From Filters to Thesis-First Sourcing: How a SF VC Firm Doubled Its Opportunity Pipeline with Raylu AI

At a Glance

Challenges

• Standard data providers missing emerging disruptors

• Could not search by problem area rather than category

• Labor-intensive M&A research, prone to oversight

Benefits

• 2–2.5× more qualified leads discovered

• Market maps generated in minutes instead of days

• Competitive edge in winning deals and supporting portfolio companies

Objectives

A San Francisco–based multi-stage venture capital firm struggled with creating market maps tailored to their problem-first approach, finding niche M&A targets for portfolio companies, and navigating the limitations of traditional data sources.

Despite using multiple investment databases, they couldn’t efficiently identify early-stage disruptors or lesser-known acquisition opportunities. The firm needed a solution to automate research, uncover overlooked opportunities, and integrate seamlessly into their CRM to enrich insights and streamline workflows.

Solution

Raylu AI was deployed to automate market mapping with AI, enabling a thesis-first sourcing strategy and dramatically improving research efficiency:

• Thesis-First Search: The platform lets the firm simply type out a mandate (e.g., “Identify early-stage companies solving supply chain waste in agriculture”), and Raylu AI intelligently surfaces relevant targets.

• Tailored Ranking: Every lead is automatically scored and ranked against the firm’s own mandates, highlighting the highest-potential deals first.

• CRM Integration & Enrichment: Raylu AI seamlessly pulls additional data (like funding rounds, revenue info, or call notes) and pushes structured insights back into the firm’s CRM, acting as a drop-in replacement for standalone funding data providers.

“We used to spend entire days sifting through data to build a half-decent market map that missed a lot of smaller players. Now, Raylu AI handles it all in minutes, and we show up to meetings with insights that blow founders away.”
— VP, SF-Based Multi-Stage VC Firm

Benefits

2.5× More Actionable Leads
Raylu AI uncovered 2–2.5× more relevant companies than manual efforts across ten market maps, identifying niche disruptors missed by other tools.

From 10+ Hours to 5 Minutes
Lists that took a full day of research are now done in minutes, freeing time to focus on relationship building.

Enhanced Competitive Edge
Data-rich market maps showcased deep expertise early, helping the firm win competitive deals and build trust.