Resources
What is Flowlie? The Complete Guide to Flowlie's Fundraising Platform
Learn how Flowlie helps startup founders save hours and have a streamlined process.
Loading
Loading
Explore 5 fundraising platforms offering fresh alternatives to Visible VC for founders seeking efficient investor communication and relationship management tools.
Ariana Amirkhanian
The best Visible VC alternatives depend on whether you need comprehensive fundraising workflow management beyond just investor updates or specialized tools for specific investor communication tasks. Flowlie offers the most complete end-to-end fundraising solution with AI-powered investor discovery, relationship management, meeting intelligence, and CRM capabilities alongside communication features, making it ideal for founders who want one platform managing their entire raise from research to close. Foundersuite provides broader fundraising CRM functionality focused on contact management, pipeline tracking, and email outreach with access to investor databases for managing relationships from initial contact onwards. Carta integrates investor relations tightly with cap table management, centralizing ownership data and communications particularly for investors already in the Carta ecosystem. Paperstreet specializes singularly in creating and sending structured investor updates with professional formatting. Investory.io functions as a two-sided platform serving both startups and investors with structured data reporting and discovery features.
While Visible VC excels specifically at creating investor updates and performance dashboards for keeping investors informed post-investment, it doesn't address the earlier stages of fundraising like finding investors, mapping warm introduction paths, or managing active fundraising pipelines. Founders often need tools that integrate investor discovery with relationship management and communication rather than treating these as separate workflows requiring multiple disconnected platforms. The right alternative depends on your specific needs: comprehensive platforms like Flowlie for founders actively fundraising who need discovery and pipeline management alongside updates, specialized CRM tools like Foundersuite for contact and outreach management, integrated solutions like Carta for companies prioritizing cap table and investor data centralization, focused update tools like Paperstreet for teams wanting best-in-class reporting without additional features, or two-sided platforms like Investory.io for structured communication channels between startups and investor communities.
Most founders benefit from platforms offering broader functionality than pure investor update tools because fundraising and investor relations involve interconnected activities: discovering qualified investors, securing warm introductions, managing meeting pipelines, tracking engagement with materials, closing rounds, and then maintaining ongoing communication with investors post-close. Tools addressing only the final communication piece leave gaps in earlier critical stages, forcing founders to use multiple platforms and manually transfer information between systems, creating inefficiency and increasing the risk of missed follow-ups or lost opportunities during time-sensitive fundraising processes.
Here are 5 alternatives to consider, each with a different angle on managing investor relationships and fundraising:
Flowlie is built as an AI-powered operating system for Seed to Series B fundraising, designed to make the entire process smart and efficient, from finding investors to closing your round. While Visible excels at creating and sending investor updates and dashboards, Flowlie offers a comprehensive platform that integrates investor discovery, relationship management, and meeting intelligence alongside robust CRM capabilities. Their website also includes practical tools like the Runway & Funding Calculator and Dilution Calculator to help founders plan their capital needs and understand equity implications.
How it differs from Visible VC: Visible is primarily focused on investor updates and dashboards. Flowlie offers a much broader end-to-end fundraising workflow. It includes AI-powered investor identification and network analysis for finding and connecting with new investors (areas not covered by Visible). Flowlie also provides detailed meeting intelligence (pre- and post-meeting insights) and a more comprehensive CRM designed to manage the entire pipeline strategically, in addition to enabling clear communication and reporting, bringing more of the fundraising process into one place.
Foundersuite is a well-known fundraising CRM that provides tools for managing investor contacts, tracking interactions, and executing outreach campaigns, including access to an investor database.
How it differs from Visible VC: Visible's strength is in structured investor updates and dashboards. Foundersuite offers a broader fundraising CRM focused on contact management, pipeline tracking, and email outreach, providing a more comprehensive system for managing the relationships and communications from initial contact onwards, though with less emphasis on recurring performance reporting compared to Visible.
Carta is widely recognized for cap table management, but their platform also includes significant features for investor relations and reporting, especially for companies whose investors are already on Carta.
How it differs from Visible VC: Visible specializes in flexible investor updates and dashboards for a general audience. Carta's investor relations tools are tightly integrated with cap table and ownership data, providing a centralized platform for managing both legal ownership and communications, particularly for investors already within the Carta ecosystem.
Paperstreet focuses specifically on providing software for creating and sending structured investor updates and reports. Their platform is built around making that reporting process easy and professional.
How it differs from Visible VC: Visible offers investor updates and dashboards as part of a platform that also includes some pipeline management. Paperstreet is more singularly focused on the investor update function, aiming to be a highly specialized tool for just that task.
Investory.io is a platform designed to streamline communication and data exchange between startups and investors (VCs, angels, accelerators). It helps startups with investor reporting and fundraising communication in a structured format that investors on the platform can easily consume.
How it differs from Visible VC: Visible helps startups create and send updates to their investor lists. Investory.io is a two-sided platform that also serves investors, focusing on structured data reporting from startups to investors and sometimes facilitating discovery from the investor side based on that reported data, creating a more integrated communication channel between both parties.
You can use multiple tools together, but each additional platform creates overhead through context switching, data synchronization requirements, and increased subscription costs that often reduce overall efficiency rather than improve it. Many founders start with combinations like Visible for investor updates plus separate CRM for pipeline management plus spreadsheets for tracking, then realize they're spending excessive time keeping everything synchronized. The most effective approach is choosing one primary platform handling the majority of your workflow, supplementing only for highly specialized needs your main platform doesn't address. For example, using Flowlie as your fundraising operating system while maintaining Visible specifically for investor updates post-close makes sense if you have unique reporting requirements. Using four different partially-overlapping tools creates more administrative burden than value.
Investor update tools like Visible and Paperstreet focus specifically on creating and distributing regular performance reports and dashboards to existing investors after they've invested, emphasizing presentation, metrics visualization, and communication cadence. Fundraising CRMs like Flowlie and Foundersuite focus on managing relationships with prospective investors during active fundraising, emphasizing contact management, pipeline tracking, meeting scheduling, and conversion through the fundraising funnel. The fundamental difference is timing and audience: update tools serve current investors post-investment, while CRMs serve prospective investors pre-investment. Most founders need both capabilities but at different times, making platforms that integrate both functions more efficient than maintaining separate tools for pre and post-investment communication.
Investor updates are critically important for maintaining existing investor relationships, demonstrating progress, setting up future round success, and building credibility that leads to introductions and follow-on investment, but they're secondary to actually closing your current round when you're actively fundraising. Founders actively raising capital should prioritize investor discovery, securing meetings, and closing commitments over perfecting update cadences to previous investors. However, consistent updates to existing investors create foundation for future rounds by keeping you top-of-mind, building trust through transparency, generating referrals to new investors, and maintaining momentum with potential follow-on investors. The ideal approach addresses both: systematic updates to existing investors while dedicating primary energy to closing your active round, which platforms integrating both functions facilitate better than separate tools.
Prioritize communication features over investor network size if you already have strong access to relevant investors through your existing network, advisors, or other channels. Prioritize platforms with investor discovery and network mapping if your primary challenge is identifying and reaching qualified investors who actually invest in your stage and sector. Neither matters without the other; perfect communication tools are useless if you can't reach the right investors, and access to thousands of investors means nothing if you can't manage relationships and communicate effectively. Evaluate your specific bottleneck: if you're getting plenty of meetings but struggling with follow-up and organization, prioritize CRM and communication features. If you're struggling to identify targets and secure introductions, prioritize discovery and network analysis. Most successful founders need both capabilities integrated rather than choosing between them.
Tools help maintain relationships between rounds by automating regular update distributions, tracking engagement to identify which investors remain interested, organizing investor feedback and questions for addressing systematically, scheduling check-ins and relationship touchpoints, and providing templates and structure making consistent communication easier despite busy operational demands. Platforms like Visible excel specifically at this maintenance phase with update templates and dashboard features. However, maintaining relationships also requires tracking what you discussed in previous meetings, remembering investor-specific interests and concerns, and personalizing communication beyond generic updates, which requires CRM capabilities beyond pure update distribution. The most effective relationship maintenance combines structured updates (showing progress) with personalized outreach (building genuine connection), requiring tools supporting both rather than just broadcast communication.
Essential features for investor relations tools include ability to create professional updates quickly with metrics visualization, contact management tracking all investors and their preferences, communication history showing all previous interactions, engagement tracking revealing who opens and reads materials, template libraries accelerating update creation, customizable dashboards presenting key metrics clearly, and scheduling automation ensuring consistent cadence. Advanced features include integration with data sources automatically pulling metrics, segmentation allowing different updates for different investor groups, collaboration enabling team input on updates, and analytics showing communication effectiveness over time. Avoid tools requiring excessive manual data entry or complex setup that you'll abandon when busy. The best investor relations tools you'll actually use consistently rather than abandoning after initial enthusiasm wanes.
Tools help you raise money indirectly by making you more efficient at the activities that close rounds: identifying qualified investors, securing warm introductions, managing your pipeline systematically, following up at optimal times based on engagement signals, and maintaining relationships that lead to introductions and follow-on investment. They don't replace fundamentals like strong traction, compelling narrative, or relationship building, but they multiply your effectiveness by ensuring nothing falls through cracks and you focus energy on highest-probability opportunities. Founders using comprehensive fundraising platforms like Flowlie often close faster not because the tool raises money directly, but because systematic approach prevents common mistakes like forgetting follow-ups, targeting wrong investors, or missing engagement signals indicating who's genuinely interested versus politely uninterested.
Investor relations and fundraising tool pricing varies from free basic tiers to $500+ monthly for comprehensive platforms with advanced features. Basic investor update tools often start at $50-150 monthly for small portfolios, while full fundraising operating systems with discovery, CRM, and communication range from $200-500 monthly depending on features and company stage. Some platforms offer free trials or freemium tiers letting you test before committing. Many offer startup-friendly pricing with discounts for early-stage companies. Consider cost relative to fundraising efficiency; a $300 monthly tool that helps you close your round even one week faster by preventing missed follow-ups or identifying better-fit investors provides 10x return through reduced opportunity cost and potentially better terms from having more options.
Critical integrations include your email platform for tracking communications and sending updates automatically, calendar tools for scheduling meetings and sending reminders, accounting or financial software for pulling metrics into updates automatically, cap table management for accurate ownership reporting, and data rooms for sharing materials with tracked engagement. Integration with collaboration tools like Slack or team communication platforms helps keep your team aligned on investor interactions. The more manual data entry required, the less likely you'll maintain the tool consistently during busy periods. Platforms offering native integrations or APIs connecting your existing workflow reduce administrative burden dramatically compared to tools requiring manual updates. Evaluate whether a tool integrates with systems you already use rather than requiring you to change your workflow to accommodate the tool.
Transition between investor relations tools by first exporting all data from your current platform including contact lists, communication history, and any templates or content you've created. Review export formats to ensure compatibility with your new platform's import capabilities. Set up your new platform completely including all integrations before discontinuing the old tool, running parallel for 2-4 weeks to ensure nothing is lost. Notify investors about any changes affecting how they receive updates, particularly if switching dramatically changes update format or frequency. Document any institutional knowledge about investor preferences or relationship context that exists in your old system to prevent losing important details. Many founders discover critical information was siloed in their abandoned tool after switching; thorough documentation before transitioning prevents this loss.
Use existing platforms rather than building custom tools unless you have highly unique requirements that available solutions cannot accommodate and sufficient technical resources to maintain custom systems ongoing. Building custom investor relations tools requires far more time than founders estimate, distracts from core business building, requires ongoing maintenance as needs evolve, and lacks the features and polish of dedicated platforms refined through hundreds of companies' use. The opportunity cost of spending 40+ engineering hours building custom CRM or update systems almost always exceeds simply paying for existing solutions costing $200-400 monthly. The rare exceptions are technical founders with completely unique workflows or very large companies with specific compliance requirements that existing tools don't meet, but these represent less than 5% of startups.
Investor relations tools affect future fundraising by ensuring consistent communication that keeps you top-of-mind with potential follow-on investors, demonstrating professionalism and organization that builds investor confidence, tracking engagement revealing which investors remain interested versus those who've mentally passed, and maintaining relationship context that personalizes future outreach rather than making every conversation feel like starting over. Founders who maintain systematic investor relations between rounds close subsequent rounds faster because they have warm relationships ready to activate rather than cold-starting their network. However, tools alone don't create good investor relations; they simply make good practices scalable. Sporadic communication using perfect tools produces worse results than consistent personal outreach using basic spreadsheets. The tool should enable and amplify your investor relations strategy, not replace the strategy itself.
Tools for investor updates focus on communication with existing investors after they've invested, emphasizing regular reporting, performance visualization, and maintaining ongoing relationships through structured updates. Tools for investor discovery focus on identifying potential new investors before you've established relationships, emphasizing database access, filtering by investment criteria, network mapping for warm introductions, and managing outreach to prospects. The fundamental difference is audience (existing investors versus prospective investors) and goal (maintaining relationships versus establishing them). Many founders need both capabilities but at different stages, making platforms integrating both functions more efficient than maintaining separate tools. During active fundraising, discovery and pipeline management tools drive the most value; between rounds, update and reporting tools maintain relationships until your next raise.
You can fundraise successfully using only email and spreadsheets if you're extremely disciplined about manual tracking and have relatively simple fundraising needs, but you'll spend 2-3x more time on administrative tasks and likely miss opportunities that systematic tools would surface. Many founders successfully closed early rounds with nothing but Google Sheets and Gmail before specialized tools existed. However, these founders typically had strong existing networks requiring less discovery work, smaller investor target lists making manual tracking feasible, or exceptional organizational discipline rare among founders juggling operational demands. Specialized tools' value grows with complexity; if you're managing 50+ investor relationships, tracking multiple parallel conversations, or trying to map network connections, tools save dozens of hours and prevent costly mistakes like forgetting critical follow-ups or targeting wrong investors.
Choose comprehensive platforms when you need integrated workflows across investor discovery, pipeline management, communication, and reporting, particularly during active fundraising when jumping between tools creates inefficiency. Choose specialized point solutions when you have one specific need like investor updates that isn't adequately addressed by comprehensive platforms, or when you have strong existing systems for most activities but gaps in specific areas. Consider your team's capacity for learning and maintaining multiple tools; smaller teams benefit more from comprehensive single platforms, while larger teams with dedicated resources can coordinate multiple specialized tools. Start with comprehensive platforms as your foundation, adding specialized tools only when specific needs justify the additional complexity. Most founders overestimate their ability to effectively use four different tools and underestimate the efficiency gains from consolidating into one well-chosen platform.
These tools help maintain board relationships by ensuring consistent communication between formal board meetings, providing board members easy access to current performance data, documenting progress toward agreed milestones, tracking board member-specific requests and follow-ups, and creating professional presentation of company status. Many investor relations platforms include board-specific reporting features beyond general investor updates. However, board relationships require more personal attention than tools alone provide; automated updates should supplement, not replace, direct communication with board members about strategic challenges and opportunities. The most effective board management combines regular structured updates (showing systematic progress) with personal communication (building trust and seeking guidance). Tools handle the structured component efficiently, freeing time for higher-value personal interaction.
Visible provides an excellent solution for managing investor updates and reporting, which is a critical piece of the fundraising and investor relations puzzle. But depending on your needs, an alternative might offer a better fit for your overall workflow.
The right tool will streamline your investor communications and management in the way that best supports your specific fundraising goals and operational style.
Join thousands of founders using our technology to find the right investors and close rounds faster than ever before.
Learn how Flowlie helps startup founders save hours and have a streamlined process.
Top U.S. venture capital firms investing in India’s growing startup ecosystem. Based on investment focus, stages, portfolio highlights, and more.
In this article, we highlight five VC firms that invest in fintech startups. Check the list to find your next supporter.