Enrich the Pipeline
Turn thin records into decision-grade objects with funding, signal, and relationships attached.
Enrichment is where a thin row of name + website becomes a record a partner can actually act on. The native CRM fields (Connection Strength, last touch, owner) carry weight on their own — the work here is layering thesis classification, financial signal, and a clean description on top so the pipeline is decision grade by default.
The field schema
Beyond what the CRM gives you out of the box, these are the fields worth standing up on every Deal Pipeline record:
| Field | Type | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Select | Decision gate |
| Deep Tech Theme | Select | AI Autofill |
| Subsector | Select | AI Autofill |
| Short Description | Text | AI Autofill — ≤8 words |
| Total Funding Amount | Currency | PitchBook |
| Last Funding Amount | Currency | PitchBook |
| Last Funding Date | Date | PitchBook |
| Last Funding Valuation | Currency | PitchBook |
| MSA | Text | AI Autofill |
| All Investors | Text | PitchBook |
| Headquarters | Text | Provider sync |
| Entry ID | Text | Unique · System |
| Parent Record | Record | Required · System |
| Added to list at | Timestamp | System |
| Added to list by | User | System |
Build a thesis taxonomy
Start by letting AI scaffold a taxonomy for the firm. Break the investable universe into Themes and Subsectors. Themes are durable — they shouldn't churn much. Subsectors flex over time as the market moves and as the companies you've captured teach you new vocabulary. Pay attention.
Workflow: define the themes (e.g. "Energy"), filter the CRM to that theme, paste every company description into an LLM, and ask it to cluster them into a reasonable number of subsectors. Human review and edit. Now you can slice the CRM by market — invaluable for sourcing and market mapping.
- Quantum Computing
- Quantum Software & Algorithms
- Quantum Sensing
- Quantum Communications & Networking
- Optical & Photonic Links
- Resilient PNT & Timing
- RF & Wireless Infrastructure
- Secure Edge & Tactical Networks
- Autonomous Systems
- Mission Software & Defense AI
- Weapons & Effects
- Cyber & Digital Defense Infrastructure
- Launch & In-Space Mobility
- Satellites & Payloads
- Ground Systems & Infrastructure
- Satellite Communications
- Compute Architectures
- Memory & Storage
- Interconnect & Networking
- Manufacturing & Equipment
- Design Software
- Foundation Models
- Nuclear Fission
- Nuclear Fusion
- Grid & Energy Infrastructure Resilience
- NextGen Energy Systems
- Robotics & Automation
- Advanced Manufacturing Systems
- Advanced Materials
- Bioindustrial Systems
- Critical Minerals & Materials
- Resource Discovery & Extraction
- Food Systems
- Water Systems
Own company descriptions
Don't trust the description the CRM scrapes off the website. Stand up your own Short Description field and populate it with an AI prompt tuned to the firm's eye. The bar: an investor with zero prior context should immediately grasp what makes the business distinct.
Summarize the company in ≤8 words. Use majority nouns/adjectives (no verbs). Be extremely simplistic in what the company does so it is immediately understandable.
- Core domain (quantum computing, robotics, food security)
- Primary product/technology focus (chips, platforms, systems)
- Differentiator (photonic, low latency, defense grade)
No verbs, no filler, no "company / startup / solutions." No trailing period. Complete thought, not a comma salad.
- Photonic quantum computing hardware
- High-performance RISC-V cores
- Stellarator-based nuclear fusion energy
- Silicon anode batteries
- Phased array satellite communications
Financials & investors
For investors and financials, the answer depends on your CRM. Affinity bakes this in; Attio needs a custom workflow (we'll tie this to an automation in a later iteration of this site). PitchBook remains the best source today — not always right, but mostly. Try to sync Total Funding, Last Round, Date, Valuation, and All Investors automatically if you can — updating manually is hard to keep current. A monthly manual refresh works if automation isn't available.
Status — the most important field
Status is ultra important. Every firm runs a different set of buckets; the only rule that matters is that each status must be actionable. No company should sit and rot in one bucket. Status is the decision gate that pushes a record toward a pass or an investment. If a status can't tell you what happens next, it shouldn't exist.
Keep the set simple enough that people actually update it, but still representative of where a company can actually stand with the firm. Status only works if it reflects what's really happening.