthens your relationships with current investors. We have found that companies that regularly communicate with your investors are 300% more likely to raise follow on funding.

By having a system in place to communicate with your current investors you will not only improve your odds of raising follow on funding but you’ll be able to leverage their network, experience, and resources.

As a starting point, we recommend founders send a monthly update to their investors. To get the ball rolling, check out a few of our favorite monthly update templates here.

Related Resource: Investor Relationship Management 101: How to Manage Your Startups Interactions with Investors

Features to Look for in an Investor CRM

Most CRMs are tailored to sales and marketing teams. When seeking out an investor specific CRM, look for some of the following details:

Seamless Collaboration and Data Sharing

Typically, investor relations relies solely on the founder and maybe a handful of other leaders. However, there are opportunities for collaboration when communicating and working with investors.

By having a CRM that allows for collaboration and data sharing, you’ll be able to quickly uncover insights about your fundraise and the state of your fundraise.

Ability to Integrate with Other Tools

A major benefit of using a CRM is that it helps automate tedious aspects of investor relations. Look for a tool that will allow you to connect with other tools and help create more efficient investor relations.

At Visible, our CRM directly integrates with a few tools:

Easily Customizable

Every fundraise is different. Stage, geography, check sizes, etc. will all dictate how you wan to set up your investor CRM.

Look for a tool that allows you to easily customize your fundraise so it is molded to the specifics of your fundraise.

Track Communication

A key aspect of building trust with current and potential investors is with regular communication. A CRM should be a place where you can keep an eye on how your investors are engaging with your emails, updates, pitch decks, etc.

Manage Your Investor Relationships With Visible

Find investors, share your pitch deck, send investors updates, and track your investor conversations all from one place. Try Visible for free for 14 days here.

View more categories:
Fundraising
Metrics and data
Product Updates
Operations
Hiring & Talent
Reporting
Customer Stories
You may also enjoy:
Product Updates
Shaping the Future: Unveiling Our Brand Refresh
Visible started as a way for founders to update their investors but has since transformed into a purpose-built platform for both founders and investors. Since 2014, we’ve powered over 3M interactions between founders and investors. Our brand refresh represents our commitment to equip founders and the investors who back them. Founders can now manage their investor relationships and capital raises from start to finish. Investors can centralize data, uncover insights, and report to their LPs and stakeholders—all from one place. We are excited to unveil our refreshed brand, marking the beginning of the next decade in our dedication and commitment to founders and investors. Equipping Founders and Investors for Growth Raising capital is fundamentally about building relationships. Founders and investors spend months forging connections that, once solidified by a term sheet, can evolve into partnerships lasting 8 to 10 years and beyond. We set out to highlight the people behind the investments, not just the companies or firms they represent. As we continue to grow, you'll notice more familiar faces from different startups and venture funds featured on our site (👋 Hi Lacey!). Shaping Our Future Across our website and marketing assets, you’ll see 3D shapes floating in the background. While they add aesthetic appeal, they also carry a deeper meaning. For example: We believe raising capital from VCs or LPs closely resembles a fundraising funnel, a concept brought to life through the funnel shape that appears across various pages and assets. Sphere, torus, and pill shapes symbolize the connections between VCs, founders, and stakeholders, reflecting the interwoven nature of these relationships. These forms also symbolize forward momentum and the continuous progression within the venture ecosystem. As our product has evolved to offer greater flexibility in moving data into and out of Visible, you'll notice pipes integrated into the design, visually representing the seamless flow of data through our platform. Logo and Wordmark To maintain and perpetuate our brand equity, we opted to anchor our brand to our current logo and wordmark. The Visible logomark is made from three overlapping, equilateral triangles. Each triangle is slightly transparent, allowing the mark to interact with other design elements. These triangles represent human relationships and the connection between founders and investors, which is core to our mission and vision for our company. Color Palette Our signature black primary color remains, but we've refined our palette for a fresh look. We've transitioned from a complex, rich color scheme to a more cohesive and defined palette, creating a unified and bold approach to color across our brand. Introducing the new Visible color palette: Product Guided by our core values of trust and transparency, we designed our product to embody these principles. Our product visuals across the site are predominantly high-fidelity for the first time, highlighting its capabilities visually rather than relying solely on words. The updated typography and refined color palette are seamlessly integrated into our product screens, further enhancing the overall brand experience. Voice & Tone A brand is more than just its visual identity; it requires a voice and tone that harmonizes with its design. We aimed for our voice to be authentic, credible, and consistent, supporting both investors and founders alike. This commitment led us to define key principles for our voice and tone: Be a guide Less is more Recognize that different users face different challenges As you explore our marketing site, we hope Visible reflects these values and resonates with you. Transparency = Trust As we noted earlier, raising capital is fundamentally about relationships. Trust and transparency form the foundation of any strong connection. Throughout our website, you'll notice subtle transparency elements that embody this core principle. This new iteration of our brand is built to scale, but that doesn’t mean we won’t continue to evolve and elevate the experience for the betterment of our prospects and customers. Here's to shaping the next 10 years! Up and to the right,  The Visible Team
Product Updates
Product Update: Turn Emails Into Insights With Visible AI Inbox
Customer Stories
Case Study: Airtree Venture's Transformation with Visible
Fundraising
9 Tips for Effective Investor Networking