DenchClaw for Investors: Portfolio Relationship Management

DenchClaw is a local-first AI CRM that lets investors track portfolio companies, founders, co-investors, and deal flow in one place — with full SQL access, no cloud vendor, and no per-seat pricing. Here's how to set it up for investment work.

What is DenchClaw? — if you're new, it's a DuckDB-backed open-source CRM backed by YC S24.

Why investors need a better CRM#

Most CRMs are built for sales. Investors have a different relationship management problem: it's not about closing deals on a quota, it's about maintaining hundreds of long-term relationships with founders, LPs, co-investors, and advisors — over years, sometimes decades.

The patterns that matter for investors:

• Deal flow tracking — sourcing, first meetings, passed, invested
• Portfolio monitoring — key metrics, board seats, follow-on rights
• Founder relationships — not just current portfolio, but the broader network
• Co-investor mapping — who do you want to syndicate with?
• LP relationships — who's in the fund, re-up conversations
• Warm intros — path from you to any founder through your network

None of the standard sales CRMs do this well. Spreadsheets get out of sync. Notion databases get messy. DenchClaw gives you a configurable, queryable data model you actually own.

For the founder's perspective on the other side of this relationship, see managing investor relations with DenchClaw.

Recommended data model for investors#

1. Companies#

Every company you track — portfolio, pipeline, passed, and watchlist.

Fields:

• name (text)
• website (url)
• stage (select: Pre-seed, Seed, Series A, B, C)
• sector (select)
• status (select: Portfolio, Pipeline, Passed, Watchlist, Exited)
• invested_date (date)
• ownership_pct (number)
• last_valuation (number)
• next_round_target (number)
• board_seat (boolean)
• pro_rata_rights (boolean)
• lead_investor (text)

2. Founders#

The people behind companies.

Fields:

• name (text)
• email (email)
• linkedin (url)
• company (relation → Companies)
• role (select: CEO, CTO, CPO, Co-founder)
• relationship_strength (select: Close, Warm, Cold, No relationship)
• last_contact_date (date)
• intro_path (text — who connected you)
• background (text)

3. Deals (Pipeline)#

Track inbound and outbound deal flow.

Fields:

• company (relation → Companies)
• source (select: Inbound, Intro, Outbound, Conference)
• referred_by (relation → Founders or Investors)
• first_meeting_date (date)
• stage (select: Sourced, First Meeting, Diligence, Term Sheet, Closed, Passed)
• pass_reason (select: Valuation, Team, Market, Timing, Competition)
• check_size (number)
• assigned_to (text)

4. Investors (Co-investors / LPs)#

Your broader network of investors.

Fields:

• name (text)
• firm (text)
• type (select: VC, Angel, LP, Corporate, Family Office)
• focus_sectors (multi_select)
• typical_check (text)
• relationship (select: Close, Warm, Cold)
• last_contact_date (date)

5. Interactions#

Log every meaningful touchpoint.

Fields:

• date (date)
• type (select: Email, Call, Meeting, Board, Conference, Intro)
• person (relation → Founders or Investors)
• company (relation → Companies)
• notes (textarea)
• follow_up (textarea)
• follow_up_date (date)

Setting up DenchClaw#

npx denchclaw

Frontend at localhost:3100. Create each object via the UI or define them in Object.yaml files for reproducible configuration.

Views that work for investment workflows#

Deal flow Kanban#

Set your Deals object to Kanban view, grouped by stage. You get a visual pipeline:

| Sourced | First Meeting | Diligence | Term Sheet | Closed | Passed |
|---------|---------------|-----------|------------|--------|--------|
| Co X    | Co A          | Co C      | Co E       | Co G   | Co H   |
| Co Y    |               | Co D      |            |        | Co I   |

Move deals between stages by dragging.

Portfolio Timeline#

Switch Companies to Timeline view, using invested_date as the start and any follow-on milestones as markers. Visualize when you deployed capital over time.

Founder relationship table#

Custom Table view on Founders:

• Name, company, last_contact_date, relationship_strength
• Sort by last_contact_date ascending → shows who you haven't talked to recently
• Filter by portfolio company status = Active

This is your "who needs attention" view.

Entry documents for deal memos#

Every company entry has a markdown document file. Use it for deal memos:

# Acme AI — Deal Memo
 
**Decision:** Pass (valuation)  
**Date:** 2025-11-14  
**Team:** Sarah Chen (CEO), James Park (CTO)
 
## Why We Looked
Strong inbound from @ycombinator batch. Several warm references from 
portfolio founders. AI infrastructure play in a space we know well.
 
## What We Like
- Sarah has deep ML research background (ex-Google Brain)
- Early enterprise traction — 3 design partners at $50K/yr
- Differentiated architecture — 10x cost efficiency vs. incumbents
 
## Why We Passed
Pre-money ask of $25M on $500K ARR is aggressive. At our check size, 
ownership would be sub-1%. Hard to justify the time investment.
 
## Follow-on Watch
If they raise at $15-18M with more traction, revisit. Keep in contact 
with Sarah — she's exceptional.
 
## References
- @johndoe: "Sarah is one of the best technical founders I've worked with"
- @janedoe: "Team executes fast, no drama"

This lives on your disk, full-text searchable, alongside the structured CRM fields. No cloud database limits your note length.

Relationship intelligence with SQL#

Because everything is in DuckDB, you can run queries that no commercial CRM exposes:

-- Portfolio founders you haven't contacted in 90+ days
SELECT f.name, c.name as company, f.last_contact_date,
  DATEDIFF('day', f.last_contact_date, CURRENT_DATE) as days_since
FROM v_founders f
JOIN v_companies c ON c.id = f.company_id
WHERE c.status = 'Portfolio'
AND DATEDIFF('day', f.last_contact_date, CURRENT_DATE) > 90
ORDER BY days_since DESC;
 
-- Deal flow by source this year
SELECT source, COUNT(*) as deals, 
  COUNT(CASE WHEN stage = 'Closed' THEN 1 END) as closed
FROM v_deals
WHERE first_meeting_date >= '2025-01-01'
GROUP BY source;
 
-- Co-investors in our portfolio
SELECT i.name, i.firm, COUNT(*) as co_investments
FROM v_investors i
JOIN v_companies c ON c.lead_investor = i.name
WHERE c.status = 'Portfolio'
GROUP BY i.name, i.firm
ORDER BY co_investments DESC;

Browser agent for portfolio monitoring#

DenchClaw's browser agent copies your Chrome profile — already logged into LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Twitter/X, wherever you track news. Use it to:

• Pull recent LinkedIn posts from portfolio founders
• Check Crunchbase for new funding announcements in your sectors
• Monitor news mentions for portfolio companies
• Track co-investor portfolio updates

Set up a scheduled skill that runs nightly and appends updates to each company's entry document. Wake up to a briefing instead of manually checking 20 tabs.

Also see#

Personal CRM for founders — covers relationship management principles that apply equally to investors.

FAQ#

Can I share DenchClaw with my investment team? DenchClaw is local-first but self-hostable. Run it on a shared server and your whole team gets access. The DuckDB file can also be synced via shared storage.

How do I track board meetings and follow-ups? Create an Interactions object with type = Board. Link to both the Company and the Founders who attended. Add action items to the entry document. Set a follow_up_date and filter your Table view by follow-up dates.

Can DenchClaw pull portfolio company metrics automatically? Yes — use action fields or skills to query APIs (like Baremetrics, Stripe, or portfolio company dashboards) and update metric fields. The browser agent can scrape dashboards you have access to.

What about LP reporting? Use the App Builder to create a .dench.app that queries your DuckDB and generates LP-ready reports. Charts, tables, and formatted summaries backed by live data.

Is my deal flow data secure? Fully local. Nothing leaves your machine unless you push it. This matters — deal flow contains confidential information from founders who shared it in confidence.

Ready to try DenchClaw? Install in one command: npx denchclaw. Full setup guide →