The difference between Company and Deal Name fields

If your deal list is set to Company records, you have two fields: one with a field type "Company" and another with a field type "Deal Name"

The Difference between Company and Deal Name Fields

The deal name field is simply a name for your deal. It doesn't match the deal name with a Crunchbase company. It doesn't create a company page. It is simply a text field that serves as a title for your deal. 

The company field does two distinct things: 

1. Crunchbase Enrichment. When you fill a name out, we will try to find a matching company name in Crunchbase. If you choose to select that Crunchbase company, we will auto-populate Crunchbase information into some deal fields (like employee count, website, recent fundraising data...). This can be overridden with a Pitchbook integration if you are an existing Pitchbook customer. Please see here for instructions if you wish to move forward with this.
2. Links to Company Page. This deal will now link to a 4Degrees company page. It will link to an existing company page if one exists, or it will create a new company page upon deal creation. You can find this company page in the companies list (go to contacts, then select 'companies').

In every deal list with company records, you must have one of these two fields set to "required". 

Here are the 3 different ways you can set up your deal list:

Using Company and Deal Name Together - Recommended
Using Only the Company Field
Using Only the Deal Name Field

Using Company and Deal Name Together - recommended

The default setting for a deal list is to have company and deal name both "on". This might feel redundant at first, but they work together very well and are very customizable. Let's take a look and how they work together...

Company name auto-populates from Crunchbase (alternatively, you can choose to 'add without enrichment'), and when you choose a Crunchbase company, the Deal Name will automatically populate with the Company name you just selected. You can edit the deal name to be different from the company name if you don't want them to match. 

Now that we've created a deal, we're in the Deal Page. Let's take a look at the header.

Here you can see the deal name (the first '4Degrees' in bold) and the company name (blue text). If you click on the blue '4Degrees', it will take you to the 4Degrees company page.  If you edit the Company field, you can map to a different company page. If you change the deal name, only the text will change.

With a little customization, this option works well for most users. Let's look at a couple use cases:

"I don't know the name of the company right now" or "The company is too new to have Crunchbase data yet" 

We still advise keeping the company field ON, but you can configure the field so it's not in the way right now. Simply click the "advanced" settings and turn the first two settings to "No". This will make it so that you are never prompted to fill in the company name, but the field is still there if you want to add it in the future.  

Here's what it will look like in the details page:

Later on, you can fill out the company name and Crunchbase data will populate and a company page will be created. This way you don't lose out on this important functionality later on. 

Using Only the Company Field

Turning off the Deal Name field can make things simpler for firms who never want to name their deal something different from the company's name. When you turn off Deal Name the name of your deal must be the same as the company. If you change the company name this will also change the CrunchBase enrichment and the linked company page. 

For example, I could not name my deal '4Degrees Second Look' and still be linked to the Crunchbase data and company page for 4Degrees. 

Using Only the Deal Name Field

Generally, we don't advise turning off the Company field. Turning off Company will not allow you to have access to Crunchbase enrichment or linked company pages. 

When you turn off this field, you will not be able to auto-populate information like Website, Tags, Previous Investors, Total Funding, Employees, and more. 

If you are an early-stage investor or Private equity firm and you don't always need Crunchbase enrichment, we advise you to follow the steps laid out here.