Raise
From the first angel cheque to a Series C. Share the deck, then open folders to the lead fund as the round gets serious.
See fundraising rooms
Raise, sell and report with the right startup data room.
We score 17 virtual data rooms on what founders need: a room that is ready the same afternoon, keeps each investor in the right folders, carries a long diligence list and fits a startup budget.
Building your first room? Open the checklist
One room for every job a startup has.
Pass diligence
Legal, financial, technical and people reviews run faster when every answer has a numbered home and a record.
See diligence rooms
Sell the company
Buyers read everything. Stage what each bidder sees and keep every question in one thread.
See exit rooms
Run the company
Board packs, the annual audit, a 409A valuation and enterprise security reviews all use the same room between rounds.
See operating roomsUse-case rankings re-weight our five measures for each job. Prices are indicative and in US dollars.
Picture your round here.
Five features do most of the work in a startup room. Tap a label to see what each one does for you.
Every page carries the reader's email and the time, so a forwarded screenshot points back to its source.
Funds ask against a file. You answer once, approve it and publish it to the right investors.
See which partner opened the metrics folder, for how long, and who came back twice.
New viewers accept or sign your NDA before the first folder opens.
Hidden, view only or download, per folder and per investor group, changeable at any time.
The best data rooms for startups.
All 17 rooms in order, scored out of 10 on setup speed, investor experience, access control, diligence tools and startup pricing. How we score
- 1 9.2/10First-rate
Investor Q&A, NDA e-signing, view-only files and AI help in one room, priced openly at $149 per month and testable on a 14-day free trial.
- $149 monthly
- 14-day free trial
- 8/12 feature checks
Places best for Pre-seed round, SAFE round
- Investor Q&A
- NDA e-signing
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- SOC 2 (hosting)
- 2 8.2/10Strong pick
A UK deal room priced by quote, with redaction, Okta-style single sign-on and an API, plus both ISO 27001 and SOC 2. A trial is offered.
- Quote only
- Free trial offered
- 9/12 feature checks
Places best for Selling your startup, Startup merger
- Investor Q&A
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- ISO 27001
- GDPR
- 3 8.1/10Strong pick
A Canadian room popular with law firms and mid-market advisers: quoted price, redaction, ISO 27001 and a trial.
- Quote only
- Free trial offered
- 7/12 feature checks
Places best for Acquihire, Founder secondary
- Investor Q&A
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- ISO 27001
- 4 8.1/10Strong pick
A flat $250 per month room with questions, NDA signing and an API, easy for a small finance team to run; trial offered.
- $250 monthly
- Free trial offered
- 8/12 feature checks
Places best for Pre-seed round, SAFE round
- Investor Q&A
- NDA e-signing
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- SOC 2
- 5 8.0/10Strong pick
An Australian quote-based room with AI tools and a readiness process for companies preparing to sell; ISO 27001, SOC 2 and a trial.
- Quote only
- Free trial offered
- 8/12 feature checks
Places best for Working with lawyers, Selling your startup
- Investor Q&A
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- ISO 27001
- 6 8.0/10Strong pick
The platform many investment banks run sell-side processes on: AI tools, a phone app, SSO and redaction, bought through a quote.
- Quote only
- Demo, no trial
- 10/12 feature checks
Places best for Sell-side process, Private equity buyer
- Investor Q&A
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- ISO 27001
- GDPR
- 7 7.8/10Strong pick
A client file-sharing service accountants know well, at $55 per month, with e-signing, an app, SSO and HIPAA, but no question module.
- $55 monthly
- Free trial offered
- 9/12 feature checks
Places best for Pre-seed round, SAFE round
- NDA e-signing
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- ISO 27001
- HIPAA
- 8 7.8/10Strong pick
A US room at $299 per month with a question module and an API, used for raises, smaller sales and asset deals; trial offered.
- $299 monthly
- Free trial offered
- 7/12 feature checks
Places best for Pre-seed round, SAFE round
- Investor Q&A
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- 9 7.6/10Good option
A German room with AI tools, redaction and the option to run on-premises, favoured in European real estate and M&A; quote only.
- Quote only
- Demo, no trial
- 8/12 feature checks
Places best for Pre-IPO round, IPO
- Investor Q&A
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- ISO 27001
- GDPR
- 10 7.5/10Good option
One of the first virtual data rooms (1996), built for large and regulated transactions and sold by quote, with SSO and redaction.
- Quote only
- Demo, no trial
- 8/12 feature checks
Places best for Healthtech, Fintech
- Investor Q&A
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- ISO 27001
- 11 7.5/10Good option
A US room that mixes the data room with request lists and task tracking, used heavily by corporate development teams; quote and trial.
- Quote only
- Free trial offered
- 6/12 feature checks
Places best for Strategic acquirer, Grants and SBIR
- Investor Q&A
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- ISO 27001
- 12 7.4/10Good option
A US room known for fine-grained permission settings across many buyer groups; redaction, ISO 27001, quote only.
- Quote only
- Demo, no trial
- 7/12 feature checks
Places best for Strategic acquirer, Technical due diligence
- Investor Q&A
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- ISO 27001
- 13 7.3/10Good option
A low-cost client portal at $15 per month with watermarks, an app and an API, but no question module or download locks.
- $15 monthly
- Free trial offered
- 6/12 feature checks
Places best for Pre-seed round, SAFE round
- Dynamic watermarks
- Viewer activity log
- Bulk folder upload
- Mobile app
- SOC 2
- 14 7.0/10Good option
A Singapore document protection tool at $120 per month: stop downloads, stamp watermarks and track opens; no question module.
- $120 monthly
- Free trial offered
- 4/12 feature checks
Places best for Pre-seed round, SAFE round
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- Bulk folder upload
- SOC 2
- 15 7.0/10Good option
The room many biotech and medtech companies use for partnering and licensing as well as fundraising; quote and trial, ISO 27001.
- Quote only
- Free trial offered
- 6/12 feature checks
- 16 6.6/10Narrow fit
The deck-sharing tool most founders meet first, at $45 per seat each month: page-level reading stats, watermarks and NDA signing.
- $45 per seat monthly
- Free trial offered
- 3/12 feature checks
Places best for SAFE round, Angel round
- NDA e-signing
- Dynamic watermarks
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- GDPR
- 17 6.5/10Narrow fit
DFIN's room for IPOs and capital markets work, with redaction and a question module; ISO 27001, quote only.
- Quote only
- Demo, no trial
- 6/12 feature checks
Places best for Pre-IPO round, IPO
- Investor Q&A
- Dynamic watermarks
- View-only and download control
- Viewer activity log
- SOC 2
- ISO 27001
Data rooms for every round, exit and sector.
From the first angel cheque to a tender offer: what each round asks for and which room handles it.
- Pre-seed round
- Seed round
- Series A
- Series B
- Series C and later
- Bridge round
- SAFE round
- Convertible note
- Angel round
- Equity crowdfunding
- Venture debt
- Accelerator applications
- Demo day follow-up
- Strategic investor
- Family office round
- Down round
- Extension round
- Pre-IPO round
- IPO
- Tender offer
- Founder secondary
Selling the company, merging, licensing IP or winding down, with the buyer reading every file.
- Selling your startup
- Acquihire
- Sell-side process
- Startup merger
- Asset sale
- Private equity buyer
- Strategic acquirer
- Wind-down
- Joint venture
- IP licensing deal
- Partnership deal
- Management buyout
The reviews investors and acquirers run on legal, financial, technical and people records.
- Startup due diligence
- Technical due diligence
- Legal due diligence
- Financial due diligence
- IP due diligence
- Commercial due diligence
- People due diligence
- Security review
- After the term sheet
What changes when the company builds software, drugs, hardware, payments or marketplaces.
- SaaS
- AI
- Biotech
- Medtech
- Healthtech
- Pharma
- Fintech
- Crypto and web3
- Climate and cleantech
- Deep tech
- Hardware
- Robotics
- Space
- E-commerce and DTC
- Marketplaces
- Consumer apps
- Gaming
- Edtech
- Proptech
- Insurtech
- Cybersecurity
- Devtools and open source
- Agtech and foodtech
- Legaltech
- University spinouts
- Venture studios
Board packs, audits, valuations, enterprise sales and the other jobs a room does between rounds.
- Board packs
- Investor updates
- Annual audit
- 409A valuation
- Enterprise sales
- Grants and SBIR
- Government contracts
- Executive hiring
- Working with lawyers
- Solo founders
Pricing that fits a startup.
Explore pricing-
Start on a free trial.
12 of 17 rooms list one. Ellty's runs 14 days, long enough to build the index and invite one fund.
-
Prices on the page.
7 providers publish a monthly price, from $15. For the 10 that quote we show labelled market bands.
-
Pay for the months you use.
A seed round runs two to four months. Monthly billing lets you close the room after the wire lands.
Planning a sale or a large round? See planning ranges for quote-only rooms
Meet the Series A room.
Series A room
Ready for diligence
- 01Company and charter12
- 02Cap table and SAFEs9
- 03Financials and model23
- 04Metrics and cohorts14
- 05Customer contracts31
- 06Product and security18
- 07IP and assignments11
- 08Team and options16
Files134
Investor activity
- Lead fund, partnerOpened 04 Metrics12 min
- Lead fund, associateAsked a question on 033 min
- Co-investorSigned NDA, room openednow
- Lead fund, counselViewed 02 Cap table8 min
- Angel syndicateRead deck, 14 pages21 min
Views this week
Questions arrive against a file, you route them to the right person, approve the answer and publish it to one fund or to all.
The room asks every new viewer to accept or sign your NDA before the first folder opens.
See which fund opened which file, how long they stayed and what they came back to.
Give the lead fund the cap table and keep it closed to everyone else, then change it in one click.
Folder index, investor activity, Q&A and permissions, all in one place your lead fund can open on any screen.
11 folders, 97 documents
Build it from the checklist
Build the room
Follow a seed-stage company from an empty folder to a room a Series A lead can read in an afternoon: what goes in, in which order, and who sees what.
Format: checklist, 11 folders, about 20 minutes to read.
Start building
We review the rooms founders actually meet: 
Ellty from a seed round through to a sale, 
DocSend for sending the first deck, 
SecureDocs for a flat monthly bill, 
iDeals and 
Datasite when a banker runs the process, and 
Digify when a file must never be downloaded. Seventeen in all.
What each room includes.
Eight features that matter most in a round, from vendor documentation. All twelve features
| Provider | Investor Q&A | Viewer activity log | Dynamic watermarks | View-only and download control | Two-step login | AI assistance | Single sign-on | In-app redaction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ellty | ||||||||
| iDeals | ||||||||
| Firmex | ||||||||
| SecureDocs | ||||||||
| Ansarada | ||||||||
| Datasite | ||||||||
| Citrix ShareFile | ||||||||
| CapLinked | ||||||||
| Drooms | ||||||||
| Intralinks | ||||||||
| DealRoom | ||||||||
| SmartRoom | ||||||||
| Onehub | ||||||||
| Digify | ||||||||
| ShareVault | ||||||||
| DocSend | ||||||||
| Venue by DFIN |
What a virtual data room is.
A virtual data room is a private website for company documents. You upload your records into numbered folders, invite investors or buyers, and decide for each person and each folder whether they can see nothing, read on screen or download.
The room watermarks pages with the reader's name, records who opened what, and gives investors one place to ask questions. When a fund passes, you switch off its access and the files go with it.
A shared drive does part of this. It was built for working together, not for showing documents to people outside the company who are deciding whether to invest or buy.
Data room, shared drive or email
| Need | Data room | Google Drive or Dropbox | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who opened which file | Per viewer, per page, exportable | Basic sharing history | None |
| View only, no download | Per file and per investor group | Limited, per link | No |
| Watermark with viewer name | Dynamic, on every page | No | No |
| Investor questions | Q&A module with approvals | Comments | Long threads |
| Revoke access after a pass | One click, immediate | Per link or user | Impossible after sending |
| NDA before access | Built in on many rooms | No | Separate step |
Who opens a startup data room.
The founder builds it. These people read it.
Founders and CEOs
Build the index, invite funds and watch the activity log during the raise.
Finance leads
Keep the model, bank statements and metrics current and answer numbers questions.
Startup lawyers
Upload corporate records, run the disclosure schedule and close the round.
Investors and buyers
Partners, associates, their counsel and accountants read and ask questions.
Six features that do the work.
01
Folder permissions
Open the cap table to the lead fund only and keep source code hidden from everyone until the term sheet is signed.
02
Dynamic watermarks
Each page shows the reader email and time, which discourages screenshots of your model.
03
View-only files
Investors read in the browser; nothing lands in a downloads folder unless you allow it.
04
Activity log
See which partner opened the metrics folder twice this week. That is a buying signal.
05
Investor Q&A
Questions are tied to a file, answered once and shared with every fund that should see the answer.
06
AI assistance
Some rooms file uploads, summarise contracts or draft answers to repeat questions.
13 of 17 rooms list a Q&A module; 4 list AI assistance.
Eight questions to ask a vendor.
- Is the price published, and what happens to the bill after the round closes?
- How long is the free trial, and can I keep the room I built during it?
- Are investors free guests, or does each one take a paid seat?
- Can I set view only, download or hidden per folder and per investor group?
- Is there a Q&A module, and can I approve answers before investors see them?
- Can investors sign the NDA inside the room?
- Which security attestations do you hold (SOC 2, ISO 27001), and where is data hosted?
- Can I export the full activity log and an index of every file at closing?
Security basics, in plain words
- SOC 2
- An auditor's report on the vendor's security controls. All 17 rooms on our list hold one; for some it covers the hosting only.
- ISO 27001
- An international certificate for security management. 11 of 17 list it. Large acquirers often ask by name.
- Encryption
- Files encrypted in transit and at rest is standard; ask for the details in writing.
- Two-step login
- 13 rooms list it. Turn it on for your own admins first.
- Data location
- Ask where files are hosted if investors or customers are in the EU or a regulated sector.
How a round runs through the room.
- 1
Build the index
Number eight to twelve folders from the checklist and upload in bulk.
- 2
Share the deck
Send a tracked link to investors after the first call.
- 3
Open the room
Invite interested funds as groups with view-only access.
- 4
Sign the term sheet
Give the lead fund and its counsel the full room.
- 5
Answer diligence
Route questions through Q&A and approve each answer.
- 6
Close and archive
Export the index and log, then close the room.
Five mistakes founders make.
- Opening the full room to every fund after a first call.
- Leaving download rights on the financial model.
- Uploading files with names like "final_v7_REAL.pdf" instead of a numbered index.
- Answering the same question in six email threads instead of one Q&A entry.
- Paying for a year when the round takes four months.
Latest guides
- Raising moneySeed round due diligence: the documents a lead investor asks for
- Due diligenceTechnical due diligence checklist for startups: code, security and the team
- Selling the companyPreparing your startup for acquisition due diligence
Startup glossary
- SAFE
- Simple Agreement for Future Equity: an investor pays now and receives shares at the next priced round, often with a valuation cap or discount.
- Confirmatory diligence
- The detailed check that follows a signed term sheet, when the lead fund's lawyers and accountants read the full room.
- Dynamic watermark
- The viewer's name, email and time printed across each page as it opens, so a leaked copy can be traced.
- Burn multiple
- Net cash burned divided by net new ARR in the same period. Lower is better.
- 409A valuation
- An independent valuation of common stock that US companies use to set option strike prices.
- Folder index
- The numbered list of folders in a data room (01 Company, 02 Cap table...). A clear index shortens diligence.
How we score
- Setup speed22%
- Investor experience18%
- Access control22%
- Diligence tools18%
- Startup pricing20%
Facts checked October 2026. Average score 7.6 of 10.
MethodologyQuestions founders ask
What is a startup data room?
A secure online space where a startup shares the documents investors or buyers need to decide: corporate records, cap table, financials, metrics, contracts and IP. Unlike a shared drive it controls access per folder and per investor, watermarks pages and records who read what.
When does a startup need a data room?
Usually from the seed round, when a lead investor and its lawyers ask for documents, and always for a Series A, a sale or a large commercial review. At pre-seed a short, organised folder of ten to fifteen files is often enough.
How much does a startup data room cost?
Published plans on our list start from $15 a month; Ellty lists $149 a month with a 14-day free trial. 10 providers quote per project. Use the cost calculator for your numbers.
Can I use Google Drive or Dropbox instead?
For a deck and a few files, yes. Once a fund asks for contracts and the cap table, a data room adds view-only control, watermarks, an activity log and Q&A that general file sharing does not provide.
How do you score the providers?
On five measures, setup speed (22%), investor experience (18%), access control (22%), diligence tools (18%), startup pricing (20%), from documented facts. Formulas are on the methodology page.