A well-configured CTD workspace unlocks your firm's collective network — not just individual partners' contacts. Investment firms run on the Business Edition, which includes domain-wide email delegation, external members, and team-level MCP access. See Getting started with Business Edition and Implementation guide for the full technical setup. This article covers the configuration decisions specific to investment firms.
Who to add as full team members
Add everyone whose network you want in the collective graph:
- Partners and managing directors
- Principals and associates
- Investment analysts
- Operating partners on staff
- Venture partners with active roles
Each person connects their own accounts — email, LinkedIn, or both. CTD combines these into a single searchable network. The more people connect, the more paths become available across the firm.
Who to add as external members
External members are people outside your firm who join your network and share their connections. For investment firms, these typically include:
- Trusted advisors and venture partners not on staff
- Operating partners engaged with specific portfolio companies
- Select portfolio founders — especially those who are active networkers
- Key LPs who want to participate actively in the network
External members see the same warm path data you do. They can search for people and companies through your collective network, which makes membership valuable to them — not just a data donation. Contact your CTD account manager to send external member invitations.
Connecting accounts
On the Business Edition, CTD sets up domain-wide delegation for your firm's email domain — so every team member's work email is connected automatically, with zero effort from your staff. No one needs to individually authorize or sync their account.
To go deeper, team members can also add personal email accounts at app.ctd.ai/accounts — many of the strongest relationships live outside the firm domain. LinkedIn data can also be uploaded for any team member who wants to enrich their signal further.
Setting up MCP for the team
The CTD MCP integration connects your team's CTD data to Claude, enabling natural language queries and the company research skill. This is especially powerful for deal sourcing and diligence — partners can research any company and see warm paths without leaving their AI chat.
Admins set up the team MCP connector once; individual team members then connect their own CTD accounts. See Team workspace — Admin setup for step-by-step instructions.
Privacy and data sharing
Each team member controls what they share. CTD never reads email content — only metadata about who they've exchanged messages with and how recently. Teammates can see that someone knows a contact (enough to surface a warm path) but not the details of that relationship. External members can also control exactly what they share.