Introducing Think + Dealflow Platform

Think + Dealflow platform (TDF) is our proprietary smart database of startups that we screen. TDF not only records all the information about the startup, its founders and links with web resources such as LinkedIn and Crunchbase, but it also provides us unique analytics into our deal flow activity. TDF can also captures all contacts including meeting and phone call details along with related documents, pitch books, models, and projections. All of this information is then analyzed by TDF’s analytics and Report functions.

“TDF produces not only classic “Funnel Reports” but also gives us a sense of the velocity of deals flow and our due diligence process”

TDF was designed in-house and developed using our off-shore partners in Surat India. Before embarking on this effort we considered and tested a number of similar platforms including Sevanta, Affinity and Zapflow. While these applications all had good features we found that they generally lacked a modern and agile UI/UX and customizable and useful analytics for an early stage fund.

As a result, we designed TDF with an easy user interface where a new startups can be added on the web app or by email. After adding the startup, other details and documents including pitch book, financial models and due diligence documents can be stored with each company on the platform. The servers are backed up regularly and the system also provides additional redundancy.

The screened start-ups that are of interest to our investment team often go through various stages: Lead, Qualified Lead, Due Diligence, Negotiating and Investing. Moving to a new stage is done after looking at the source, unique offering and market opportunity of the startup. Startups which have a unique offering but are in very early stages of development are marked with a special “Watch” status so we can track their progress.

While the development process was a much longer journey than we expected and had its share of operational bumps, the core work is now complete, and the team is focused on a few improvements in the Reports and Analytics. TDF produces not only classic “Funnel Reports” but also gives us a sense of the velocity of deals flow and our due diligence process, as well as detailed queries to find competitive and comparable startups, and sector reports.