How to migrate from Pipedrive to Reuben AI
A practical guide for VC, PE, private credit and family office teams moving off Pipedrive, a sales CRM, to Reuben AI, an AI-native investment platform. Deals, contacts, organisations and activities all carry across, and the investment work Pipedrive is not designed for (scoring, diligence, IC, monitoring, LP reporting) sits on the same data layer.
Pipedrive is a linear sales pipeline. Funds that use it usually have Google Sheets, Notion pages, an email data room and a bespoke IC deck template doing the actual investment work around it. This guide covers what to export from Pipedrive, how each object maps into Reuben AI, and how to translate a sales pipeline into an investment pipeline without losing any history.
A two week parallel run keeps Pipedrive read only while the team lives in Reuben AI. Nothing is deleted until the team is confident.
Estimated time
2 to 3 weeks
Before you start
- Pipedrive admin access to run a full export
- List of custom fields your team actually uses
- Named owner for the migration inside the fund
- Access to email accounts for reconnection
Field mapping from Pipedrive to Reuben AI
| Pipedrive | Reuben AI | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Deal | Deal | Pipeline stage translates to Reuben AI investment stage. |
| Person | Contact | Email, phone, title and organisation link carry over. |
| Organization | Company | Domain, sector, HQ and custom fields preserved. |
| Activities (calls, meetings, tasks) | Activity feed and tasks | Type, owner, timestamp and outcome preserved. |
| Notes | Deal notes and contact notes | Author and timestamp preserved. |
| Products | Deal terms or structured fields | For funds this is typically instrument type or ticket size. |
| Deal fields (custom) | Custom fields on the deal record | Typed fields, no lossy conversion. |
| Pipelines | Deal pipelines and saved views | Each Pipedrive pipeline becomes a Reuben AI pipeline view. |
Step by step
- Step 1
Export from Pipedrive
Use the Pipedrive export to pull deals, persons, organisations, activities and notes. Include file attachments. Keep everything in one folder.
- Step 2
Rethink the pipeline shape
Sales pipelines are linear. Investment pipelines are not. Map each Pipedrive stage into a Reuben AI investment stage (New, Screening, Diligence, IC, Closing, Portfolio, Passed). Some Pipedrive stages collapse, some split.
- Step 3
Confirm the custom fields that matter
List the custom deal and contact fields your team actually uses. Anything not on this list still imports, but is not surfaced by default.
- Step 4
Import into a staging environment
Reuben AI loads the export into a staging tenant. Validate a sample of ten deals and ten contacts before promoting to production.
- Step 5
Reconnect email and calendar
Every team member reconnects 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. Pipedrive stays read only for reference. After two weeks with no missed history, Pipedrive can be archived.
- Step 7
Turn on scoring, diligence and reporting
Switch on Blueprint scoring at intake, the diligence template, the deal room, and the LP reporting cadence. This is the work Pipedrive is not built for.
Nothing gets lost checklist
- Every Pipedrive deal has a Reuben AI deal in the correct investment stage
- Every person and organisation has a Reuben AI record
- Notes and activities are attached to the right deal or contact with original author and date
- Email and calendar sync is live for every team member
- Custom fields the team actually uses are surfaced in the deal and contact views
- The Pipedrive export is archived in one place, owned by one team member
- Old Pipedrive automations that were doing investment work have equivalents inside Reuben AI
Frequently asked questions
Our whole pipeline lives in Pipedrive. Is a switch risky?
No, because it is a parallel run. Pipedrive stays read only during the two week overlap so the team never loses access. If anything is missed in Reuben AI, it can be re-imported from the archived export.
What about our Pipedrive automations?
Simple automations map to Reuben AI workflow templates. Complex automations that were compensating for the CRM not knowing about diligence, IC or portfolio work are usually replaced with the equivalent native Reuben AI feature.
How much does the migration cost?
Migration is included in onboarding for annual plans. See /pricing.
Do we have to change our stage names?
No. Reuben AI supports custom stage names inside the standard investment stage buckets. Team members keep the language they are used to.
Talk to the team before you migrate
Book a working session with the founder and a senior engineer. We will map your Pipedrive export against a live Reuben AI environment.
Book a demo