Private Equity

92% of senior executives ignore cold outreach. Warm introductions still work every time.

The Portfolio Network Layer for Private Equity

Cold emails get deleted.

Warm introductions get meetings.

Private equity is in a difficult cycle. Exits are down. Holding periods are stretched. Entry multiples are high. The firms closing deals ahead of everyone else aren't working harder — they're getting to the right conversation through the right person. Your firm has that network. CTD tells you exactly where the warm path is and who on your team can open it.

Deal Flow & Network Revenue & Portfolio Growth Talent & Recruiting

LinkedIn shows you connections.
CTD shows you relationships.

When LinkedIn started, a connection meant something. Today, the average professional has thousands — most of whom they couldn't introduce you to if they tried.

SEE MORE

See More

Your entire firm's relationships. Not just yours.

CTD connects at the email server level — every partner, executive, portfolio founder, and advisor's network is mapped and searchable automatically. No individual setup. No opt-in.

Partners' network
Portfolio founders' network
Advisors' network
One searchable graph

SEE WHAT'S REAL

Strong Active email, career overlap, recent meetings
Familiar Occasional contact, shared past employer
Weak LinkedIn only, no recent interaction

Every relationship scored by strength.

Not every shared contact is a scored relationship. A scored relationship is one where CTD has actual signal — email frequency, recency, response rates, calendar overlap. No signal, no score.

LinkedIn shows you mutual contacts. CTD shows you scored relationships — ranked by how well your people actually know them.

ACT ON IT

Ghost Email
From: David Chen (Board Member)
To: Sarah Kim (VP Sales, Datastream)

Your team drafts it.

Your board member sends it.

One click from insight to introduction.

CTD removes the cognitive load from your busiest connectors. Draft the perfect intro, route it for approval, and track it to the meeting.

The Relationship Capital Problem

Private equity firms have operating playbooks, deal playbooks, and integration playbooks. They track contacts in their CRM, log meetings, and manage deal pipelines. But none of these tools can answer the most important question: who on our team actually knows this person well enough to make an introduction? That's the gap. Your firm has the relationships. It just can't see how strong they are — or who has the best path.

An analyst's college roommate is chief of staff to a target company's CEO. A developer's aunt is COO at a prospect you've been trying to reach. A former intern's mentor sits on the board of your next acquisition target. These connections exist today — they're just hidden.

“The relationships exist. The firm just can’t see them.”

30

portfolio companies

15,000

employees across the portfolio

15M+

first-degree connections

You Have a CRM and LinkedIn.

Here’s What They Can’t Do.

Every PE firm has a CRM for direct contacts and individual LinkedIn accounts for second-degree connections. CTD gives you five capabilities neither tool can.

01

Your CRM shows your firm’s direct contacts

CTD shows second-degree connections across your entire firm — not just one person’s network, but the combined extended network of every partner, executive, and team member

02

LinkedIn only maps connections made on LinkedIn

CTD maps LinkedIn plus email and calendar — surfacing thousands of relationships per person that don’t exist on LinkedIn at all

03

LinkedIn can’t show your external network’s connections

When founders and connectors join as external members, their first-degree relationships become visible warm paths for the whole firm

04

LinkedIn doesn’t infer relationships

CTD detects relationships from overlapping employment history, shared board seats, and career signals — even when no direct email or LinkedIn connection exists

05

LinkedIn treats all connections the same

CTD scores every relationship using email interaction patterns, recency, career overlaps, and multiple signals — so you know who actually has a strong relationship, not just a connection

Network Visibility Comparison
Typical LinkedIn connections per person
~9,000
CTD contacts per person
~46,000

CTD maps email, calendar, and career history — not just who clicked "Connect." That's 5x more relationships visible per person.

LinkedIn tells you two people are connected. CTD tells you how well — with full context on how the relationship started, what was discussed, and how recently they interacted. That’s what makes millions of connections actually leverageable.

HOW CTD SCORES RELATIONSHIPS

Explicit Signals

Relationship paths

Email frequency and volume between two people

Email recency — how recently they last communicated

LinkedIn connection status

Calendar meetings — shared meetings and frequency

Implicit Signals

Network scoring

Career overlaps — worked at the same company during the same period

Shared board seats or advisory roles

Co-invested deals or shared portfolio involvement

Alumni networks — same university, program, or cohort

Maria K.

Maria K.

VP Sales · GrowthCo

Strong relationship

Sara V.

Sara V.

CMO · Nexora

Check

Active email exchange — frequent, recent communication

Check

Worked together at Acme Corp for 2 years — both VP-level

Check

Lived in the same city during their time at Acme Corp

HOW IT WORKS

Built for the Way PE Firms Actually Operate

Four steps from deployment to measurable relationship-driven outcomes.

01 Onboard your firm’s network

Connect your firm's email server — no individual setup required. CTD maps every relationship automatically within days.

Onboard icon

02 Build the firm’s Supergraph

Supergraph icon

Relationships are ranked by strength, deduplicated, and made searchable across partners, portfolio leadership, and extended members.

03 Search any target

Find warm paths to acquisition targets, enterprise prospects, or executive candidates — instantly, across the firm's entire collective network.

Search icon

04 Activate warm introductions

One-click intro requests go to the best-positioned connector, with timing managed to prevent overlap and connector fatigue. Track intro volume, meeting conversion, and outcomes.

Introductions icon

05 Measure what matters

Track intro volume, meeting conversion, deals influenced, and revenue generated — turning relationship capital into a reportable, accountable asset.

Measure icon

How PE & VC Firms Use CTD

From recruiting to events, see how firms activate their network to create value across the portfolio.

GTM
Go-to-Market

Connect portfolio companies to executives at their target accounts

Your portfolio companies have target accounts they're trying to break into. Your firm's network already has paths to the decision-makers at those companies. CTD makes those paths visible — so you can add immediate value by facilitating warm introductions to the right executives.

See which executives at a portco’s target accounts are connected to your firm’s network

Filter by persona and seniority (VP, C-level, CXO)

View scored connection paths showing who in your network has the strongest relationship

Facilitate warm introductions on behalf of your portfolio companies

Share curated contact lists directly with portco sales teams

See which executives at a portco’s target accounts are connected to your firm’s network

Filter by persona and seniority (VP, C-level, CXO)

View scored connection paths showing who in your network has the strongest relationship

Facilitate warm introductions on behalf of your portfolio companies

Share curated contact lists directly with portco sales teams

Warm introductions interface
Events
Events

Drive high-value attendance through warm outreach

Hosting a Marketing Leaders Dinner or industry gathering? Search your extended network for the right attendees — CMOs, VPs of Marketing, Growth Leaders — and coordinate warm introductions through the best-connected person.

Search across internal team, partners, founders, and extended network

Create dedicated event lists (e.g., “Marketing Event – May 2026”)

View strongest connection paths to each target attendee

Manage outreach in Kanban: Target → Intro Requested → Invite Sent → RSVP Confirmed

Higher response rates, stronger attendance quality, and clear outreach visibility

Events outreach interface
Deal Flow
Deal Flow

Source, diligence, and win deals through warm network paths

Search for companies by sector, stage, or geography and instantly see who in your fund's network — partners, advisors, portfolio founders — has a relationship with the founding team. When multiple firms compete for the same deal, the fund with the warmest path to the founder wins. CTD shows you who has the strongest connection and facilitates the intro before your competitors go cold.

Search for companies by industry, stage, size, or geography across your full network

See scored relationship paths to founders, executives, and board members

Run relationship-based diligence — find who in your network has worked with or invested alongside the founding team

Save deal targets into lists and track through stages (Identified → First Meeting → DD → Term Sheet)

Share deal lists with partners for collaborative evaluation

Leverage portfolio founders’ networks to uncover warm paths you wouldn’t see internally

Relationship scoring interface
Ecosystem
Ecosystem

Multiply your network value through founder collaboration

Invite portfolio founders as external members to create a network multiplier effect. Founders help founders, investors help portfolio companies, and the entire ecosystem becomes more connected and effective.

Expand visibility by inviting founders as external members (unlimited)

Expand visibility by inviting founders as external members (unlimited)

Founders gain access to the broader VC/PE ecosystem

Identify shared connections and strong paths across the full network

Portfolio companies can reciprocate by adding investors as external members

Creates a win-win: investors increase value, founders gain broader access

Contact interactions extension
Recruiting
Recruiting

Find and place top talent across your portfolio

Use natural language search to find candidates (e.g., CROs or VPs of Sales in healthcare) across your firm’s entire network — partners, employees, and founders. CTD surfaces the strongest connection paths to each person.

Search by role, seniority, function, industry, location, and company size

Save candidates to lists and share with colleagues or portfolio companies

Manage candidates in Kanban view (Good Fit → Interview Scheduled → Hired)

Add notes and collaborate directly in-platform

One timeline for every contact

Know who’s attending events, who knows them, and what to ask

Before conferences or LP meetings, CTD shows which attendees are connected to your firm’s network, so every conversation is warm and every meeting is intentional.

Talent network interface

Deal Flow & Network

Source deals and expand your ecosystem through warm paths

Revenue & Portfolio Growth

Help portfolio companies accelerate sales and build stronger pipelines

Talent & Recruiting

Find and place top talent across your portfolio companies

Trusted by investors and operators who know what relationships are worth
First Round Capital Bessemer Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners Xactly Gainsight
★★★★★

"We sourced three add-on acquisitions last year through warm paths CTD surfaced. That's relationship capital finally doing real work."

OP
Operating Partner
PE Portfolio Firm
★★★★★

"Our portcos now start with executive relationships on day one. CTD turned our operating partners' Rolodexes into a shared firm asset."

VC
Value Creation Lead
Mid-Market PE Fund
★★★★★

"The deal we closed through CTD's network — seven figures in net new revenue — paid for three years of the platform in one quarter."

PC
Portfolio CEO
Xactly

Common Questions

Everything you need to know about implementing CTD at your PE firm.

We already have a CRM and deal flow platform. How is this different?

Your CRM tracks companies and deals. CTD maps the people — and more importantly, who across your entire firm already knows them. It's the layer between your firm's collective relationships and the deals you want to make.

Will operating partners actually adopt this?

CTD is designed for low-friction adoption. Partners sync contacts from existing tools (email, LinkedIn, etc.) in minutes. There's no manual data entry, and they can see immediate value in what the firm's collective network looks like.

What about confidentiality? Some relationships are sensitive.

CTD gives individuals control over what they share. Relationship paths are surfaced without exposing raw personal contact data — so it respects confidentiality while still enabling warm introductions.

Can portfolio companies access the firm's network directly?

Yes — on a controlled basis. The PE firm decides which portfolio companies have access, to what parts of the network, and for which use cases. All intro requests are coordinated and visible to firm leadership.

How does CTD handle a firm with multiple portfolio companies competing for the same intros?

CTD manages this explicitly — prioritizing requests, tracking who has been asked for what, and preventing awkward overlap between companies in the same sector.

Your firm's greatest competitive advantage is already in the room.

Time to make it work.