SAN FRANCISCO, July 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Affinity, the AI-first CRM for private capital, today announced Affinity Ascend, a new agent platform designed to help investment firms automate critical workflows across the investment lifecycle. Powered by Affinity's AI-first platform, Ascend enables firms to deploy agents that handle time-intensive operational tasks, helping investment teams operate more efficiently and focus on high-value investment activities to find better deals faster.
Ascend meets investment professionals where they already work. Firms can deploy agents directly within Affinity or through tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, custom AI environments and internal applications, all powered by the same trusted data foundation. Extending Affinity's recently launched Model Context Protocol (MCP) capabilities, Ascend enables firms to deploy agents across their preferred AI environments while securely accessing relationship and deal data.
“The launch of Ascend marks the beginning of a new chapter for Affinity,” said Ken Fine, Chief Executive Officer of Affinity. “We're building a future where every private capital professional can work alongside AI agents that handle operational tasks across the investment lifecycle. Ascend is our first step toward that future, helping firms move faster, operate more efficiently and spend more time on the work that drives real returns.”
Ascend is designed to support investment professionals across every stage of the investment lifecycle, including sourcing, deal qualification, investment committee preparation, deal monitoring, portfolio monitoring, and fundraising and exit activities.
Affinity is launching Ascend with three initial agents designed to proactively address some of the most time-intensive workflows for investment teams:
- Data Update Agent: Automatically updates CRM records so every deal starts with clean, current data.
- Warm Introductions Agent: Finds the most direct path to any sourcing target across a firm’s network.
- Meeting Prep Agent: Prepares investors with relationship context, deal history and follow-up actions so nothing falls through after the conversation ends.
"Our investment managers run 15 to 25 external meetings a week. Before Ascend, each meeting took 10 to 15 minutes of prep. Now it's a two-minute skim. Across the firm, that's over 70 hours a week back to the team,” said Lukas Huber, Product & Tech Manager, Speedinvest.
These launch agents represent the first workflow automations available through Ascend, with additional capabilities planned over time.
The launch marks an important milestone in Affinity's evolution into the AI-first CRM for private capital. Powered by more than 31 billion interactions, 130 billion structured relationships and 177 million people tracked, Affinity has built the industry's deepest relationship graph. Long trusted as a system of record, Affinity is now becoming a system of action, enabling firms to put AI agents to work throughout their investment operations.
To learn more about Affinity Ascend and Affinity's AI-first CRM for private capital, visit affinity.co.
About Affinity
Affinity is the AI-first CRM for private capital, helping firms turn relationship intelligence into action across the investment lifecycle. Built on a decade of proprietary relationship, interaction and deal data, Affinity automatically captures activity, maps firm networks, and surfaces the connections and insights that help investors source, evaluate and win opportunities.
Trusted by more than 3,300 private capital firms, including 40% of the venture capital market and more than 330 private equity buyout teams, Affinity powers one of the industry's deepest relationship graphs. The platform is built on more than 130 billion structured relationships, 177 million people tracked, 88 million companies tracked and 31 billion interactions, helping firms uncover opportunities sooner, move with greater conviction and scale institutional knowledge over time.
Learn more: affinity.co
Alana Bannan
affinity@matternow.com
(720) 400-8025
