September 17, 2021
Have you ever found yourself scrambling, trying to remember who you met with last week, two weeks ago, even a month ago? You know you have to follow up, but you’re just not sure with whom. It’s a terrible feeling, and one we’ve all felt before, especially in the investment sales business.
However, as we’ve said time and again, following up after a meeting is critical. It can mean the difference between building a relationship and getting an allocation and being forgotten, and we all know which outcome we want. After all, you’re not putting in all that work to set the meeting in the first place for nothing, right?
Right.
That means, you need to be diligent about following up, and we whole-heartedly believe that you can’t do that without a CRM.
At Dakota, we eat, sleep, and breathe our CRM, using it for everything from following up after a meeting to reporting and keeping up to date on meeting notes. For this, we use Salesforce, but we know not everyone’s budgets or needs are the same. Which is why, in this article, we’re going to highlight eight of the best CRM platforms specifically for private equity firms.
With over 150,000 customers around the world and originally built for the investment management industry, Salesforce is one of the most widely-recognized CRM options available. There are countless use cases, customizations, and possibilities for you within their systems, and can accommodate every team in your organization, from sales and marketing to IT and customer service.
This makes it a scalable solution, though with that flexibility also comes an impressive price tag, with user licenses ranging anywhere from $75 to hundreds of dollars per month, per user. Depending on your budget and needs, there are more affordable solutions available.
With over 86,000 customers, Hubspot is a well-recognized CRM and inbound marketing solution. Hubspot offers a free option, which allows companies to get a sense of the product and what it can do, as well as more advanced, paid solutions. The software can help all aspects of your business to run more effectively, with platforms that help with everything from marketing and sales to customer service.
3. Affinity
In their own words, Affinity helps analyze billions of data points to help you surface clear paths of introduction to the people and companies that matter most to you.
This CRM solution allows you to monitor your team’s relationships and interactions past and present, which helps keep communication flowing. You can also create a virtual Rolodex of full relationship context, which helps eliminate communication silos and saves your team hours of time once spent on data entry and cleanup.
Altvia is built for alternative investments firms.
It’s built on Salesforce, and offers a customizable solution for all types of alternative investment firms. Since 2006, Altvia has helped to redefine the relationship between GPs, LPs, and Portfolio Managers, allowing them to raise and deploy capital, manage investor relations, deliver business intelligence, and ensure compliance all within the same system.
Altvia, while a great choice for alternative investment funds, may be an expensive option, due to its partnership with Salesforce.
4Degrees is an AI-based solution that is a great fit for Private Equity firms. This CRM allows your team to track your relationships and deals with actionable intelligence to help you move them forward. With software tailored for the origination, relationship, and investment management activities that drive better investment opportunities, 4Degrees was designed with Private Equity firms in mind.
6. Clienteer
In their own words, Clienteer is an intuitive and configurable relationship management platform designed for hedge funds, private equity, and other asset managers to streamline their workflows.
It includes a comprehensive suite of features in its powerful user interface, which allows users to manage communications with their investors and prospects while keeping track of investors’ accounts and transactions. With flexible hosting options and subscription choices, Clienteer is a scalable CRM partner for firms of varying sizes and needs.
DealCloud works within a variety of industries to help streamline business. Founded in 2010 with the goal of helping investors modernize their business, they’ve since partnered with over 800 businesses to make that goal a reality.
A software that helps manage relationships and pipelines while providing detailed analytics, DealCloud allows you to harness the true power of your team’s people and processes. It also helps build a single source of truth by connecting with other external solutions and third-party data providers.
Backstop's CRM was one of the first investment-specific CRMs on the market.
Founded in 2003, Backstop works to provide hedge funds, funds of funds, pensions, endowments, private equity firms, consultants, and family offices with the foundation needed to manage clients’ and partners’ activities, investment documentation, research materials, and e-mail communications in one central database, in order to run your business as efficiently as possible. With a varied suite of solutions, Backstop’s pricing likely varies based on need and business size.
You’ve reached the end of a pretty long list, so you might be wondering: what’s next? When it comes down to it, a CRM is only as good as the data within it. So, the question becomes, which kind of CRM will best allow your firm to manage your data?
If you’re looking for something designed with private equity in mind, you’ll want to look into something like Backstop Solutions, 4Degrees, or Clienteer, because they’re specifically designed to help firms like yours meet your goals.
If you’re looking for something a little more broad, something you can customize completely, a CRM like Hubspot or Salesforce might be the best solution for you.
If you're still not sure which one is right for you, or want insight from people who live in their CRM every day, we would love to schedule a 15-minute consultation with someone from our team to see how we can help.
Gui Costin is the Founder and CEO of Dakota.
