👋 Hi, I’m Andre and welcome to my newsletter Data Driven VC which is all about becoming a better investor with Data & AI. ICYMI, check out some of our most read episodes:
👋 Hi, I’m Andre and welcome to my newsletter Data Driven VC which is all about becoming a better investor with Data & AI. ICYMI, check out some of our most read episodes:
Brought to you by FORESIGHT - The End-to-End Data Platform for Investors
You had the best intentions when you bought all those data sources like Crunchbase, Dealroom, Pitchbook, and Harmonic. You thought everything gets logged with that powerful CRM called Affinity. You wanted to connect it all to ChatGPT and start asking questions.
But then you realized that you’re missing the middle layer between your data and your LLM that connects the data siloes, eliminates the duplicates, and normalizes the data swamp.
This is why you need an “entity resolution” data infrastructure, aka the glue. But do you build it or buy it?
Welcome to my annual VC tool stack update - 2026 edition!
I’ve been tracking tools for investors for more than 8 years now - and the world has changed dramatically. From pen & paper to scalable automations & true AI copilots.
If you haven’t recognized, you’re really missing out.
The VC investment job is not the same as it used to, and here’s why..
Evolution of the VC Tool Landscape
In 2017, my list had merely 100 tools on it and it was fairly easy to find the most relevant solutions for a specific problem, test the two or three competing ones and settle for the best.
For example, when we were looking for a new CRM system dedicated to VCs, there was essentially just Affinity out there. So the question was to either customize a generic solution for ourselves or go with the only VC-centric provider - though early in their own journey. Same was true for data providers. There was essentially Crunchbase, Pitchbook, and CBInsights.
Three years later, by summer 2020, the list had grown to 200 tools.
Two years later, by summer 2022, it already hit 300.
The momentum and interest in investment tech started picking up - one of the reasons why I started this newsletter in Sept 2022: To provide more signal in a world full of growing noise.
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