6-object Attio workspace tracking LPs, commitments, deals, funds and SPVs end-to-end

The situation

Auster runs a fund-of-funds-style structure with SPVs, feeder funds, LPs, commitments and direct deals — denominated in both USD and BRL. The legacy stack was a mix of spreadsheets and a generic CRM that wasn’t built for fundraising motion. Specifically:

• No clean LP ↔ Commitment ↔ Fund model. A single LP could commit to multiple SPVs at different ticket sizes; the existing setup couldn’t represent this without duplicating records.
• Capital tracking by hand. Soft commit, hard commit, wire received — three distinct dates and statuses, all kept in side spreadsheets.
• Currency cleanup nightmare. Some deals were in BRL (mark-to-market valuations), some in USD (commitments). The reporting layer couldn’t tell them apart.
• Pipeline visibility was per-person, not per-fund. No way to see “all fundraising activity for SPV X” without manual filtering.

What we built

A 6-object Attio workspace, fully modelled around how a real fund operates.

Objects

People ───── Key Contacts ──── LPs
  │                              │
  └── Conversations ── Commitments ── Deals ── Companies
                              │
                              └── Funds

Object	What it tracks
People	Contacts at LPs, founders at portfolio companies, and the conversations linking them
LPs	Investor entities — entity type, jurisdiction, check-size range, strategic flag, placement-fee terms
Funds	SPVs and feeder funds — target size, total committed, soft/target close dates, min commitment
Deals	Direct investments — stage, company, vertical, mark-to-market valuation in BRL, participation %
Companies	Portfolio companies + prospects, with valuation history and CNPJ for Brazilian entities
Commitments	The bridge object — links LPs ↔ Funds ↔ Deals with soft-commit, hard-commit, wire-received dates

Multi-currency capital tracking

Two currency-typed attributes on every commitment: USD commitment_amount (the headline number) and BRL capital_committed_brl (the local-currency equivalent). Reports roll up cleanly in either currency without manual conversion.

Pipeline lists

Six configured lists (Fundraising Pipeline, LPs, Strategic LPs, Dinner Party Invites, fund-specific raise lists) so LP outreach, fund-level fundraising, and relationship management each have their own view without stepping on each other.

Relationship mesh

Bidirectional record references everywhere it matters:

• LP ↔ Fund (an LP can commit to multiple funds; a fund has many LPs)
• LP ↔ Commitment (commitments resolve to specific LPs)
• Fund ↔ Commitment (commitments roll up to fund totals)
• Deal ↔ Commitment (direct deals can have their own commitment legs)
• Deal ↔ Company (the company being invested in)
• Commitment ↔ Person (the human relationship behind the money)

This lets reports answer questions like “how much committed across SPV X by LPs we met at the dinner party last quarter?” without writing a single piece of glue code.

Outcome

A workspace that mirrors the actual structure of how Auster does fund ops, not a generic sales CRM bent into shape. Every LP, commitment and deal has a single source of truth, currency reporting is clean across USD and BRL, and the team can answer pipeline questions in seconds that used to take an afternoon of spreadsheet wrangling.

Why this build matters for funds

Most CRMs assume a sales motion: lead → opportunity → closed-won. Funds don’t work that way. A single relationship can be a portfolio CEO, a prospective LP, a co-investor on one deal, and a strategic partner on another — all at the same time. Modelling that as relationships between objects rather than as fields on records is the entire game. Attio’s custom objects + bidirectional references make it possible. Most funds just don’t know to set it up that way.