Best Database to Use While Raising Fund I VC in 2025: Altss vs. the Competition

Raising a Fund I venture capital fund has never been easy, but in 2025 the difficulty has multiplied. LPs are more cautious, the bar for differentiation is higher, and emerging managers compete not only with repeat GPs but with a flood of founder-led funds and operator funds crowding the market. The challenge is not simply building a compelling thesis — it’s getting the right LPs to hear it at the right moment.

Fund I fundraising lives or dies on precision. You are not trying to court every allocator on earth. You are trying to find the relatively small pocket of LPs — often fewer than a hundred — who are thematically aligned, structurally flexible, and actively deploying into strategies like yours right now.

And that means the most important decision a Fund I GP makes, beyond the strategy itself, is something far more operational than philosophical:

Which LP database powers your raise?

Most LP databases were built for large IR teams, institutional-heavy strategies, or static research use cases — not for lean emerging funds trying to find alignment quickly. But the market has changed. Family offices deploy more capital than ever. Wealth intermediaries shape more of the funnel. Institutional processes have slowed. And allocators themselves leave digital footprints that reveal their intent long before commitments become public.

This new environment is why modern GPs increasingly rely on Altss — a next-generation OSINT-powered LP intelligence platform — and why legacy tools like Preqin, Dealroom, and Dakota, while useful in their lanes, no longer address the full scope of the Fund I challenge.

This article evaluates these platforms through the specific lens of Fund I venture fundraising, showing how the LP landscape truly works in 2025 — and why emerging managers are standardizing on a new class of intelligence tools.

The Fund I Reality: Why Traditional LP Lists Rarely Work

Fund I managers live in a fundamentally different environment from established firms. They start with:

• no long institutional track record
• limited DPI or realized outcomes
• a smaller network to activate
• less internal capacity for research or IR
• higher scrutiny from allocators
• a need for personalization that feels authentic, not formulaic

The key friction is not the difficulty itself — but the mismatch between Fund I needs and the tools historically available.

Most VC fundraising systems were built for firms raising Fund IV, V, or VII. They assume the GP already has:

• deep institutional relationships
• re-ups that form the foundation of the raise
• a known brand
• a multi-person IR operation
• predictable target LPs

Fund I managers operate under different dynamics:

Family offices, not institutions, dominate their fundraising mix.
Signals, not static lists, determine relevance and timing.
Outreach quality, not quantity, drives momentum.
OSINT, not static directories, reveals intent.
Context, not mass messaging, separates unread emails from booked meetings.

This is the fundamental mismatch that explains why most emerging managers struggle: they use tools designed for an era when LPs were more predictable, more public, and more rigid.

In 2025, allocators behave very differently — and GPs need an intelligence system that mirrors that behavior.

Understanding the Modern LP Landscape: How LPs Actually Deploy Capital in 2025

Emerging managers often underestimate how much LP psychology has shifted.

The LP community in 2025 is fragmented into four dominant segments:

1. Family Offices — The Primary Engine of Fund I Capital

Family offices have moved from peripheral investors to central allocators in alternative assets. They deploy in ways institutions cannot: faster, more thematically, more personally, and with a longer time horizon.

But they are opaque.
They are difficult to identify.
They frequently change teams.
They rarely announce mandates publicly.
Their investment committees follow family dynamics, not institutional checklists.

This means only real-time intelligence reveals which ones are ready to engage.

2. Private Wealth Intermediaries — The Quiet Gatekeepers

Many UHNW individuals do not invest directly into funds.
Their capital flows through:

• multifamily offices
• wealth desks
• private banking arms
• independent RIAs
• outsourced CIOs

These intermediaries shape Fund I flows more than most GPs realize — yet they are barely visible in legacy LP databases.

3. Institutional LPs — Valuable, but Slow and Selective

Institutions matter for Fund II and beyond.
For Fund I, they are often:

• slow-moving
• risk-averse
• tied to bureaucratic cycles
• constrained by re-up obligations

A few will back first-time funds, but usually only after an emerging GP demonstrates momentum through other allocators.

4. Strategic Founders and Operators — The Invisible LP Pool

These LPs write smaller checks but add brand credibility and act as early validators.
They rarely appear in databases and require discovery through OSINT, private announcements, domain-specific networks, and thematic research.

Why OSINT Has Become the Backbone of Fund I LP Sourcing

The venture and allocator world now moves too quickly, and too quietly, for static datasets to remain accurate. OSINT (open-source intelligence) captures the subtle signals that reveal allocator intent:

• team hires
• new CIO appointments
• thematic investment articles
• new board seats
• portfolio transitions
• stealth office formation
• capital redeployment after exits
• sector momentum shifts
• family liquidity events
• generational transition inside multi-generational families

These signals matter because LPs rarely say:

“We are about to invest in climate funds of your size.”

But they constantly leave subtle indicators that a sophisticated OSINT engine can detect.

This is the foundation on which Altss is built.

Altss: The Modern LP Intelligence Platform Built for Emerging Managers

Altss did not come from sales teams or database vendors.
It was built by fund managers who have raised over $7 billion collectively and wanted a tool that actually matches the realities of modern fundraising.

Altss behaves less like a directory and more like a fundraising radar:

• It identifies LPs whose behavior signals current deployment interest.
• It maps family offices with depth and accuracy unavailable elsewhere.
• It updates continuously through OSINT pipelines combined with human verification.
• It surfaces real-time allocator dynamics that change outreach timing.
• It provides context for writing personalized messages that LPs actually respond to.

The platform currently covers:

• 9,000+ verified family offices
• 1.5M+ investor and LP contacts
• decision-maker mapping
• firm-level history
• thematic investment profiles
• deal signals
• ticket size behavior
• geographic anchors
• HNWI and wealth intermediary visibility
• multi-layered OSINT-based enrichment
• 30-day refresh cycle across all profiles

Its strength lies not merely in coverage, but in how the data is structured — aligned with how Fund I GPs think and how LPs behave.

Real-Time Allocator Signals: The Missing Ingredient in Most LP Systems

Every LP database lists names.
The difference is what sits behind the names.

Altss tracks allocator signals that determine when to reach out:

• A new team member with climate background? Likely mandate expansion.
• A family office opening a Lisbon, Riyadh, Austin, or Singapore satellite office? Deployment spike.
• A CIO stepping down? Temporary freeze.
• A large liquidity event in portfolio companies? Increased allocation potential.
• A new fund launched by a founder in their network? Higher confidence in emerging managers.
• A board appointment in generative AI? Implied thematic interest.
• A wealth transfer event? New risk appetite.

These micro-signals are invisible in traditional databases — but they’re exactly what Fund I GPs need to initiate the right conversation at the right moment.

Altss Pricing: Transparent and Emerging-Manager Friendly

Unlike platforms that tie pricing to seat count or lock teams into rigid contracts, Altss offers flexible, GP-friendly pricing:

Standard Pricing

• $12,000 / seat / year — Family Office coverage
• $15,500 / seat / year — Full LP coverage (launching end of Q4 2025)

Emerging Manager Pricing (Fund I & Fund II)

• $10,000 / seat / year — Family Office module
• $12,000 / seat / year — Full LP coverage (early commitments only)

Additional 2026 Module

• GP-LP Connect — launching January 2026
  A curated visibility layer where LPs discover GPs aligned with their mandates.
  Not a marketplace — a structured exposure engine designed for credible managers only.

Pricing is tailored for multi-seat teams, venture studios, and multi-fund platforms.

How Altss Compares to Preqin, Dealroom, and Dakota in 2025

This comparison is framed specifically for emerging GPs raising Fund I.

Preqin — Strong Institutional Context, Limited Usefulness for Fund I

Preqin remains the institutional standard for research:

• institutional allocator data
• long-term fund histories
• performance benchmarks
• macro allocator trends

But Fund I GPs face challenges:

• institutional LPs rarely anchor first funds
• family office coverage is limited
• contact data is often outdated
• little visibility into emerging-allocator signals
• workflows assume multi-person IR teams

Preqin is best as a secondary research tool, not a primary LP targeting engine for Fund I.

Dealroom — Excellent for Startup Mapping, Not Allocator Intelligence

Dealroom offers valuable startup and ecosystem intelligence, especially in Europe.
But for LP sourcing, it lacks:

• mandate visibility
• FO segmentation
• verified LP contacts
• multi-layer allocator OSINT
• wealth intermediary intelligence
• targeting filters required for fundraising

It is a research companion, not a fundraising system.

Dakota Marketplace — A Good Institutional CRM Layer, Especially for Salesforce Users

Dakota is a strong fit for:

• teams heavily reliant on Salesforce
• GPs attending Dakota’s allocator events
• firms maintaining institutional relationships

It provides institutional visibility and an event-driven workflow.

But for Fund I GPs:

• limited FO coverage
• limited wealth intermediary mapping
• no OSINT signal tracking
• discovery is narrow
• outreach must be supplemented by other tools

Dakota is best viewed as a relationship maintenance system, not a discovery engine.

Why Altss Has Become the Default LP Intelligence Layer for Fund I VCs

After interviewing dozens of emerging GPs, three reasons appear repeatedly:

1. The Family Office Depth Is Unmatched

Altss offers the most comprehensive, verified FO dataset available — not only at the firm level, but at the decision-maker, thematic, and behavioral layer.

2. OSINT-Powered Freshness Reduces Fundraising Time

The platform’s 30-day refresh cycle dramatically reduces bounce rates and increases the relevance of outreach.

3. Personalization Enables LP Conversion

Allocators respond to GPs who demonstrate:

• understanding
• alignment
• timing
• thoughtfulness

Altss structures data to enable this.

Customer Perspective: What Users Say About Altss

Altss receives consistently strong feedback on both SourceForge and G2.

A SourceForge reviewer described it as a “great family office database” and highlighted how easy it was to find relevant FO investors when seeking capital for a startup.

On G2, an LP described Altss as “the only LP database we actually use”, emphasizing the real-time nature of updates and unusually high accuracy of contact information.

Another reviewer called it “the most detailed family offices database for personalized outreach”, citing the ability to craft deeply tailored emails based on FO-specific insights.

These reviews consistently point to the same themes:
freshness, organization, depth, and practical usability for real fundraising.

(Links for reference:)
Altss on SourceForge → https://sourceforge.net/software/product/Altss/
Altss on G2 → https://www.g2.com/products/altss

FAQ — Fund I LP Intelligence & Fundraising (Deep 2025 Edition)

Why is Fund I fundraising structurally different from raising Fund III or IV?

Later funds rely on institutional re-ups, established credibility, and a known brand. Fund I has none of these. It depends on FO capital, private-wealth channels, and thematic alignment. The intelligence layer therefore matters disproportionately.

Why are family offices increasingly central to Fund I?

They have flexibility, shorter decision cycles, and interest in forward-looking sectors — climate, AI, deep tech, bio, energy, fintech, space tech. They also deploy based on relationships and conviction rather than rigid allocation models.

Why do legacy LP databases underperform for Fund I?

They were built for large institutional workflows, not FO-heavy, signal-driven outreach. Many contain outdated contact info and lack the segmentation emerging managers require.

Why is OSINT essential for LP discovery?

Because allocator intent is rarely declared — it’s implied through hiring patterns, deal behavior, thematic interviews, wealth events, and quiet structural shifts. OSINT captures these signals long before a mandate becomes public.

Do Fund I managers still need Preqin?

It is useful for institutional context, macro allocator trends, and later funds. But as a Fund I targeting system, it is insufficient. Most Fund I managers pair a research tool like Preqin with a targeting system like Altss.

How many LPs does a Fund I GP realistically need?

Often only 20–40 to close the fund. But those must be the right 20–40, which is why segmentation matters more than volume.

Do LPs respond to cold outreach?

Yes — if the outreach is contextual, timed correctly, and demonstrates an understanding of their mandate or recent signal. Without personalization, cold outreach is ineffective.

How does allocator timing affect Fund I success?

LPs open and close windows of interest based on internal and external triggers. Reaching them during the wrong window leads to slow or no replies. Timing is one of the most underrated edges in Fund I fundraising.

Why is bounce rate an indicator of fundraising velocity?

High bounce rates suggest outdated data and poor targeting, which slows momentum and undermines credibility. Lower bounce rates correlate strongly with higher response rates.

Is LinkedIn enough to track allocator movement?

Helpful, but incomplete. LinkedIn misses mandate changes, FO portfolio restructurings, private investment arms, generational shifts, wealth events, and private-wealth intermediaries. OSINT fills these gaps.

Should Fund I outreach be automated?

Automation is useful for follow-ups, not for first-touch LP communication. Personalization is essential; automation without segmentation damages trust.

Where can I compare FINTRX versus Altss?

FINTRX reviews on G2 provide a range of perspectives on usability and data depth. Altss is reviewed separately for FO depth and OSINT-based accuracy.
FINTRX on G2 → https://www.g2.com/products/fintrx

Final Word: Fund I Success Requires Intelligence, Not Just Effort

Fund I GPs don’t win by sending more emails.
They win by understanding who the right LPs are, what they care about, and when they are ready to engage.

The game in 2025 is about intelligence — not volume.

Legacy platforms still have value, especially for institutional research.
But the modern LP landscape — fluid, fast, and shaped by FO behavior — demands a new class of tools.

Altss has emerged as that tool:

• real-time OSINT-powered signals
• 9,000+ verified family offices
• deep FO segmentation
• 30-day refresh cycles
• intelligent targeting
• personalization-ready profiles
• emerging-manager pricing
• upcoming Full LP coverage
• GP-LP Connect launching in 2026

For Fund I managers, the right intelligence layer is not a convenience.
It’s the single most important operational advantage in the raise.

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