Unlocking investor sentiment in a competitive market

Challenge: Sharing assets with the right people—and only the right people

Kove’s mission is simple: to be the next great beverage story out of San Diego. Company founders Alex Montelbano and Chris Clark have the experience to elevate the brand, but the competition in the beverage market is steep. Kove needs to be well-capitalized to fight global brands for shelf space.

Kove used Dropbox for storage across their entire organization—everything from vendor forms to legal documents had its place. But sharing pitch decks with investors created a unique set of challenges. Montelbano and Clark are engaged in hundreds of conversations at any given time, and because the PDF files of their decks were so easily shareable, information could easily fall into the wrong hands.

Kove’s competitors raise capital from the same pool of investors, so access to Kove’s financial projections or industry insights would diminish the company’s competitive advantage. Kove needed a way to share these pitch decks that would protect their intellectual property (IP).

Solution: Secure sharing, at the speed of business

Clark has been “a big fan” of Dropbox for years, so he and Montelbano used the platform to organize Kove’s business from the start. He ran into the Dropbox team at Natural Products Expo West, and explained their struggles around protecting their IP. Dropbox suggested trying DocSend virtual data rooms (VDR).

The beverage industry is competitive, and the bulk of Kove’s IP involves industry insights that take a lot of time and effort to compile. Say they’re looking at what venture capital has invested into competitors' brands. They gather that data, compile it, and put it into a spreadsheet so they can demonstrate where Kove fits into the matrix of investment portfolios of large investor networks. “If we just put that information back out there, then our competitors are going to grab it and they're going to use it,” Clark says. “That's something we try to keep close to our chest.”

A virtual data room offered Kove a way to safeguard and secure financial statements and industry-related IP while allowing the appropriate parties to access those documents. They were also pleased to find that DocSend also allows them to track when someone opens the files. “It just kind of blew our minds. We were like, wow, that's really valuable information,” Clark says.

Compared to the insecure method of sending pitch decks via PDFs, DocSend VDR limits who can access a file to those with an approved email. The solution also provides real-time alerts via push notifications and emails so Kove can see a viewer’s engagement with a given document.

This feature addresses another of Kove’s issues: investors saying they had read the package, yet seeming unfamiliar with the business during initial meetings. With DocSend, “we could prepare for those conversations with much more ammunition,” Clark says.

They considered another solution, but DocSend’s price and ease of implementation made it an easy choice. “It was a no-brainer,” Clark says. They established a DocSend instance in less than 48 hours.

Result: Recipient insight becomes a new advantage

By using DocSend VDR, Kove has created a funnel for investor conversations. When speaking to potential investors, Montelbano and Clark know exactly who has looked through their deck, and how much time they spent on each slide. That intel allows them to better tailor their pitch to the individual investor.

“Different stakeholders have different areas of interest,” Clark says. “We're able to take that data and maybe move the slides to optimize their view of the places we want them to see. Or if investors keep having questions and we know their questions are actually answered in the deck, but they never read that slide, that data's super valuable for us. Then we can reposition and retarget them in a new way.”

When on the phone with a potential investor, the team can follow along as they open the deck and see where they’re spending their time. They can even redirect conversations in real time based on that information. 

“Insights are great, but the real-time insights can be super valuable and are definitely the most important piece to us,” Clark says.

The investment cycle is long, and it’s made even longer when the economic outlook is uncertain. Being able to easily update investor representation is valuable during this process, and with every update, Clark and Montelbano can watch investors tracking their progress. And DocSend gives the Kove team confidence that they’re sharing documents securely.

“If you want to feel like your confidential assets are under your control, I would recommend DocSend,” Clark says.

The proof is in Kove’s success: Despite it being a challenging year to raise capital, Kove has announced its lead investor, with more expected to follow. Kove’s expansion plans include partnerships with San Diego stadiums, which will require heavy contract review. They will use DocSend VDR assets during that process, too. It’s instrumental in helping Kove find the right partners and carve space for their brand in a saturated market.