deal-flow
(10)The Cap-Intro Business Was Built on Handshakes. iConnections Turned It Into Software.
A pandemic side project for charity became the meeting place for hedge funds, private equity and the allocators who fund them - roughly 26,000 members and $50 trillion in capital, run on software instead of steak dinners.
The Club Turning Unicorn Headlines Into Private-Market Deals
Silicon Valley Investclub built a newsletter thousands of investors read for the funding rounds - and a chaperoned marketplace where they can actually buy in. The name says Menlo Park; the incorporation papers say Tortola.
Asset Class
Asset Class is a fintech company building an AI-powered operating system for private capital firms. Founded in 2020 by Ferdinand Roberts, its Fund Operating System connects fundraising, investor relations, fund administration, deal flow and portfolio management in a single platform, with a white-label LP portal for accredited investors. The company services more than 300 funds totalling roughly $33 billion in assets under management and a network of over 15,000 accredited investors, and has raised $14.6M to date, including an $11.6M Series A led by Canapi Ventures.
Opportunity Network
Opportunity Network is a members-only, invitation-based B2B platform that connects vetted CEOs, investors and dealmakers across borders so they can raise capital, buy and sell companies, and originate proprietary deal flow. Founded in 2014 by Brian Pallas out of a Columbia Business School side project, it pairs matching algorithms with a human concierge service and screens members through banking partners like UBS. The network reports 52,000+ members across 130+ countries and roughly $530 billion in transaction flow.
Qodeo
Qodeo is a matching platform that connects entrepreneurs seeking capital with the venture capital and private equity firms most likely to fund them. Using proprietary, AI-enabled algorithms, it filters thousands of investors down to ranked 'Hot, Warm or Cool' matches based on a company's profile and funding criteria - free for investors and without taking commission. Led by founder and CEO Simon Glass and backed by cornerstone investor Sir Harvey McGrath, Qodeo tracks over 22,000 organisations globally and aims to democratise venture by giving all entrepreneurs, especially diverse founders, access to investors they would otherwise struggle to reach.
Brian Pallas
Brian Pallas is the Italian founder and CEO of Opportunity Network, a private business-matching platform where vetted CEOs and investors anonymously connect on commercial, fundraising, investing and M&A deals above $1M. What started as an anonymous newsletter he circulated at Columbia Business School to help his father's Milan family business grew into one of the world's largest communities of CEOs and investors, with tens of thousands of vetted members across 130+ countries and hundreds of billions in transaction flow. A former Boston Consulting Group consultant with private equity and investment banking experience, Pallas also co-founded Collective Equity Ownership and the Milan real estate firm Medhelan Capital.
Simon Glass
Simon Glass is the founder and CEO of Qodeo, a UK and US based platform that uses proprietary algorithms to match entrepreneurs with venture capital and private equity firms - with a deliberate focus on diverse, regional and female founders who sit outside the traditional venture network. A Cambridge BA, MA and MBA who trained in corporate finance at London Business School, Glass spent years in venture capital (including Amadeus Capital Partners, the first backer of ARM), banking, academia and media before building Qodeo to end what he calls the needle-in-a-haystack approach to finding investment. The platform now tracks tens of thousands of organizations and connects 20,000+ entrepreneurs with 7,400+ investors across multiple markets.
The Arcview Group
The Arcview Group is a vertically integrated cannabis and hemp company founded in 2010 by activists-turned-entrepreneurs Troy Dayton and Steve DeAngelo. Built around the Arcview Investor Network - one of the first and largest groups of accredited investors backing legal cannabis - it pairs capital and brokerage with the industry's most-cited market research, business consulting, events, and social-equity initiatives. Headquartered in San Francisco, Arcview has helped channel hundreds of millions of dollars into more than 200 cannabis companies and turned a once-illicit market into investable territory.
Affinity
Affinity is an AI-powered relationship intelligence platform built for dealmakers in venture capital, private equity, investment banking, and other relationship-driven industries. It automatically captures emails, meetings, and network data to surface the warmest path into any deal, replacing the manual CRM data entry that has historically slowed private capital teams.
Zarna
Zarna is building the first cohort of AI associates for private capital - autonomous agents that plug directly into a firm's data and work like a deal team that never sleeps. Founded by four UC Berkeley alumni who were previously forward-deployed engineers at AEA Investors, Zarna automates the grunt work of private equity: tearing down CIMs, building LBO models, drafting IC memos, updating CRMs, and surfacing warm introductions. Backed by Y Combinator (F25), the platform recovers ~80 hours per week for 15-person deal teams and promises full ROI in under 90 days.