NEA Partners
Edwin Olsson, Investment Professional at NEA Partners, talks through why they selected 4Degrees, and the improvements they’ve seen in operational efficiency and relationship management as a result.
“The 4Degrees team has really impressed us – the service is world-class! “
– Edwin Olsson
4Degrees streamlines sourcing, relationship building, and portfolio support –
tailored to the unique needs of private investment firms.
Challenges
Lack of automated systems and visibility, leading to hours spent on manual data entry and missed opportunities.
Goals
Reduce manual effort, and increase understanding of team connections and activity.
Results
Multiple hours a week saved per team member, while driving improved sourcing efficiency.
The Challenge
To keep up with the pace of deal activity in the market, NEA team needed to become more efficient and structured in how they managed their deal flow. Not only this, but they also needed a system that would help them leverage the entire network of our team members for sourcing, diligence, and portfolio support.
However, Outlook and Excel (the team’s existing systems) made it challenging to do either. Excel made it difficult to collaborate on opportunities across the team in a dynamic manner – leading to lost time and manual rework. The team’s contacts remained siloed in their respective inboxes, which limited visibility across the team.
The Solution
After doing a survey of the available options, NEA chose 4Degrees. They were particularly compelled by the ease of use and automation, freeing up time for other more critical activities.
“4Degrees had everything we were looking for – it’s purpose-built for our type of business. One important aspect were the low barriers to use; it’s an automatic and smart platform with functions like automatic syncing to outlook, smart data enriching etc. making it a very powerful CRM tool without requiring much of our time.
Other solutions we looked at also didn’t have as deep of an integration with Microsoft Outlook, which was critical for us.”
The Results
The NEA team has met their efficiency goals and then some with the 4Degrees platform:
“Having everything gathered in one system instead of various spreadsheets is much more efficient and has saved us hours. We’ve improved our collaboration within the team across our deal pipeline, and on specific deals we’re pursuing. 4Degrees is also meaningfully changing the way we use and track our own network.“
In addition, the NEA team speaks highly of the service they’ve received in working with 4Degrees:
“The 4Degrees team has really impressed us – the service is world-class! After becoming customers, the 4Degrees team has continuously reached out to us to ensure that everyone in the organization are onboard, that there are no hiccups, and offered their help to create customized functions etc. Also, they continuously ask for feedback showing that they are very keen on improving to ensure they deliver the best product in the market.“
About NEA Partners
NEA Partners invests in Nordic growth companies with an entrepreneurial approach. They partner with management teams and entrepreneurs and together build successful companies by combining the best of entrepreneurship, network and capital.
Visit NEA Partners
