Online App to Track VC Opportunities

• Coordinate syndication efforts through an online database application
• Anywhere, any time online access to collaborate on documents, financials and evaluations
• Set and enforce appropriate access levels for account members
• Automated history and change tracking to see who changed what, when
• Automated email distribution schedules for status reports
• Ensure nothing is lost or misplaced - your information is always backed up
• Much more!...

In addition to coordinating syndication efforts, TrackVia is a great solution for many of the items that VC firms need to track:

• Website forms to gather business plans straight into a TrackVia database
• Track portfolio news articles, including scanned images of the print versions
• Post a secure login box on your website for LPs to log in and view database reports
• Manage "workflow" of business plans through the evaluation process to an investment decision

Track and "workflow" business plans

Case Study: Here's how one venture capital firm uses TrackVia as an all-in-one solution for tracking the business plans it receives.

Acme Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that has been frustrated by the shortcomings of the spreadsheet they use to track business plans from companies seeking an investment. For example, they have to email the spreadsheet around the office, causing frequent problems with version control - no one knows who has the latest version. In addition, they have to email lots of business plan documents and financial spreadsheets, because they can't attach these files to each applicant's record in the spreadsheet. And, they can't control which employees are able to see which pieces of information. For example, the lead partner doesn't want others to see his evaluation of the opportunity until he’s ready to share it. Also, Acme knows that some of the business plans that are submitted through their current website form and through emails are lost - inadvertently filtered out by Spam filters somewhere along the way. Finally, Acme's founding partner is a real stickler for treating investment applicants respectfully, including responding immediately to let the applicant know that Acme appreciates their interest in working with the firm, has received their business plan, and will respond again soon. Acme's current performance in this area is hit-or-miss, as they don't have a means of automatically replying when they receive a resume from an applicant.

TrackVia solves these problems for Acme. Acme can use TrackVia’s website forms and “received email” capabilities to gather business plans, to "workflow" business plans through the evaluation process (and even on into due diligence…), and to communicate with applicants.

Acme uploads into TrackVia its current spreadsheet of business plan submissions. The process takes only a few clicks and 1-2 minutes. TrackVia instantly transforms the spreadsheet into a true online database with records that can be tracked, tagged, etc. Acme’s office manager quickly and easily adds some new fields to the database, such as a drop-down list of status options, and a drop-down list of partners and associates who have the next action item in the process. The office manager also sets appropriate access levels for each employee, "hiding" some fields from clerical employees.

Acme wants to be able to gather business plans through the “for entrepreneurs” page of its company website, and through emails sent to businessplans@acmeventurepartners.com.

First, Acme’s office manager use TrackVia's website form builder to quickly build a form for their website that sends submissions instantly into their TrackVia database with all fields properly populated. This form allows applicants to upload their business plan documents and spreadsheets as well, and adds them to their record in the database. The form automatically replies to the applicant with an email thanking them for their interest in the position, and assuring them that they'll receive a further response within 5 days.

Next, the office manager uses TrackVia's "email collection" feature to send its businessplans@acmeventurepartners.com email address straight into its database of job applicants. Resumes and cover letters are attached to the database records. As with the website form, an automated email reply is sent to the applicant.

Acme uses its custom database fields to update the status of each business plan, to assign it to the next reviewer, and to calculate the average ranking among the grades assigned to each business plan by each reviewer. Various reviewers are set to have appropriate access levels, so that they can only view and/or edit the database records and fields that they should have access to. Acme has built a few filtered views to show the business plans by category (think of it as a much better way of putting business plans into 3 stacks for Yes, Maybe, and No.

Acme uses TrackVia as a “checklist” to track individual companies that enter the due diligence process. Acme has a template database that includes all of the due diligence tasks that must occur before an investment decision can be finalized. The office manager simply “copies” this database for each business plan that enters due diligence, so that all steps may be easily tracked.

Acme has built a custom database report that shows all business plans that have been tagged for rejection in the last day, and uses this view to send a mail merged email to all of them to let them know of the decision. TrackVia automatically attaches a copy of this email to each record it's sent to, ensuring that Acme won't have to try and remember which business plan applicants it's notified, and which it hasn't. For the successful applicants, Acme uses TrackVia's mail merge into its uploaded templates to easily create all the associated due diligence documents.

Now that the business plan has been tracked throughout the evaluation process, TrackVia retains a complete history of each business plan and how it moved through the process - when it was assigned to each next reviewer, the strengths and weaknesses of the plan, and whether Acme should revisit the opportunity in the future. Whether it's a few weeks later or a couple of years later, this information stays in TrackVia where Acme can easily retrieve it.