Introducing the Founders Forward Podcast

When Andrew Crinnion joined Emergence Capital as Director of Portfolio Analysis, he stepped into a role that required more than crunching numbers. As a Series A investor in B2B SaaS companies, Emergence prides itself on being data-driven, but that only works when the correct data is accessible, consistent, and actionable. The challenge? Their portfolio was growing fast, but performance tracking lived in scattered spreadsheets and inboxes. "Before Visible, it was Excel Sheets and lots of manual emails," Andrew explained. "We were a pretty data-driven firm, which gave me a good foundation. But we needed a better way to scale." A Central Source of Truth Andrew was tasked with finding a portfolio monitoring solution that could grow with their fund and simplify performance data management. After evaluating platforms like iLevel, Dynamo, and Standard Metrics, he ultimately chose Visible. What stood out? "Flexibility," he said. "The ability to build dashboards and calculate our own metrics was huge. Before, I'd ask for something like burn rate and NDR, and I wasn’t always sure how it was being calculated. So being able to calculate it within the system was a big help." The transition was smooth. After merging their existing data into a more structured format, onboarding to Visible was seamless. “It was real smooth to load that into Visible and move forward.” Driving Better Decisions With Visible in place, Andrew can surface insights faster and share them more effectively with the general partners. "Once a company responds to our Visible Request, it graphs it out. I can see if burn rate increases or if runway is dropping off, and it prompts me to ask the right questions to the GPs. It keeps us aligned." The dashboards are a core part of portfolio reviews and one-off requests alike. "They don’t really see how it’s getting made,” he said, “but it makes it a lot easier for me to answer their questions.” Better Data = Stronger LP Relationships When communicating with LPs, the value of Visible became even more clear. When LPs are digging into performance, portfolio metrics, and fund-level questions, the Emergence team is ready. "Visible helps me quickly respond to all our LP requests. I have a repository of data that makes it easy to pull what they need. It also helps GPs answer LP questions faster, with more confidence." By having a centralized system to rely on, Emergence offers transparency and builds trust with its limited partners, a key ingredient in any relationship. Turning Internal Value Into External Impact As Emergence’s data infrastructure matured, Andrew saw an opportunity to scale the value of what they were learning. Portfolio companies were coming to him with questions like, “What should my CAC payback be?” and “How much should I be spending on R&D?” Thanks to the insights they’d built internally with Visible, Emergence launched the Beyond Benchmark report, an external study based on data from over 560 companies. What began as a tool for internal alignment became a valuable resource for the broader SaaS community. Support That Scales With You Throughout the process, Visible’s Customer Success team remained a key part of the experience. “They’ve been great. I’ve shared product feedback, and it’s been implemented. They’re responsive and invested in helping us succeed.” Emergence Capital didn’t just choose Visible, they built a system around it. For funds building out platform or investor relations teams, he recommends investing early in the right metrics and infrastructure. The payoff? Faster answers, stronger LP conversations, and the confidence to scale with clarity. Check out how you can join Emergence Capital and leverage Visible for your portfolio monitoring and reporting here.