// Compare

Six 4Degrees alternatives for VC, PE, and M&A teams in 2026

By Kevin Bluett, co-founder of Ahoy · Updated November 12, 2026

The closest 4Degrees alternatives in 2026 are Affinity, which covers the same relationship-intelligence ground with published prices, and DealCloud, the configured platform firms move to when they outgrow a lighter tool. Carta CRM fits funds that already run fund administration on Carta. Meridian is a newer AI-native CRM built around CIMs and banker-led deal flow. Attio is a general CRM a small venture fund can shape itself, and Ahoy, which we make, is a general CRM too. We checked each vendor's own site on November 12, 2026, except Carta, whose facts come from our October 30, 2026 check.

4Degrees describes itself as "the AI-powered CRM for private-market deals and the relationships that drive them," and lists private equity, venture capital, commercial real estate, investment banking and M&A advisory, corporate development, and consulting among the teams it serves. The core is relationship strength scoring and warm introductions, with alerts when contacts change jobs or show up in the news, email and calendar sync, Crunchbase and PitchBook data on records, and extensions for Gmail, Outlook, LinkedIn, and Chrome. Its AI captures activity from emails, meetings, notes, and documents and suggests field updates for someone to review, and an MCP connection brings 4Degrees data into ChatGPT, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot. There is also a 4Degrees for Salesforce version. 4Degrees publishes no prices: it says it charges "on a per-user per-month model" and asks for an email address before it quotes. The reasons to look elsewhere tend to fall into three groups. A team may want a price before the first sales call, they want LP records tied to fund data, or they need either a heavier configured platform or a lighter general tool.

A note on where you are reading this: this page lives on ahoy.ai, and Ahoy is one of the six. It is listed last because it is the furthest from replacing 4Degrees at the fund. The rest run from the closest substitute outward, and each entry says what the vendor publishes about price, where the tool beats 4Degrees, and where it falls short.

The alternatives at a glance

Platform	Best for	Against 4Degrees	Published pricing
Affinity	Relationship-led sourcing at VC, PE, and family offices	Same relationship-scoring core, with list prices	Yes: $2,000 to $2,700 per user per year; Enterprise custom
DealCloud (Intapp)	Larger and multi-practice firms with compliance needs	Heavier, configured to each firm, with fundraising and ethical walls	No
Carta CRM	Funds already running fund administration on Carta	Deal CRM plus LP CRM with live fund metrics	No; priced by AUM, per Carta's blog
Meridian	PE and credit teams working through CIMs and banker flow	Document-first AI: CIM extraction and tear sheets	No
Attio	Small venture funds that want to build their own pipeline	General CRM with a free tier and no fund workflows	Yes: free up to 3 users; workspace fee plus $35 or $79 per added user/mo annual
Ahoy	Portfolio company revenue teams, and small deal teams that want capture without admin	General CRM; automatic capture, no LP or fund workflows	Yes: from $79/seat/mo annual, AI included

Prices in USD, checked at each vendor's site on November 12, 2026, except Carta, last checked October 30, 2026. 4Degrees, Intapp (DealCloud), Carta, and Meridian publish no prices, and we do not repeat third-party estimates. Attio changed its plan structure after our November 6, 2026 check, and the figures here are the new ones. Check the vendors' sites for current details.

1. Affinity

Affinity is the product most 4Degrees evaluations end up next to, because both start from the same idea: the firm's network is the deal pipeline. Affinity captures email and calendar activity across the firm, scores relationship strength, and shows the warmest path to a founder, a target company, or an LP. Its site lists private equity, venture capital, private credit, corporate venture capital, investment banking, asset management, family offices, fund of funds, and accelerators among the firms it serves. From the Scale tier up, Affinity includes a notetaker, Ascend agents, and an MCP server. Advanced adds Dealroom and Crunchbase enrichment, PitchBook for firms that hold their own PitchBook subscription, and workflow automations. The first thing a buyer coming from 4Degrees will notice is the price page: Affinity publishes per-user list prices, and 4Degrees quotes only after a form.

Price: Essential $2,000, Scale $2,300, and Advanced $2,700 per user per year, billed annually; Enterprise custom. Every tier still routes through "Contact sales."
Where it beats 4Degrees: A price you can budget before the first call, and pages for more kinds of firm, from accelerators to fund of funds
Where it falls short: Agents, the notetaker, and the MCP server start at Scale, and annual per-user list prices add up quickly for a fund with a handful of partners

Best for: Venture and PE teams whose sourcing runs through the partners' networks and who want a published price · Affinity alternatives, 4Degrees included

2. DealCloud (Intapp)

DealCloud is at the other end of the scale from 4Degrees. Intapp calls it "the deal and relationship intelligence platform for professional firms" and sells it to private capital, investment banking and advisory, real assets, legal, consulting, accounting, and corporate teams. Where 4Degrees is a product a deal team can switch on, DealCloud is configured to each firm's process: deal and fundraising workflows, activity captured from Outlook, records populated from Preqin, PitchBook, and FactSet, and ethical walls for firms with compliance obligations. Intapp Celeste is the AI layer across Intapp's products. Intapp publishes no DealCloud pricing, and the only route in is "Schedule a demo." A team weighing DealCloud against 4Degrees is usually deciding whether it needs fundraising, deal flow, and compliance governed in one system, and whether it has the time and budget for an implementation.

Price: Not published; every route goes to "Schedule a demo"
Where it beats 4Degrees: Configuration to each firm's process, governed fundraising workflows, market data from Preqin, PitchBook, and FactSet, and ethical walls
Where it falls short: A heavier implementation and no visible price, which is the opposite of what most teams chose 4Degrees for

Best for: Larger or multi-practice firms that need deal flow, fundraising, and compliance in one configured system · DealCloud alternatives

3. Carta CRM

Carta entered the CRM market by acquiring ListAlpha, announced on March 3, 2026, and now sells two products inside its ERP for private capital. Deal CRM, which Carta calls "the deal-winning CRM for private capital," syncs email and calendar automatically, maps relationships into a deal, runs pipelines in a spreadsheet-style workspace, and adds AI company research. Carta says onboarding typically takes under three weeks, and Deal CRM can be bought on its own. LP CRM runs the fundraising pipeline and shows TVPI, DPI, IRR, carry, commitments, and capital calls on LP records, because the fund data already sits in Carta; Carta's FAQ says it comes as part of a Fund Administration package. Against 4Degrees, the decision turns on two questions: where your fund administration runs, and whether pricing by AUM suits you better than paying per user.

Price: Not published. Carta's September 15, 2026 blog post says Carta CRM is priced by assets under management, with unlimited users and AI included.
Where it beats 4Degrees: LP records that carry live fund metrics, and no per-seat cost for adding associates or operating partners
Where it falls short: LP CRM comes with Carta Fund Administration, so a fund administered elsewhere gets only the Deal CRM half

Best for: PE and VC funds already on Carta for fund administration that want deal and LP data in the same system · Carta CRM vs Affinity vs DealCloud

4. Meridian

Meridian, at meridian-ai.com, describes itself as "the AI-native CRM and system of record for private markets firms." It was founded in 2023, and its product leans on documents more than on network graphs. Outlook and Gmail sync tags relevant conversations to contacts, meeting notes are captured, and figures are pulled out of CIMs without manual entry. Meridian Frame turns a CIM into a scored, firm-branded tear sheet, and Scout AI works over what Meridian says is a built-in dataset of more than 26 million companies for sourcing. Fundraising tools track commitments, and reporting includes LP summaries. Its site lists private equity, investment banking, LPs and family offices, private credit, corporate M&A, and venture capital. Meridian publishes no prices, though it describes its pricing as all-in with no AI add-on. Frame has a 10-day free trial; the CRM goes through a demo.

Price: Not published; Meridian says "transparent, all-in pricing" with "no AI add-on package required," and routes buyers to "Book a Demo"
Where it beats 4Degrees: Deeper work on the documents in banker-led deal flow: CIM extraction, scored tear sheets, and a sourcing agent with its own company dataset
Where it falls short: A younger product with a shorter track record, and we could not find relationship-strength scoring or warm-introduction paths described on its site

Best for: PE and private credit teams that see a steady stream of teasers and CIMs and want AI on the documents · Meridian in our private equity CRM guide

5. Attio

Attio is a general CRM rather than a private-capital product, but it turns up on venture shortlists because it is cheap to start and easy to shape. It builds records from synced email and calendar, enriches people and companies, and tracks interactions and relationship strength on every plan, Free included, along with an API, webhooks, an MCP server, and an app SDK. Attio repriced between our November 6 and November 12 checks. Plus and Pro now carry a monthly workspace fee that includes one user, with each added user at the old per-seat rates, and a new Ultra plan at $1,000 a month with five users sits where the price page used to show Enterprise. Custom objects, sequences, and call intelligence are on Pro. Nothing for LPs or fund operations comes built in, so a fund models its deal and fundraising pipelines itself.

Price: Free up to 3 users. Plus $40 a month per workspace on annual billing ($50 monthly) with 1 user included, then $35 per added user ($44 monthly), up to 10 users. Pro $100 a month per workspace ($125 monthly) with 1 user, then $79 per added user ($99 monthly). Ultra $1,000 a month, annual only, with 5 users, then $189 per added user.
Where it beats 4Degrees: A published price, a free tier, and a pipeline a small team can set up without a consultant
Where it falls short: No fund-specific workflows: LP tracking, fundraising stages, and fund reporting are what you build yourself

Best for: Emerging managers and small venture funds that want a cheap, flexible pipeline more than a private-capital product · Attio alternatives

6. Ahoy

Ahoy, which we make, is a general AI-native CRM, and of the six it is the furthest from a 4Degrees replacement for the fund itself. It has no LP portal, fund administration, or fund reporting, and it does not rank warm-introduction paths across a firm the way 4Degrees and Affinity do. What it does well is capture. Agents record email, calls, and meetings from connected accounts, keep records current, and prepare the next action for one-tap approval, so a small deal team's pipeline stays complete without anyone logging activity. AI is included in the seat price rather than metered. Pro adds custom objects and granular roles, field-level visibility keeps sensitive properties with the people who should see them, and Ahoy never trains models on your data. Its most natural place in private markets is under the fund: an isolated workspace for each portfolio company, with cross-workspace roll-ups on the Growth plan.

Price: Starter $79 per seat per month billed annually ($99 monthly), Pro $165 per seat per month billed annually, Growth custom; no seat minimum, AI included
Where it beats 4Degrees: A published price, automatic capture of email, calls, and meetings, and a CRM the portfolio companies' revenue teams can sell from
Where it falls short: Not a private-capital product: no relationship scoring across the firm, no LP or fund workflows, and no private-markets data feeds

Best for: PE-backed portfolio companies, and small deal teams or family offices that want a general CRM that fills itself in · Private equity CRM, both halves explained

Which 4Degrees alternative fits your firm?

Venture capital: Affinity if relationship scoring is the reason you bought 4Degrees and you want a price on the page; Attio if you are a small fund that would rather build a lean pipeline. The full shortlist is on CRM for venture capital.
Private equity: Affinity or DealCloud for the deal team, Carta CRM if fund administration already runs on Carta, and Meridian if most of your flow arrives as teasers and CIMs from bankers. For the portfolio companies, see our private equity CRM guide and multi-entity CRM.
M&A advisory and investment banking: DealCloud for multi-practice firms with compliance requirements. Meridian also lists investment banking and corporate M&A.
Family offices: Affinity lists family offices and publishes prices, and Meridian lists LPs and family offices. Smaller offices with no one to run a CRM should weigh how much capture happens on its own, which is where Ahoy fits.
Firms that want to stay on Salesforce: 4Degrees for Salesforce is itself the answer to that requirement. If you are leaving 4Degrees but keeping Salesforce, our DealCloud alternatives page covers Salesforce Financial Services Cloud.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best alternative to 4Degrees?

For most venture and PE teams, Affinity, because it covers the same relationship-scoring and warm-introduction ground and publishes its prices, from $2,000 per user per year. DealCloud is the choice when a firm has outgrown a lighter tool and needs fundraising and compliance workflows configured in one platform. Carta CRM makes sense for funds already on Carta for fund administration, and Meridian for PE teams whose deal flow is mostly CIMs. If the job is really the revenue CRM inside your portfolio companies, that is a different purchase, and it is the one Ahoy is built for.

How does Affinity compare to 4Degrees for venture capital?

Both score relationship strength from the firm's email and calendar, surface warm introductions to founders, and track LPs alongside deals, and both list venture capital as a core market. The differences are price and packaging. Affinity publishes $2,000, $2,300, and $2,700 per user per year, with agents, a notetaker, and an MCP server from the Scale tier, and it has pages for accelerators and corporate venture. 4Degrees charges per user per month but quotes only after a form, offers MCP connections to ChatGPT, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot, and has a version that runs inside Salesforce. A fund that wants a known price will lean toward Affinity; one that lives in Salesforce has a reason to stay with 4Degrees.

Carta CRM vs 4Degrees for PE and VC?

Carta CRM is two products inside Carta's ERP for private capital: Deal CRM, which can be bought on its own, and LP CRM, which Carta's FAQ says comes with a Fund Administration package and shows TVPI, DPI, IRR, carry, and capital calls on LP records. Carta prices the CRM by assets under management with unlimited users, according to its September 15, 2026 blog post. 4Degrees is a standalone relationship-intelligence CRM priced per user per month on request, with warm-introduction paths that Carta does not lead with. If your fund administration runs on Carta, Carta CRM connects to data 4Degrees cannot see; if it runs elsewhere, 4Degrees or Affinity is the more natural fit. Carta facts are from our October 30, 2026 check.

How does Meridian compare to 4Degrees?

Meridian calls itself "the AI-native CRM and system of record for private markets firms," and it was founded in 2023. Where 4Degrees leads with relationship strength scoring and warm introductions, Meridian leads with documents: it pulls data out of CIMs, turns a CIM into a scored tear sheet with Meridian Frame, and runs a sourcing agent, Scout AI, over what it says is a dataset of more than 26 million companies. Both sync Outlook and Gmail and track fundraising. 4Degrees also extracts deal details from PDFs and presentations into suggested CRM updates, so the overlap is real. Neither publishes prices. We could not find relationship-strength scoring described on Meridian's site, so a firm that sources through its network should test that directly.

4Degrees vs Attio for a smaller VC fund?

Attio is cheaper to start and fully published: free for up to 3 users, or on Pro, $100 a month per workspace on annual billing with one user included and $79 for each added user. A three-person fund on Pro would pay $258 a month, and Plus costs $110 a month for the same team, though Plus lacks custom objects. 4Degrees does not publish a price. What the money buys is different. 4Degrees comes built for deal and fundraising work, with warm-introduction paths, Crunchbase and PitchBook data, and job-change alerts. Attio tracks relationship strength but leaves the deal-flow and LP pipelines for you to build. A fund that will spend a week setting up Attio gets a flexible tool for less; one that wants private-capital features on day one is better served by 4Degrees or Affinity.

Is 4Degrees a good CRM for private equity?

It can be. 4Degrees lists private equity first among its markets, tracks deals and fundraises, scores relationship strength across the firm, and pulls deal details from PDFs and presentations into suggested CRM updates. It suits PE teams that source through relationships and want a lighter rollout than DealCloud. We could not find an investor portal or fund administration on 4Degrees' site, so firms that need those pair it with a specialist or look at Carta CRM. PE teams whose flow is mostly banker-led CIMs should also compare Meridian.

How much does 4Degrees cost?

4Degrees does not publish prices. Its pricing page says it charges "on a per-user per-month model," that cost depends on the organization and team, and that you enter an email address to request pricing. Dollar figures for 4Degrees circulate on third-party sites, but none come from 4Degrees, so treat them with caution. Of the alternatives here, Affinity, Attio, and Ahoy publish prices; DealCloud, Carta, and Meridian quote through sales.

Is Ahoy a 4Degrees alternative?

Only for part of the job, and we would rather say so. Ahoy can run a small deal team's pipeline with automatic capture of email, calls, and meetings and one-tap approval of the next step, but it has no relationship scoring across the firm, LP management, or fund reporting. Its natural place in a private equity stack is the revenue CRM the portfolio companies sell from, with each company in its own workspace and roll-ups for the sponsor on the Growth plan.

Book a Demo See Pricing

Go deeper: Affinity alternatives · DealCloud alternatives · Carta CRM vs Affinity vs DealCloud · Affinity vs Attio · CRM for venture capital · Private equity CRM · Attio alternatives · HubSpot alternatives · Salesforce alternatives · Clarify alternatives · Pipedrive alternatives · The best AI-native CRMs · All comparisons · What is an AI-native CRM?