How to migrate from Affinity to Reuben AI
A practical guide for VC and PE funds moving off Affinity to an AI-native investment platform. Contacts, pipeline, notes, email history and relationship signal all carry across, and the investment work that Affinity does not do (scoring, diligence, IC, monitoring, LP reporting) comes with the same data.
Affinity is a strong relationship CRM. Funds that outgrow it usually do so for the same reason: the platform tracks who you know, not what you decide, and the actual investment work lives in ten other tools around it. This guide covers what to export, how each field maps into Reuben AI, and how to keep the historical relationship signal that made Affinity useful in the first place.
The goal is a switch that takes two to three weeks, not two to three months, with zero lost history and a live parallel run so the team never loses access to a contact record.
Estimated time
2 to 3 weeks
Before you start
- Affinity admin access to run a full export
- A short list of custom fields you actually use
- Named owner for the migration inside the fund
- Access to email and calendar accounts for reconnection
Field mapping from Affinity to Reuben AI
| Affinity | Reuben AI | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Person | Contact | Email, phone, LinkedIn URL, title and company link carry over. |
| Organization | Company | Includes domain, sector, HQ and any custom fields. |
| Opportunity | Deal | Pipeline stage translates to Reuben AI investment stage. |
| List (deal pipeline) | Deal pipeline | Each Affinity list becomes a Reuben AI pipeline view. |
| List (relationship list) | Relationship group | For non-deal lists (LPs, service providers, mentors). |
| Notes | Deal notes and contact notes | Author and timestamp preserved. |
| Emails and calendar events | Activity feed | Reconnected via email and calendar sync. |
| Relationship strength score | Relationship signal | Recalculated from imported activity history. |
| Custom fields | Custom fields on any entity | Typed fields, no lossy conversion. |
Step by step
- Step 1
Export from Affinity
Run a full CSV export of persons, organizations, opportunities and lists. Export notes, emails and file attachments in the same run. Keep the export in one folder.
- Step 2
Confirm the fields that matter
List the custom fields your team actually uses. This is almost always fewer than what exists. Anything not on this list still imports, but is not surfaced by default.
- Step 3
Map pipeline stages
Line up Affinity pipeline stages against Reuben AI investment stages (New, Screening, Diligence, IC, Closing, Portfolio, Passed). Reuben AI supports custom stages inside those buckets.
- Step 4
Import into a staging environment
Reuben AI loads the export into a staging tenant. The team validates a sample of ten deals and ten contacts before promoting to production.
- Step 5
Reconnect email and calendar
Team members reconnect Google or Outlook. Historical email is backfilled and future activity flows in automatically.
- Step 6
Run in parallel for two weeks
New deals go into Reuben AI. Affinity stays read only for reference. After two weeks with no missed history, Affinity can be archived.
- Step 7
Turn on scoring, diligence and reporting
Once contacts and pipeline are stable, switch on the Blueprint scoring, the diligence template, and the LP reporting cadence. This is the work Affinity does not do.
Nothing gets lost checklist
- Every Affinity person and organization has a Reuben AI record
- Every open opportunity has a matching deal in the correct stage
- Notes are attached to the right deal or contact with original author and date
- Email and calendar sync is live for every team member
- Relationship signal is populated from imported activity
- Custom fields the team actually uses are surfaced in the deal and contact views
- One team member owns the archive of the original Affinity export
Frequently asked questions
Do we lose email sync when we leave Affinity?
No. Reuben AI supports Google and Outlook email and calendar sync. Historical email backfills during onboarding.
What about Affinity's relationship intelligence score?
Reuben AI recalculates relationship signal from the imported activity history using its own model. Scores are directional rather than identical, and the ranking of top relationships holds.
Can we roll back to Affinity if we change our mind?
Yes. Your Affinity account is not touched during migration. The parallel run means you can pause at any time.
How much does the migration cost?
Migration is included in onboarding for annual plans. See /pricing.
Talk to the team before you migrate
Book a working session with the founder and a senior engineer. We will map your Affinity export against a live Reuben AI environment.
Book a demo