VC Platform Teams are charged with adding value to portfolio companies.
Problem is, they’re relying on a patchwork of repurposed or homegrown tools to get things done.
With growing portfolios and intensifying VC competition, investors need tools to scale their impact. Sarah Blanchard, Craft Venture’s Head of Community, codified the way Craft onboards, engages, and supports portfolio companies by using Cabal.
Here’s how Sarah and the team at Craft are using Cabal to deliver on their founder-first ethos:
Contacts organized for engagement
Cabal is built for engagement and impact. Sync or import your contacts to Cabal, organize them into groups, and start adding value.
Adding founders by email to Cabal was easy. I uploaded a spreadsheet of emails and instantly had a database, grouped by business model, geo, stage, and industry. Minutes later I was drafting my first update to all 300+ founders in our community.
Sarah stresses that having an organized repository is invaluable for quick communication. And because messages delivered via Cabal are sent as individual, plain-text emails, the engagement and response rates are superb.
“It made me look like a hero,” Sarah says of when the market took a turn and Craft wanted to provide guidance to founders on how to navigate the changing landscape.
Craft’s presentation, Operating during a downturn, went from idea to delivery within a week, in part because the communication infrastructure was already set-up in Cabal.
Founder onboarding
Managing founder communications in scattered Slack groups, WhatsApp chats, Discords and text threads doesn’t scale. Email is the lowest common communication denominator – if you want to make sure you reach your audience, send them an email.
We want to encourage a two-way street conversation, and it’s nearly impossible to do with bcc or a million different chats. Personalization goes a long way when I’m onboarding founders at Craft.
With Cabal, Sarah has established a consistent, instant, and simple founder onboarding:
Dynamic “Resources” portal
Most Platform leaders use a spreadsheet or Notion page to keep track of exclusive content and offers for portfolio founders.
Cabal’s Resources portal gives all of your resources one professional home with one URL. Dynamically add, edit, and remove content, deals, vendors, and other resources. Members of your Cabal instance can even propose new Resources directly through the platform.
Cabal’s Resources Portal also encourages cross-portfolio collaboration.
Once I added deals to Cabal and included the link to view in my onboarding email, founders started asking if they could add their own deals,” she says. “A resource portal is a great way for founders to extend resources and make new connections.
Automated Talent intros
In the eyes of founders, making intros to top talent is one of the most important ways VCs can make a difference.
But the process of fulfilling a key intro is a time-sucking game of telephone. Screen candidate > determine fit > review relevant portfolio cos > short-list intro requests > confirm opt-ins with portfolio contacts > facilitate intros.
Cabal automates this workflow by gating private access to the firm’s portfolio on Cabal. Pre-screened candidates that have been granted access can review Craft’s portfolio and request intros to matching companies or roles. Those requests trigger email notifications to a designated contact at the portfolio company with the candidate’s LinkedIn, context note, and a link to Accept or Reject. Accepting triggers an email from Craft’s talent team, introducing the candidate to the portfolio company.
This automation helps VC teams and portfolio companies spend less time composing redundant emails and more time connecting with top talent.
Recap: Cabal for VCs
Sarah’s best practices for scaling impact with Cabal:
You can listen to Sarah’s full conversation here.