Relate Fundraising CRM

Overview

Relate Fundraising CRM is a CRM for founders managing investor relationships while raising capital. It is best suited to teams that want deal tracking, investor communications and shared context in one workspace. Its strongest case is coordinating active fundraising; it is less suited to firms that need portfolio tracking.

Teams can track investor deals and conversations, maintain investor records and share lists with colleagues. Relate also supports sales, customer success, partnerships and other workflows. For a broader category comparison, see our Investor Relationship Management Software guide.

Key features

The investor pipeline puts ongoing deals and conversations together, while comments, tags and shared lists help a team keep relationship context accessible to colleagues. That makes Relate more useful for collaborative fundraising than a private contact list, though the CRM does not include portfolio tracking.

Email sync works with Google, Outlook or IMAP/SMTP, including self-hosted email services. Messages sync in both directions, and users can send email from Relate. Slack notifications can report updates to organizations, deals and notes in channels or personal messages. Zapier can connect Relate to more than 4,000 applications, which broadens its reach beyond the named integrations.

Relate Cal handles investor meeting scheduling, including Zoom calls. Together, the pipeline, email and scheduling tools cover key coordination tasks during a raise. The mobile experience is a progressive web app rather than a native app: it runs in iOS and Android browsers and can be added to a device home screen.

Pricing

Relate has a free plan, paid plans and a 7-day trial. Team Free costs nothing and includes unlimited contacts, 30-day email and note history, 10 guest invites, and 250 enrichments plus pay-as-you-go. The contact allowance is generous for an entry tier, but the 30-day history window can make older fundraising context harder to keep in view.

Team Business costs $60 a month, billed per user monthly. It adds unlimited qualified deals, 50 guest invites, reporting and dashboards, and up to 250 enrichments plus pay-as-you-go. It is the more appropriate fit for teams that need full history and reporting; its per-user monthly billing means the cost scales with the team. The plan includes full email and note history, removing the free tier’s 30-day limit.

Enterprise has custom pricing and is aimed at organizations needing custom integrations, data warehouse integration, reverse ETL, multiple workspaces, or security and compliance capabilities. The free tier gives up full history and the larger guest allowance; Enterprise’s custom price requires a sales conversation rather than a fixed budget figure.

Platforms

Relate is available in a browser and as a desktop application for macOS Intel, macOS Apple Silicon and Windows. iOS and Android access comes through the mobile web app, which can be saved to a device home screen. Linux is not officially supported, although Relate says it can provide a Linux installer on request. That makes it a weaker fit for teams that require supported Linux desktop software.

Who it's for

Relate suits founders and fundraising teams that need a shared investor pipeline, synchronized email and meeting coordination, particularly when they also want to manage other business processes in the same CRM. The free plan can work for smaller teams that can live with 30 days of history and 10 guest invites. Teams needing full history, reporting or a larger guest allowance should consider Business. Organizations seeking portfolio tracking or officially supported Linux software should look elsewhere.

Pros and cons

• Pros: Investor deals and conversations, email and meeting scheduling are brought into one workflow, reducing the need to coordinate those tasks across separate tools.
• Pros: Google, Outlook, IMAP/SMTP, Slack and Zapier integrations support a range of communication setups, including self-hosted email.
• Pros: Team Free offers unlimited contacts, making it possible to keep a large investor list without a contact cap.
• Cons: Free email and note history stops at 30 days, limiting its usefulness for teams that need a long fundraising record.
• Cons: Business is billed per user, so adding teammates increases the monthly cost.
• Cons: Portfolio tracking is not included, and Linux is not officially supported.

Alternatives

Clienteer is a paid alternative with Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, web, API, extension and self-hosted platforms. Visible is another freemium option; its free Starter plan is billed at $0 per month annually and allows 100 investor recipients, two pitch decks, two pipelines, one data room, 25 files and two users. Choose it when those investor-communication and pitch-material limits fit the job.

Dynamo CRM & Deal Management is a paid CRM and deal-management option with Android, iOS, API and web access; pricing is available by demo request. Juniper Square is a paid alternative with Android, iOS, API and web access.

4Degrees is a paid option with Android, iOS, web, API and extension access; pricing is by request and depends on the organization and team. DealCloud is a paid alternative with Android, iOS, web and extension access, with enterprise pricing discussed with an Intapp representative. Edda has no free plan and offers paid Premium and Enterprise tiers with different user, pipeline, fund and HERA.I credit limits. SatuitCRM is a paid alternative; its Essentials plan costs $150 a month per user, with a three-user minimum and 1 GB per user.

Verdict

Choose Relate if your fundraising team needs a shared investor pipeline with email sync, scheduling and collaboration in one CRM. Its free tier makes it accessible to teams willing to accept limited history, while Business adds full history and reporting at a per-user monthly price. Look elsewhere if portfolio tracking is essential, or if your team requires officially supported Linux software.