Client · Fintech
Kelp Global: three connected products for investment teams on one design system
Kelp Global builds software for private-markets investment teams. We designed three connected products: a deals workspace, a plugin that files email to deals from the inbox, and the Truenorth investor portal, all on one shared design system.
Executive summary
Kelp Global's users work in private markets, where information about every deal arrives from many sources and decisions depend on comparing companies clearly. Designit designed three connected products on one shared design system: a deals module with a consistent one-pager for every company, a plugin that files emails and attachments to the right deals from the inbox, and the Truenorth investor portal for a fund's investors.
What changed is where information lives: on one record per company instead of in decks and inboxes, captured from email as it arrives, and shared with investors in one structured place.
Project facts
- Industry
- Fintech, private-markets software
- Product
- Deals module, Kelp plugin for the inbox, Truenorth investor portal
- Users
- Deal teams, partners and fund investors
- Our role
- SaaS product design, data-dense UI, plugin UX, portal UX, design system
- Scope
- Three products on one shared system
- Tools
- Figma, prototyping, data visualisation
Problem statement
How might we give private-markets teams one trustworthy picture of every deal and relationship, and give their investors one calm place to find everything they are owed?
Empathize
Who we designed for
Deal teams, the partners they report to, and the investors in their funds, each with very different questions and very little time.
Deal teams
Screen and diligence companies, and need one record per company with notes, numbers and documents.
Partners and committees
Need consistent, comparable summaries to make decisions quickly.
Fund investors
Need documents, portfolio information and meeting recordings without emailing investor relations.
Pain points
Deal information was scattered across email, spreadsheets and decks.
Company summaries were rebuilt by hand in different formats.
Email context stayed in individual inboxes.
Investors had no single place for fund documents and updates.
The business problem
Deal teams were rebuilding company summaries by hand, keeping notes and valuations in separate files, and comparing companies in ad-hoc spreadsheets. Investors in the funds received documents by email with no single place to find them later.
The user problem
Analysts and partners needed the essentials of a deal in seconds and the detail one click away. Most deal context arrived by email and rarely reached the shared record. Investors visited occasionally, with a specific question, and needed to find the answer without asking.
What we did
One record per company
A fixed one-pager structure, IC notes, valuation and documents on each deal, and a compare view that lines companies up on score, ownership and key financials.
Capture from the inbox
A panel beside the email to tag contacts, link deals or companies and save the message and attachments to Kelp in one pass.
An investor portal
Funds, transactions, shared documents by type, portfolio companies by fund, and an annual meeting hub with an agenda and speaker profiles.
One design system
Shared foundations so a user moving between the three products doesn't relearn conventions.
Key lessons
- Bring information to the workflow. Don't make people go and find it.
- Standardise the summary. A committee can only compare what is described the same way.
- Make comparison a view, not a spreadsheet. The decision happens across companies.
- Design the suite, not three products. Shared conventions reduce relearning.
Case studies
Every Kelp Global case study
Kelp Global
Deals Module
Every deal's one-pager, IC notes, valuation and documents in one place, with companies compared side by side.
View case study
Kelp Global
Kelp Plugin
File an email, its contacts and attachments to the right deal in Kelp, without leaving the inbox.
View case study
Kelp Global
Truenorth Investor Portal
An investor portal for a private-equity fund: documents, portfolio companies and the annual meeting in one place.
View case studyWhat the Kelp Global team says
“Working with DesignIt on Kelp was a great experience. The team helped us simplify and communicate complex data in the most effective way, whether through tables, graphs, or visualisations. They were always approachable, collaborative, and open to exploring multiple solutions throughout the process.”
Public LinkedIn recommendation, reproduced verbatim.
Frequently asked questions
What did Designit design for Kelp Global?
Three connected products on one shared design system: a deals module with a consistent one-pager, IC notes, valuation and comparison for every company; a plugin that files emails, contacts and attachments to deals from the inbox; and the Truenorth investor portal for a fund's investors.
What makes software for private-markets teams hard to design?
The density and the stakes: a lot of information per company, decisions that depend on comparing companies consistently, and users with very little time. Kelp's Head of CX described the work as simplifying and communicating complex data through tables, graphs and visualisations.
Why put three products on one design system?
So people moving between the deals module, the plugin and the investor portal never relearn conventions, and so the team can extend the products faster.
Are outcome metrics published for this project?
Not on this page. Ask us on a call and we can talk through results we're able to share.
What is a company one-pager in private equity?
A short, standardised summary used to screen and discuss a deal: what the company does, why it is different, who founded and owns it, where it operates and the key numbers. Standardising it lets a committee read across deals.
What is an LP investor portal?
A secure site where a fund's investors find their documents, reports, notices and portfolio information. Truenorth's portal also hosts the annual meeting with an agenda and speaker profiles.
Why capture deal emails from inside the inbox?
Because that is where most deal information arrives. A plugin that saves the email, its contacts and attachments to the right deal in one pass keeps the shared record complete without extra admin.
Can Designit design data-dense dashboards and tables for fintech products?
Yes. Dense, decision-critical screens are a large part of this work: fixed structures, clear hierarchy for the few numbers that matter, and comparison views instead of exports. See our SaaS product design service.
Where can I see each Kelp product in detail?
The deals module, the Kelp plugin and the Truenorth investor portal each have their own case study, linked above.
Building a multi-product SaaS suite?
Show us the products and where they disagree. We'll tell you what a shared system would fix first.