Key takeaways
- Duplicates are suggested, never merged automatically.
- Matching uses the company's web domain and the founder's email or LinkedIn profile.
- A merge keeps the referral and submission history of both records.
- Retrying the same application submit creates one deal and one receipt, not two.
Planned feature: not in Delsivo yet, and details may change before it ships.
Where duplicate startup applications come from
A busy inbound pipeline collects repeats. Most are innocent. The founder applied in spring and again in autumn with a new deck. A partner forwarded an intro after the founder had already used the public form. A co-founder submitted separately from the CEO. Without a check, two analysts can spend time on the same company, and the second review starts without the first one's notes.
| Situation | What Delsivo sees | Likely signal |
|---|---|---|
| Founder reapplies months later | New submission, same company | Same domain |
| Referral after a public application | Referral link submission, existing deal | Same domain and founder email |
| Two co-founders apply separately | Two submissions, different founders | Same domain |
| Analyst adds a company from a meeting | Analyst-created record | Founder LinkedIn or email match |
How a duplicate is suggested and merged
- 1A new submission or analyst-created record arrives.
- 2Delsivo compares its company domain and founder identity (email address or LinkedIn profile) with existing deals in your fund.
- 3If there is a likely match, the new record shows a duplicate suggestion naming the existing deal and the reason, such as same domain.
- 4An analyst opens both, compares them and chooses to merge or dismiss the suggestion.
- 5On merge, submissions, referrals, deck versions and notes come together under one deal. Nothing is deleted.
Dismissing a suggestion is also recorded, so the next analyst knows someone already looked and decided they are different companies.
What a merge keeps
- Every submission, with its own date, form answers and receipt.
- Every referral and who it came from, so credit for the introduction isn't lost.
- Each deck as its own version, with its citations intact.
- Notes, tasks and stage history from both records, in date order.
- The merge itself in the deal's audit history: who merged, when and from which records.
Why retries never create duplicates
A different kind of repeat comes from the network, not the founder. A slow connection or a double click can send the same application twice. Each draft carries its own key, so a retried submit is recognised as the same one. The founder gets one receipt, and your team gets one deal. This is part of the branded application flow on your portal.
Limits to know
Matching only looks within your own fund. Two funds can hold records for the same company without either knowing, and deal data is never compared across funds. A company with no website, or founders who use different emails each time, may not be matched, so analysts can still merge records they spot themselves.