A CRM tracks the relationship. Not the decision.
DealCloud is the system of record for the pipeline, the relationships, the calendar of where every deal sits. Capital Refinery is the decision integrity layer for the investment decision itself — the thesis, the assumptions, and whether they still hold.
What DealCloud does well, and where the line is.
What DealCloud is built for
Pipeline, relationships, and process automation across the deal lifecycle.
Sourcing intelligence, sponsor and intermediary tracking, configurable pipeline stages, IC scheduling, document tagging, and reporting workflows. The dominant deal CRM for private capital and the operating backbone for many institutional teams' deal teams.
What it is not built for
Holding the IC decision as a structured, testable record.
DealCloud excels at the workflow around a deal — the relationships, the stages, the approvals. It does not maintain the investment thesis as a structured object the platform can re-test against operator data flowing in three years later. The IC memo is an attachment, not a data model.
Where Capital Refinery sits next to it
Underneath the IC stage of the pipeline — running the governed loop.
Most teams that run DealCloud will keep running it. Capital Refinery sits underneath the IC stage as the structured decision record. Signal, scenario, intervention, output — the four-stage loop that governs the position after it leaves the pipeline. DealCloud tracks the relationship. Capital Refinery carries the decision.
Where the lines fall.
| Capability | DealCloud | Capital Refinery |
|---|---|---|
| Pipeline + relationship tracking | Strong — core capability | No — not the goal |
| Process and approval workflow | Strong | Limited — focused on the decision itself |
| IC memo as a structured testable record | Memo is an attachment | Yes — bound at IC with thesis and conditions |
| Operator data → thesis assumption mapping | No | Yes — per position, on open |
| Decision validity scoring | No | Yes — live on every position |
| Three-pass deterministic extraction kernel | No | Yes — every figure has provenance |
Institutional readiness measurement
DealCloud solves deal management, pipeline tracking, and relationship CRM for capital markets sourcing teams. Capital Refinery operates a category DealCloud doesn’t: institutional readiness measurement — grading operating businesses against the same 10-axis framework that buy-side ICs, lender credit committees, and LPs use to evaluate. The artifact carries a deterministic fingerprint and a public verification URL.
The two product surfaces don’t compete — they operate at different layers of the stack. DealCloud handles deal management and pipeline tracking; Capital Refinery handles structural readiness measurement and decision integrity through the lifecycle. See institutional readiness and the same-engine architecture for the dimension DealCloud doesn’t address.
DealCloud + Capital Refinery.
Most teams that run DealCloud will continue to. The right question is what holds the IC decision after it leaves the pipeline. Bring us a deal that closed last quarter.
Keep DealCloud if you need deal pipeline and relationship CRM. Use Capital Refinery when you need a neutral, evidence-backed readiness artifact that shows what will survive institutional review.
Capital Refinery is the institutional measurement layer. It does not replace DealCloud; it sits next to it. The decision to engage is a routing decision, not a swap.
When to use CRIf DealCloud is tracking the deal through pipeline stages but the IC memo at the close-decision is still being rebuilt by hand from email threads, model tabs, and the data room, that’s when Capital Refinery’s decision-integrity layer enters. DealCloud carries the deal; CR carries the decision — the thesis, the conditions, and the drift against them after close.
Working with an advisor or AI consultant? Use CR as the independent measurement layer via the Modernization Impact Review. Want to shape the methodology? Apply as a design partner.