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Yes. The first time you sign in, a welcome dialog offers Load sample data — this fills your workspace with a realistic sample portfolio (companies, rounds, funds, and updates) so you can explore every feature before entering real deals. Prefer a blank slate? Choose Start with an empty account instead.

Sample data is only offered for a new, empty workspace. When you're ready to start fresh, clear it from Settings → Danger Zone → Delete investment data, then add your own.

From the Portfolio page, click + Add investment in the top-right corner. A modal will open where you choose between a Direct Investment (equity in a company), a Venture Fund, or an Equity Grant.

For a direct investment, enter the company name, website (optional — used to fetch the logo), investment date, amount, and stage. For a fund, enter the fund name, manager, commitment amount, and first close date. For an equity grant, enter the company name, grant date, shares granted, and current value. Click Save and it will appear in your portfolio immediately.

Click + Add investment and toggle to Venture Fund at the top of the modal. You'll be prompted for fund name, manager, strategy, first close date, and commitment amount. Called capital, NAV, and distributions can be added or updated later from the fund's edit page.

Open the investment from your portfolio table and click Edit investment → in the drawer (or navigate directly to the edit page). Update the Fair value field to reflect the current mark. Pinion tracks a history of fair value changes so you can see how your mark has evolved.

Yes. On the investment's edit page, change the Status to Exited or Written off. Exited investments prompt you to enter the exit date and proceeds. Written-off investments are marked at $0. Both statuses are hidden from the default portfolio view when the Hide exits toggle is on.

Go to Settings → Import. Download the template, fill in your investments and funds, and upload the file. See the Import from Excel section below for full details.

Investments are grouped by the year of the investment date and sorted within each year by date. You can switch between Oldest first and Newest first using the sort toggle at the top of the table — this preference is saved across sessions.

MOIC (Multiple on Invested Capital) is the ratio of current value to the amount invested.

For direct investments, Current Market Value is the fair value you've entered (or the investment amount if no mark has been set). For exited positions it uses the exit proceeds. For written-off positions it is $0.

For funds, MOIC is calculated on called capital (not total commitment), since uncalled capital hasn't been deployed yet:

IRR (Internal Rate of Return) uses the XIRR method — it accounts for the actual timing of each cash flow, not just a simple annualized return. Every investment date is treated as a cash outflow; today's portfolio value (plus any exit proceeds and fund distributions) is treated as the terminal inflow.

IRR requires at least two data points to calculate meaningfully. If you see "Insufficient data", add more investments with different dates and update their fair values.

TVPI (Total Value to Paid-In) is the overall multiple on your entire portfolio — direct investments and funds combined. Equity grants that have Include in portfolio MOIC enabled also contribute to the numerator.

TVPI is shown in green when ≥ 1× (above cost) and red when below 1×. A TVPI of 1.0× means your portfolio is exactly at cost.

When you add an investment you can optionally enter the post-money valuation at the time of investment. This is stored as the initial fair value and used to calculate your starting MOIC. You should update the fair value field over time to reflect the current mark — the Valuation at Cost is just the starting point.

Equity Grants let you track equity compensation — restricted stock, common stock, ISOs, NQSOs, and warrants — alongside your direct investments and venture funds. Common uses include board compensation, advisory shares, or any equity received without a cash outlay.

To add a grant, click Add investment and choose the Equity Grant tab. You can record shares granted, grant date, current value, and vesting progress. The full edit page (accessible by clicking the grant name) lets you add strike price, FMV at grant, expiration date, vesting schedule, and notes.

Add a warrant as an Equity Grant with the grant type set to Warrant. A warrant is a right to buy shares at a fixed strike price — structurally the same as a stock option, which is why Pinion tracks it under the Grants tab rather than as a separate investment class. Record the shares covered, strike price, and — since nearly all warrants lapse — the expiration date on the warrant's edit page.

Most warrants arrive without a cash outlay: advisor warrants, or warrant coverage attached to a convertible note or venture-debt deal. Like other grants, they carry no invested capital, so they don't affect IRR or the Invested Capital KPIs. Use the fair value override to mark what the position is worth today (for an out-of-the-money warrant, that may be zero) and enable Include in portfolio MOIC if you want that value counted in your portfolio totals.

The type tabs (All / Direct / Funds / Grants) filter by investment type. The status tabs (All / Active / Exited / Written off) filter by status. The Hide exits toggle hides exited and written-off investments regardless of the status filter — it persists across page refreshes. The search box matches company name, fund name, manager name, and tags.

Yes. On a round's edit page, the QSBS section lets you record your eligibility determination — Pinion presents the general §1202 guidelines for reference but never verifies or decides eligibility; that's a call for you and your CPA. Once you mark a round eligible and set the stock issue date, Pinion computes the exclusion timeline and shows a status chip on the portfolio page (e.g. "QSBS 75% → 100% Mar 2028").

The issue date matters twice: it starts the five-year holding clock, and it selects which rules apply — stock issued after July 4, 2025 falls under the newer regime (tiered 50% / 75% / 100% exclusion at 3 / 4 / 5 years); earlier stock has the single 100%-at-five-years threshold. For SAFEs and convertible notes, use the date the instrument converted to stock — the QSBS clock generally starts at conversion, not when you signed the SAFE.

Insights turns your portfolio into a set of charts so you can see how it's performing at a glance — concentration, return distribution, performance by category, and allocation. Open it from Insights in the sidebar; the charts update automatically from your investments, funds, and their current marks.

• Power Law — how much of your total value comes from your top few deals
• MOIC Distribution — how your investments are spread across return multiples
• Performance by Vehicle / Sector — average return broken down by how you invested and by industry
• Realized vs. Unrealized Value — cash already returned from exits vs. the estimated value of active positions
• Portfolio Composition by Return — a waterfall of which positions are driving the portfolio
• Check Size vs. Outcome and Time to Signal — scatter plots probing whether check size or hold time relate to returns
• Vintage Year Performance — returns grouped by the year you invested
• Allocation by Sector / Stage — where your capital is concentrated

Yes. If you track venture funds, Insights includes a fund section: called vs. uncalled capital, Fund MOIC Distribution, Fund Vintage Performance, and commitment by Strategy and by Manager.

The sector, stage, vehicle, and vintage breakdowns rely on those fields being set on each investment. Fields left blank — common right after an Excel import, which doesn't carry them — are grouped as uncategorised. Open an investment's edit page to fill them in, and customise the available options under Settings → General → Preferences.

Investor updates is a feature that lets you log the updates you receive from portfolio companies (founder emails, quarterly PDFs, etc.) and get an AI-powered summary, sentiment score, and key metrics extracted automatically. It's available on Family and Team plans.

Navigate to a company's edit page and scroll to the Investor Updates section. Click Add investor update. You can submit:

• Text only — paste the email body directly
• PDF only — upload the update as a PDF (drag-and-drop or browse)
• Email + PDF — paste the email body and attach the PDF for AI to read both together

After you submit, a Analyzing… badge appears. Processing typically takes a few minutes — up to ten for long, data-dense updates — since every fact is extracted, verified against the source, and compared to the company's reporting history. The row updates automatically when it's done.

Sentiment is scored from −100 to +100 by AI based on five signals from the update:

• Revenue trajectory (30%)
• Burn / runway health (25%)
• Team and execution signals (20%)
• Market and competitive position (15%)
• Founder tone (10%)

0 is neutral. Positive scores indicate a healthy, progressing business. Negative scores indicate material concerns. The chip shows green for scores ≥ +20, red for scores ≤ −20, and grey in between.

Scores are also history-aware: once a company has multiple updates on file, the analysis compares every metric against what the company previously reported. A glowing update that quietly stops reporting a metric, or repeats a promise made two quarters ago, is scored with that context.

On the update detail page, the Trajectory section lists observations that can only be made by comparing this update to the company's full reporting history — metrics that accelerated or reversed, figures the company stopped reporting, and promises from earlier updates that were kept, slipped, or went silent.

It appears once a company has enough history to compare against, so a company's first update won't have one.

Forward-looking statements from the update — planned raises, launch dates, expected milestones — are extracted into a What They Promised card. When later updates arrive, those promises are checked against what actually happened, and the outcome feeds the Trajectory section and sentiment score.

Pinion detects when a submitted update is substantially a verbatim copy of one already on file. The detail page shows a banner linking to the original, and the duplicate is excluded from quarterly report highlights so the same news isn't counted twice.

When Pinion's analysis pipeline is upgraded, existing updates are reprocessed with the newer, history-aware analysis. The original AI analysis is preserved — click View previous analysis (before reprocessing) on the update detail page to see it. Scores can differ between the two because the newer analysis reads the update in the context of the company's full reporting history, while the original scored it on its own.

The period label (e.g. "Q2 2025" or "August 2025") identifies which reporting period the update covers. Pinion uses it to sort updates chronologically on the company page and to calculate the sentiment delta between consecutive updates.

AI extracts the period from the PDF cover page, subject line, or document header. If it gets it wrong, click the pencil icon next to the period tag on the update detail page to correct it.

Yes. Hover over the update row in the company's Investor Updates table and click the ✕ button that appears on the right. A confirmation prompt will appear before deletion.

Yes. Click Search in the sidebar to open the full-text search page. It searches the raw text of every processed update across your entire portfolio — useful for finding every company that mentioned a specific topic, metric, or person.

Results are ranked by relevance and show a highlighted snippet of the matching passage. Click any result to open the update detail page, where the matching terms are highlighted throughout the full text and a match navigator lets you jump between occurrences.

A quarterly report is an LP-letter-style snapshot of your portfolio for a completed quarter — the kind of document a fund manager sends investors, generated about your own portfolio. It includes an executive summary, portfolio overview, the quarter's performance (new capital, valuation changes, exits), AI-drafted company highlights sourced from your investor updates, and full company, fund, and exit tables.

Open Reports in the sidebar, pick a completed quarter, and click Generate report. Generation takes under a minute. Reports are available on Family and Team plans.

You can edit the narrative — the executive summary and each company's highlight bullets — at any time, and print or save the result as a PDF. The numbers, however, are a snapshot taken at generation time, and each quarter can only be generated once. If you update a valuation after generating, the existing report intentionally does not change — the change shows up in the next quarter's report instead.

Because it's one-shot, Pinion warns you before generating if the quarter ended recently (founder updates typically arrive 30–60 days after quarter end) or if few of your companies have updates recorded for it yet.

1. Go to Settings → Import
2. Click Download template to get the pre-formatted workbook
3. Fill in the Investments sheet with your direct investments and the Funds sheet with your venture funds — delete the sample row before importing
4. Drag the completed file onto the drop zone, or click to browse and select it
5. Pinion validates the file and shows how many rows it found — review, then click Import

Investments sheet:

• Company Name — required
• Website — optional; used to fetch the company logo
• Investment Date — required; format: MM/DD/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD
• Amount ($) — required; number only (no $ sign needed)
• Valuation at Cost ($) — optional; the post-money valuation at time of investment

Funds sheet:

• Fund Name — required
• Manager — optional
• Strategy — optional (e.g. Early Stage, Multi-Stage)
• First Close Date — required; same date formats as above
• Commitment ($) — required
• Called Capital ($), Current NAV ($), Distributions ($), Notes — all optional

Import is additive only — it never overwrites existing data. If a company with the same name already exists in your portfolio, the imported investment round is added to that company rather than creating a duplicate. If no matching company is found, a new one is created.

Pinion validates the file before importing. If any rows have missing required fields or invalid dates or amounts, the entire import is blocked and a list of errors is shown with the row number and issue. Fix the errors in your spreadsheet and re-upload — nothing is imported until the file is clean.

Sector, stage, vehicle, tags, and vintage year (for funds) cannot be set via import. After importing, open each investment's edit page to fill in those details. These fields affect how your portfolio is broken down in the Insights view.

A workspace is a shared container for a portfolio. All investments, funds, and updates belong to a workspace. By default you have a solo workspace. On Family and Team plans you can invite additional members to collaborate on the same portfolio.

1. Go to Settings → Members
2. Enter the invitee's email address and click Send invite
3. They'll receive an email with a link to accept and set up their account

• Free — 1 member (solo only), no investor updates
• Family — up to 2 members, investor updates included
• Team — up to 5 members, investor updates included

Go to Settings → Billing and click the Upgrade button for the plan you want. You'll be taken to a Stripe Checkout page. After completing payment, your plan updates within a few seconds via webhook.

Go to Settings → Billing and click Manage billing. This opens the Stripe Customer Portal where you can change your plan, update your payment method, or cancel.

If your workspace has more members than your new plan allows, your account will be flagged as over-cap. New invitations will be blocked until you remove members to get back within the limit. Existing members retain access until removed.

Go to Settings → General and update the Display name field under Profile. Click Save.

Sign out, then click Forgot password on the login page. Enter your email and we'll send you a reset link. Follow the link to set a new password.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) adds a second step at sign-in: after your password or Google sign-in, you enter a 6-digit code from an authenticator app. It's optional, and it works the same way whether you sign in with a password or with Google.

Go to Settings → General → Two-factor authentication and click Set up. Scan the QR code with 1Password, Google Authenticator, Authy or any authenticator app, type the code it shows, and then save your recovery codes: you'll be shown eight one-time codes that get you back in if you ever lose your phone.

To turn it off or get fresh recovery codes, use the same card. Both actions ask for a current code first.

On the two-factor screen choose Use a recovery code instead and enter one of the codes you saved. That signs you in and turns two-factor off for your account; set it up again from Settings once your new device is ready.

No phone and no codes? Email info@pinion.vc and we'll verify your identity and reset two-factor for you.

Yes, on Family and Team plans, for $10 a month per SPV (the feature is called Friendly SPV). An SPV in Pinion is a light ledger (record-keeping, not full accounting software) for a vehicle you manage with friends, family, or co-investors: its members and their ownership percentages, capital calls, the money members send in, what the SPV invests, distributions in and out, and administrative expenses (tax prep, filing fees, Pinion's own fee is posted automatically). Open Friendly SPV in the sidebar to create one.

New SPV walks you through it: name the SPV, say what it holds (pick a fund or investment you already track, or let Pinion create the position for you), add the members with their percentages, then choose how the ledger starts: import a bank export, type the entries, or start fresh. If your Friendly SPV add-on doesn't yet cover another SPV, the first step adds a seat.

Each SPV is linked to the asset it holds in your portfolio: a fund or an individual investment. When you record an investment, a distribution received, or a valuation on the SPV, Pinion mirrors your share (your ownership % of the entity amount) onto that asset, so your personal portfolio stays right without double entry. Other members keep their own portfolios; they never see your SPV ledger.

The SPV page shows Gross MOIC (latest valuation plus distributions received, divided by what the SPV invested; the deal's result, ignoring costs), Net TVPI (valuation plus cash paid to members plus any uninvested cash, divided by member contributions; what members actually got for their money, so expenses count against it), and DPI (cash paid to members ÷ contributions). "Uninvested cash" is derived from the journal, not a bank balance; if it goes negative, an entry is probably missing. Record a Valuation entry to populate the multiples.

Capital calls are pro-rata: issue a call for the total and Pinion shows what each member owes and what they've funded. At tax time, Export gives your accountant a spreadsheet for the year: every journal entry, a per-member summary of contributions and distributions, and totals by category. Pinion doesn't prepare K-1s; that stays with your accountant.

Bring your members in from the Members tab with Invite to Pinion. If the member already has a Pinion account, they get a short heads-up email and, the next time they open their portfolio, they're asked whether Pinion should create the position for them (a new asset with the SPV's full history) or link an asset they already track (their history stays, the latest valuation is applied). If they're new to Pinion, they get an email to create a free account, and their position is created automatically on first sign-in. Either way, your investments, distributions and valuations then flow to them at their percentage; they see their own share and never your ledger. Positions Pinion creates this way are marked Managed by … in their portfolio.

If you remove the add-on or downgrade, your SPVs become read-only: nothing new can be added, but you can still view and export everything.

On the SPV's Journal tab click Import bank CSV and choose a bank export (CSV; Chase and most banks work). The setup wizard offers the same import as its last step. Pinion suggests a type, member and category for each row (member wires become member funding, wires to the fund become investments, fees become expenses); review, adjust, untick anything to skip, then import. Re-importing the same export is safe: rows already recorded (same bank reference) are skipped. Imported entries are recorded on the SPV only and are not mirrored onto your portfolio asset, because that asset usually already carries the history.

To make your own position follow the ledger instead, open Members and click Sync my position from the ledger. Pinion replaces the hand-entered capital calls, distributions and NAV on your linked asset with the ledger's entries at your percentage (dated as in the ledger) and, from then on, keeps them updated automatically; the asset is marked as managed by the SPV and those fields can't be edited by hand. Commitment, status and notes stay yours. Add a Valuation entry whenever the fund reports NAV; it flows to you and to every linked member.

Members see contributions, not just investments: a capital call can include the SPV's own expenses, so what someone wired in can be more than what shows as invested on their position. When you issue a call, enter the of which invested amount and each member's notice and seat card show the split.

Each active SPV needs a seat: $10 a month per seat, added to your Family or Team subscription and prorated for the current billing period. Add or remove seats in Settings → Billing → Friendly SPV add-on; you're asked to confirm before a seat is charged, and unused seats can be removed at any time. If you have more SPVs than seats (for example after removing a seat or downgrading), the newest SPVs become read-only. Nothing is deleted, and they reactivate when a seat is available. Pinion's fee is posted automatically to each active SPV's journal as an expense when your invoice is paid, so the ledger stays complete for your accountant.

Workspaces with a complimentary plan can be granted SPV seats by Pinion directly; those seats don't appear on a Stripe invoice.

Your own slice, nothing more. When the manager invites you, Pinion either creates a position in your portfolio or links one you already track. From then on the position is marked Managed by … and its called capital, distributions and valuation come from the manager's ledger at your ownership percentage; you can't edit those fields yourself, though commitment, status and notes stay yours. The fund or investment page shows a Your seat card with your contributions, your NAV, distributions paid to you, and every capital call with what you've funded and what's outstanding.

Capital calls can include the SPV's own expenses (accounting, filing fees), so what you contribute can exceed what shows as invested on the position; the seat card shows the split when the manager records it. If you ever want the position back under your own control, use Unlink from SPV on the seat card: your data stays exactly as it is, the manager's future entries simply stop flowing to it, and they see your seat as unlinked.

Managers upload documents on the SPV's Documents tab and choose who sees each one: All members (operating agreement, upstream call notices, statements, updates from the underlying fund or company) or a single member (their Schedule K-1). Each document carries a date and a tax year, so both the manager's list and every member's seat card group by year, with the latest year open and older years collapsed. The manager's tab also shows K-1 coverage per year so it's obvious who is still missing one. PDF, spreadsheet, Word, PowerPoint, image or ZIP, up to 25 MB each. When you upload, Pinion can email the people the document is shared with (everyone, or just the one member for a K-1). Untick the box to add a file quietly. Files are private: a member can only ever open documents shared with everyone or addressed to them.

Capital account statements. On the same tab, pick a year and click Generate and share: Pinion builds one PDF per member (opening and closing capital account on a cash basis, their contributions and distributions, their share of what the SPV invested, spent and received, their share of the latest valuation, DPI and TVPI, the period's capital calls and their own transactions) and files each one as a member-only Statement, so every member sees theirs on their seat card next to their K-1 and nobody sees anyone else's. The current year produces a year-to-date statement; generating again for the same year replaces the previous set. Tick Email each member their statement to notify them, or use Download all for one PDF with every member's statement for your own files. Statements summarize the books the manager keeps in Pinion; they are not tax documents, and the K-1 governs.

When a manager issues a capital call they can tick Email each member their call notice. Every member with an email address (the manager excluded) receives their share, their percentage, the invested-versus-expenses split if given, and the memo, with replies going to the manager. The Calls tab records that the notice went out.

Yes, on Family and Team plans. In Settings → Members choose Viewer — read-only when you send the invite. A viewer sees everything in the workspace (portfolio, insights, reports, investor updates, SPVs and their documents) but cannot add, change or delete anything, and can't create AI integration keys. Viewers count toward your plan's member seats. Anyone already invited as a member can be removed and re-invited as a viewer.

Yes, on Family and Team plans. The workspace owner goes to Settings → Members → Two-factor authentication policy and turns on Require two-factor authentication for all members. You'll need it on for your own account first. Members who haven't set it up are asked to do so the next time they open Pinion, and nobody in the workspace can turn it off while the policy is on.

Note that AI assistant API keys (Settings → AI Integration) are a separate credential and are not covered by two-factor authentication; if a key leaks, revoke it there.

Go to Settings → General and scroll to Preferences. Each category (Sectors, Investment Vehicles, Tags) has an editor where you can add your own options, drag to reorder them, or remove ones you don't use. Changes apply workspace-wide immediately.

These options appear in the dropdowns when editing investments — keeping your list tidy makes the Insights breakdowns more useful.

Go to Settings → Danger Zone and click Delete investment data…. Type DELETE to confirm. This permanently removes all investment rounds, companies, venture funds, equity grants, and investor updates from your workspace. Your account and workspace settings are not affected.

Go to Settings → Danger Zone and click Delete account…. Type DELETE to confirm. This permanently deletes your account, all workspaces you own, and all data in them. You are signed out immediately.

Pinion can connect to AI tools — Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and others — via the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Once connected, you can ask your AI assistant questions about your portfolio in plain English and get live answers from your actual data.

Example: "Which of my investments has the highest MOIC?" or "What did Acme Corp report in their last investor update?"

1. Go to Settings → API Keys
2. Click + New key and give it a name (e.g. "My Laptop")
3. Copy the key — it's shown once only and cannot be retrieved later.
4. Use the setup command shown in the modal to connect your AI tool, or follow the steps below

You can create multiple keys — one per device or per team member. Revoke any key at any time without affecting the others.

If you want Claude to do the whole thing from scratch with no copy-pasting, you could say:

Replace pinion_xxxx with your actual key. Restart Claude.

claude.ai connectors accept only a URL, so include your key in it. In Claude, go to Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, name it Pinion, and paste:

Replace pinion_xxxx with your actual key, click Add, then enable Pinion from the tools menu in any chat.

Run the command shown in the key modal, or paste it manually in your terminal:

Replace pinion_xxxx with your actual key. Claude Code will confirm the server was added. Restart Claude Code if it was already running.

MCP is an open protocol — any compatible client uses the same key and URL. Add the following to your client's MCP configuration file:

Config file locations vary by client — check your tool's MCP documentation for the exact path. The JSON structure above is standard across all MCP clients.

The Pinion MCP server exposes nine tools that your AI can call automatically based on your question:

• Portfolio summary — total invested, current value, and TVPI across direct investments, venture funds, and equity grants (where included in MOIC)
• List investments — all direct investments with MOIC and tags, optionally filtered by status or by tag label
• List funds — all venture funds with NAV, distributions, and MOIC on called capital
• List grants — all equity grants (including warrants) with shares, strike price, current FMV, paper value, vesting percentage, and expiration date
• Investment details — deep-dive on a single company: all rounds, recent AI-analyzed updates, and the full original text of each update
• Recent investor updates — latest updates across the portfolio with sentiment, flags, key metrics, and the full original text of each update
• List SPVs — the Friendly SPVs you manage, with members, latest valuation, Gross MOIC, Net TVPI, DPI, and uninvested cash
• SPV details — one SPV in depth: every member's contributions, each capital call with who has funded and who is outstanding, the journal, and K-1 coverage by tax year
• SPV seats — positions managed by someone else's Friendly SPV, with your share, contributions, and value

Example prompts that work well:

• "Summarise my portfolio performance"
• "Which investment has the highest MOIC?"
• "What equity grants do I have and what are they worth?"
• "Who hasn't funded the last capital call on my SPV?"
• "What were the red flags in Acme Corp's last investor update?"
• "How much capital have I deployed into venture funds vs direct deals?"
• "Which companies have sent investor updates in the last quarter?"

Go to Settings → API Keys and click Revoke next to the key. Revocation is immediate — any AI tool using that key will lose access instantly. Create a new key if you need to reconnect.