How Ten Eleven manages its 2,300+ company ecosystem in one database

A “dream” implementation

After researching various platforms, Ten Eleven decided to adopt Intapp DealCloud. The firm worked closely with the DealCloud team to implement the platform — and it proved to be one of the smoothest implementation processes Delaney has ever experienced.

“It was honestly a dream,” she said. “DealCloud was able to customize everything for us in a seamless way: pipeline tracking, company tear sheets, internal due diligence criteria, and even our rating system on prospective investments.”

Ten Eleven first began using DealCloud in 2020. As is typical for new software implementations, some firm professionals were hesitant at first to adopt the new platform. That quickly changed once they were introduced to DealCloud’s Microsoft Outlook add-in.

The Microsoft Outlook add-in eliminates the need for users to manually input information from emails into DealCloud. Instead, users can simply forward emails to DealCloud, and the platform will capture, categorize, and store the email’s information in its database.

This feature is particularly useful when a firm professional gets an email about a new opportunity. If they want to add it as a new deal in the pipeline, they can use the add-in to create a new deal directly within Outlook, which will then automatically sync with DealCloud. Other DealCloud users will then be able to view the information contained in the original email, giving them a better understanding of how the deal began.

“Since introducing this feature, we’ve had great adoption,” said Delaney. “DealCloud is so easy to use, and the DealCloud team has been great to work with.”

DealCloud’s ability to pull email data and store it in a centralized database has greatly helped Ten Eleven improve its efficiency and data accuracy. Information syncs automatically, without manual entry, saving the team time and reducing the risk of human error.

Better organization of higher data volume

Although Ten Eleven originally planned to use DealCloud for pipeline management only, it now also uses the platform to manage proprietary cybersecurity market data. Firm professionals now have a more detailed view of the cybersecurity landscape — and they can easily access it from one place.

“We have a proprietary cyber map with verticals and sub-verticals within DealCloud,” said Delaney. “Every single cyber company is mapped based on how our firm views the ecosystem.”

Delaney revealed that the firm can now view more than 60 subsectors, allowing professionals to quickly find the precise companies they need.

“If we want to do a deep dive into application security, we can do a quick search and all the companies within application security come up,” Delaney explained. “I can even narrow it down to continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline application security companies. We can get to that granularity within DealCloud and quickly find those companies.”

Since implementing DealCloud, Ten Eleven has gone from formally tracking 550 cyber companies to around 2,300 companies.

“We couldn’t do it without a centralized system,” Delaney said. “There’s no way we could have properly tracked that number of companies with spreadsheets alone.”

Invaluable external data

In addition to its growing volume of proprietary data, Ten Eleven also uses data from PitchBook, a trusted third-party source that provides verified public and private capital markets data. Using DealCloud DataCortex, the firm’s professionals can automatically pull this supplemental data into the DealCloud platform — allowing them to gain a more holistic view of the market, identify more opportunities, and make better-informed decisions.

“With PitchBook, we can see data like a company’s post money valuation, how much they raised, and their investors,” said Delaney. “DataCortex pulls and maps all this information for us, and even lets us know whether the information is proprietary or from PitchBook.”

By having real-time actionable data at their fingertips, Ten Eleven professionals can source deals more efficiently and strengthen pipeline management.

Improved transparency, outreach efforts, and investor relationships

Having transparency into pipeline and market data has allowed Ten Eleven professionals to become more organized and productive — especially when it comes to investments and fundraising for portfolio companies.

“DealCloud allows us to be better co-investors.,” Delaney said. “We can track what other venture capital firms’ preferences are on aspects such as stage, KPIs, check size, geography, areas of interest, and leads and co-leads. On calls, we can speak intelligently about any overlaps in the portfolios, and we can introduce them to portfolio companies that meet their investment mandate when they come to market.”

Having insight into the types of companies that investors are interested in has helped Ten Eleven’s professionals improve fundraising for the portfolio. Team members can leverage these insights to reach out to organizations and discuss relevant investment opportunities.

“It makes conversations more productive and lets us be more thematic in our outreach and introductions,” Delaney said.