Case study: How Keystones refined their toolbox

The Challenge

When Keystones created their angel network 5 years ago, they faced the question most groups do - what is the best tool to support their internal processes and communication with members? Nothing seemed to be a good fit and having looked around, they decided to hold their horses, get the basics done with some specialised tools and wait for The One And Only, a perfectly fitting piece of investor group software to make an entrance on the market.

Fast forward to 2020. Keystones had seen good growth in the member count and is now a community of 500+ investors. Their mission of creating a large super effective network for facilitating more investment into Danish tech startups is starting to materialise - Keystones network is attracting not only high net worth individuals but also more regular business people who are willing to invest risk capital, time, and competencies. Everything was running smoothly but many of their processes were scattered across different tools that were not really built for managing these processes. They were in dire need of a better investor group software, something that is built for the purpose and would help them streamline deal flow management and syndication.

The search began once again, but this time with a different outcome. When screening all the potential deal flow management tools, Keystones noticed that Dealum had come a long way since they were first introduced to the tool few years back. The platform offered a high-quality tool for a reasonable price and the Dealum team was open to feedback and suggestions regarding the product. It was almost perfect… if only the member experience on the platform would be more aligned with Keystones branding. Keystones didn’t want the communication with members to be hijacked by the software. Luckily, Dealum is true to its promise of customers coming first and tweaked the product for the benefit of Keystones as well as other networks who want to emphasize their own branding more. Sold!

The Outcome

Keystones currently uses Dealum to manage their members, events, and educational materials, and to work on their deal flow. Truth be told, Dealum has not reduced the number of tools or platforms they are using but it has completely transformed their workflow and made it more efficient.

Jan Rosenbom, Partner at Keystones, admits that the key learning from the whole process for them was that it’s difficult to find one software to do everything and do it well. It’s likely that an angel network will end up with a patchwork of many systems, but it’s ok as long as these systems are able to talk to each other. The future of tools lies in seamlessly moving data between different systems and Keystones is looking forward to more integrations on the Dealum platform.

The vast majority of Keystones members are very happy with the platform and can see the benefits, namely transparency and efficiency of the processes. There are always some members who struggle with adopting the new system and a few outliers who don’t engage much with the network, no matter the system, but most of the feedback they have received from their members has been really positive. As a testament to this, over 90% of Keystones members have joined the deal room on Dealum.

The Verdict

Keystones strongly recommend Dealum to all networks of their type. They believe that the Dealum deal room really is the best in class.

We’re super happy to have them on board!

Keystones Fact Sheet