PitchVault MCP - Live Investor Portfolio and Thesis Context Server for Claude and Cursor
Founders waste hours manually researching investor portfolio fit before cold outreach — then Claude still hallucinates which fund led which round. PitchVault MCP is a Model Context Protocol server that injects live, structured investor portfolio data, fund thesis summaries, and recent deal activity directly into Claude so founders get accurate, personalized outreach drafts in seconds.
Difficulty
intermediate
Category
MCP & Integrations
Market Demand
High
Revenue Score
7/10
Platform
MCP Server
Vibe Code Friendly
No
Hackathon Score
🏆 8/10
What is it?
When founders ask Claude to help write investor outreach, Claude either hallucinates portfolio details or gives generic advice because it has no live investor data. PitchVault MCP solves this by exposing a set of MCP tools that fetch real investor profiles, portfolio companies, fund stage and sector preferences, and recent announced deals from Crunchbase and PitchBook public data. Claude can then call these tools mid-conversation to ground its outreach suggestions in real data. The MCP server targets Claude Desktop and Cursor as host environments. It exposes four tools: get_investor_profile, list_portfolio_companies, get_fund_thesis, and find_similar_portfolio_companies. Built with the MCP TypeScript SDK, this is a 2-week build that meaningfully improves the quality of AI-assisted fundraising prep without requiring any new model training.
Why now?
Anthropic's remote MCP server specification stabilized in early 2026, making it possible to host and monetize MCP servers as SaaS for the first time — this is the exact inflection point to capture the founder-AI workflow wave.
- ▸get_investor_profile MCP tool returning fund stage, check size, sector focus, and GP names from Crunchbase
- ▸list_portfolio_companies tool returning last 20 investments with round type and date for any fund
- ▸find_similar_portfolio_companies tool that takes a startup description and returns most similar existing portfolio companies for fit scoring
- ▸get_fund_thesis tool returning scraped and summarized fund thesis from fund website via Exa AI
Target Audience
Early-stage founders doing pre-seed to Series A fundraising, approximately 150,000 active fundraising rounds per year in the US and Europe.
Example Use Case
Founder types 'help me write outreach to a16z for my B2B fintech' in Claude Desktop, PitchVault MCP auto-calls get_investor_profile and list_portfolio_companies, and Claude drafts a personalized email referencing three actual portfolio companies with correct investment dates — in 30 seconds.
User Stories
- ▸As a pre-seed founder, I want Claude to reference real portfolio companies when drafting investor outreach, so that my emails are personalized and credible.
- ▸As a founder preparing for a fundraise, I want to instantly see which portfolio companies are most similar to my startup, so that I can identify the best-fit investors quickly.
- ▸As a repeat user, I want my investor lookups cached so that the MCP server responds in under one second, so that my Claude conversations feel fast and fluid.
Acceptance Criteria
get_investor_profile: done when tool returns fund stage, check size, and sector tags for any top-50 US VC in under 2 seconds. list_portfolio_companies: done when tool returns at least 10 portfolio companies with round type and date for any queried fund. Caching: done when second call to same investor returns in under 200ms from Supabase cache. Usage Metering: done when lookup count increments correctly and free users are blocked at 21 lookups with upgrade prompt.
Is it worth building?
$29/month x 200 founders = $5,800 MRR at month 4. $49/month pro tier for power users adds $2k MRR. Math assumes 5% conversion from Indie Hackers and Twitter founder communities.
Unit Economics
CAC: $20 via Twitter DM founder outreach. LTV: $696 (24 months at $29/month). Payback: 1 month. Gross margin: 72% after Crunchbase API costs.
Business Model
SaaS subscription
Monetization Path
Free tier: 20 investor lookups/month. $29/month for 200 lookups. $49/month for unlimited with portfolio similarity search.
Revenue Timeline
First dollar: week 3 via beta subscription. $1k MRR: month 2. $5k MRR: month 6.
Estimated Monthly Cost
Crunchbase API: $299 (basic tier), Exa AI: $30, Supabase: $25, Vercel: $20, Stripe fees: $15. Total: ~$389/month — requires 14 paying subscribers to break even.
Profit Potential
Niche but strong at $5k-$12k MRR. Acquisition target for fundraising platforms.
Scalability
High — add European VC data, angel investor profiles, accelerator thesis data, portfolio gap analysis.
Success Metrics
Week 2: 50 MCP installs. Month 1: 15 paid subscribers. Month 3: $2k MRR.
Launch & Validation Plan
Post a demo video of Claude writing investor outreach with real portfolio data in r/startups and YC community Slack. Collect 50 email signups before writing a line of server code.
Customer Acquisition Strategy
First customer: DM 30 pre-seed founders on Twitter/X who have posted about fundraising in the last 7 days, offering 90-day free access for feedback. Ongoing: YC Hacker News Show HN post, Indie Hackers, Twitter founder communities, partnership with fundraising prep communities like On Deck.
What's the competition?
Competition Level
Low
Similar Products
Harmonic.ai provides investor data but has no Claude or MCP integration. Signal.nfx is VC-side only. Neither exposes structured data as MCP tools consumable by Claude mid-conversation.
Competitive Advantage
No other MCP server provides live investor portfolio data grounded in Crunchbase — founders using Claude for fundraising prep today get hallucinated portfolio details with no tool to fix it.
Regulatory Risks
Low regulatory risk. Crunchbase API terms prohibit reselling raw data — tool must return summaries, not raw data exports. Implement response transformation accordingly.
What's the roadmap?
Feature Roadmap
V1 (launch): 4 MCP tools, Crunchbase data, Supabase caching, Stripe billing. V2 (month 2-3): European VC data, portfolio fit score, recent news via Exa. V3 (month 4+): angel investor profiles, accelerator thesis data, Claude-powered outreach draft tool.
Milestone Plan
Phase 1 (Week 1-2): all 4 MCP tools functional with Crunchbase and caching — done when Claude Desktop calls all tools correctly. Phase 2 (Week 3-4): Stripe billing, usage metering, remote MCP deployment — done when one founder pays $29. Phase 3 (Month 2): 15 paying subscribers, Show HN post live.
How do you build it?
Tech Stack
MCP TypeScript SDK, Crunchbase API, Exa AI for web search fallback, Supabase for caching, Vercel for remote MCP hosting — build with Cursor for MCP tool definitions and API integration.
Suggested Frameworks
MCP TypeScript SDK for server and tool definitions, Exa AI SDK for live investor news search, Zod for tool input schema validation
Time to Ship
2 weeks
Required Skills
MCP TypeScript SDK, REST API integration, Supabase caching layer, OAuth for Claude Desktop.
Resources
Anthropic MCP SDK docs, Crunchbase API docs, Exa AI SDK docs, MCP remote server deployment guide.
MVP Scope
src/index.ts (MCP server entrypoint), src/tools/getInvestorProfile.ts, src/tools/listPortfolio.ts, src/tools/findSimilar.ts, src/tools/getFundThesis.ts, src/lib/crunchbase.ts, src/lib/exa.ts, src/lib/cache.ts, supabase/schema.sql, package.json.
Core User Journey
Install MCP server in Claude Desktop -> ask Claude for investor outreach help -> Claude auto-calls portfolio tools -> receive grounded personalized draft -> upgrade to paid for unlimited lookups.
Architecture Pattern
Claude Desktop calls MCP tool -> PitchVault MCP server receives tool call -> checks Supabase cache (7-day TTL) -> on miss, calls Crunchbase API or Exa AI -> transforms response to structured JSON -> returns to Claude -> Claude uses data to draft personalized outreach.
Data Model
InvestorCache has fund_name, profile_JSON, portfolio_JSON, thesis_text, and cached_at timestamp. User has many LookupEvents. LookupEvent has investor_name, tool_called, and timestamp for usage metering.
Integration Points
MCP TypeScript SDK for server framework, Crunchbase API for investor and portfolio data, Exa AI for fund thesis scraping and news, Supabase for response caching, Stripe for subscription billing.
V1 Scope Boundaries
V1 excludes: European VC database, angel investor profiles, accelerator data, CRM sync, bulk export, team collaboration features.
Success Definition
A founder the author has never met installs the MCP server, asks Claude to help with investor outreach, receives a grounded personalized draft referencing real portfolio companies, and subscribes within 24 hours.
Challenges
Crunchbase API costs $500/month at scale — implement aggressive Supabase caching (TTL 7 days) and use Exa AI for free-tier fallback to control API spend.
Avoid These Pitfalls
Do not launch without Supabase caching — Crunchbase API at $299/month becomes $2k/month without it. Do not promise data freshness beyond 7 days — Crunchbase free tier updates weekly at best. First 10 paying customers come from direct founder outreach, not passive SEO — budget 3x time for community distribution.
Security Requirements
OAuth 2.0 for Claude Desktop MCP authentication. API keys stored in Vercel environment variables only. Rate limit: 60 tool calls/minute per user. Supabase RLS on usage_events by user_id. GDPR: no personal data stored beyond usage counts.
Infrastructure Plan
Vercel for remote MCP server hosting (serverless), Supabase for caching and usage metering, GitHub Actions for CI, Sentry for MCP tool errors. Total infra: ~$389/month dominated by Crunchbase API cost.
Performance Targets
200 DAU at launch, 2,000 tool calls/day. Cached tool response under 200ms. Uncached Crunchbase call under 3s. Target 85% cache hit rate to control API costs.
Go-Live Checklist
- ☐Crunchbase API key provisioned and tested
- ☐Stripe subscription flow tested
- ☐Sentry live on MCP server
- ☐Cache hit rate verified at 80%+ on test dataset
- ☐Custom domain for MCP endpoint
- ☐Privacy policy and Crunchbase data usage terms published
- ☐5 beta founders confirmed outreach quality improvement
- ☐Rollback plan documented
- ☐Show HN and Twitter launch posts drafted.
How to build it, step by step
1. Run npx @modelcontextprotocol/create-server pitchvault-mcp and scaffold TypeScript MCP server. 2. Install @anthropic-ai/sdk, crunchbase-api, exa-js, and @supabase/supabase-js. 3. Write get_investor_profile tool with Zod input schema validating fund_name string. 4. Implement Crunchbase API call in lib/crunchbase.ts with Supabase cache check first. 5. Write list_portfolio_companies tool that returns last 20 investments for a fund. 6. Write find_similar_portfolio_companies tool that takes startup_description and returns cosine similarity ranked portfolio matches. 7. Write get_fund_thesis tool using Exa AI to scrape and summarize fund website. 8. Add usage metering middleware that increments lookup count per user in Supabase. 9. Deploy MCP server to Vercel as remote MCP endpoint with OAuth for Claude Desktop. 10. Write install instructions for Claude Desktop config JSON and test all 4 tools end-to-end.
Generated
April 14, 2026
Model
claude-sonnet-4-6
Disclaimer: Ideas on this site are AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies. Revenue estimates, market demand figures, and financial projections are illustrative assumptions only — not financial advice. Do your own research before making any business or investment decisions. Technology availability, pricing, and market conditions change rapidly; always verify details independently.