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Immediate Value

After this tutorial, you’ll use Relationship Intelligence to support due diligence — mapping team connections — direct and inferred — to target stakeholders, finding reference contacts through your network, and surfacing prior team knowledge of a target.

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Prerequisites

  • Tutorial 6: Relationship Intelligence
  • Tutorial 12: Advanced Pipeline Management

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Quick-Start Roadmap

  1. Use RI to map connections for due diligence targets
  2. Find reference contacts through your network
  3. Assess team-wide prior knowledge of a target

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Why RI Matters for Due Diligence

Due diligence depends on information gathering, and warm introductions typically yield more candid feedback than cold outreach. RI surfaces which teammates have existing connections to a target company, its leadership, investors, and customers — so you can route diligence requests through warmer paths.
Affinity guide: Due diligence checklist for venture capital and Due Diligence Strategies for the AI Era.

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Task 1: Map Connections for DD Targets

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Context

Before deep-diving into a target, map who on your team has connections to the company, its leadership, its investors, and its customers. This informs who should run intro calls, references, and management meetings.

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🎬 Watch

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Action

  1. Open the target company’s profile.
  2. Click the “Connections” tab.
  3. Review connection strength across your team for the target’s key people:
    • Who knows the CEO/founders?
    • Who knows their current investors?
    • Who knows their customers?
  4. Scroll down to Inferred Connections to {Company} (Scale, Advanced, and Enterprise). These are contacts your firm knows who likely know the target — for example, someone who was at an investment firm when it funded the company. Record them as possible paths, not warm ones.
  5. For each key person, open their profile and check the Connections tab.
  6. Build a DD connection map: | Target Contact | Team Connector | Strength | Action | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | CEO | Partner A | 🟢 Strong | Request intro for management meeting | | Lead Investor | Associate B | 🟠 Average | Request co-investor reference | | Former CFO | Contact C (bridge) | Possible path | Ask Contact C whether they know them first | | Key Customer | No connection | ⚪ None | Cold outreach or find alternative path |
RI only sees what reaches Affinity — synced email and calendar, manually logged interactions, and imported LinkedIn connections. If a teammate hasn’t connected their email, their connections won’t appear. Confirm coverage before assuming “no connection” is accurate.

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Expected Outcome

You have a connection map for your DD target showing who on your team can facilitate introductions to key stakeholders.

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Task 2: Find Reference Contacts

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Context

Find customers, former employees, industry experts, and co-investors in your team’s network who can provide reference perspectives on the target.

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Action

  1. Identify the reference contacts you want — current customers, former employees, industry experts, or co-investors.
  2. Search for each in Affinity (Cmd+K / Alt+K), or ask AI Chat — “Who can introduce me to someone who used to work at Acme Corp?” — for ranked paths and a draft ask. It never sends anything; you do.
  3. Check the Connections tab on each profile for team connections. On a list of candidate references, the LinkedIn Connected To filter shows who someone on your team is connected to on LinkedIn.
  4. For each strong connection:
    • Note the connector and strength.
    • Request an introduction for a reference call.
    • Log the call as a note on the target company’s profile.

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Expected Outcome

You’ve identified reference contacts available through your team’s network and routed introduction requests through the right connectors.

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Task 3: Assess Team-Wide Knowledge

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Context

Before starting deep DD, check whether anyone at your firm has already evaluated this company (or a competitor) and documented findings. Existing notes, activity, and connections save duplicated work.

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Action

  1. Open the target company profile.
  2. Check the Activity Timeline — has anyone on the team interacted with this entity before?
  3. Check the Notes tab — are there existing notes from prior meetings or evaluations?
  4. Check the Connections tab — how many team members have connections?
  5. Search for competitors and adjacent companies in case the team has evaluated the space before.
Restricted Opportunities (Enterprise). If the target sits on a restricted opportunity, you’ll still see its row, but the name shows as [Hidden] and field values are masked unless you’re on its allow list. Notes, files, and reminders linked to it are hidden too, so a prior-knowledge check can come up short. Ask a member of the allow list or your Enterprise Admin to add you — or, if the list’s allow list follows a field such as Owners, to add you to that field.

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Expected Outcome

You’ve assessed your firm’s existing knowledge about the target and can build on prior work instead of starting from scratch.

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Common Questions

Connections and relationship strengths can’t be exported from the app — screenshot the Connections tab or document the connection map manually. Most teams create a “Network Assessment” section in their DD memo from RI findings. If you need the data elsewhere, the Affinity API’s relationship strengths endpoint provides it.
RI only analyzes email accounts synced to Affinity, plus interactions your team logs by hand and LinkedIn connections they import. If a team member hasn’t connected their email, their connections won’t appear. Confirm all deal team members have synced email for maximum coverage.
It’s a Restricted Opportunity (Enterprise). The row stays visible so pipeline counts are accurate, but the name and field values are masked for anyone not on that deal’s allow list. Ask an allow-list member or your Enterprise Admin if you need access for diligence.

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See It In Action

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Where to Go Next