6LOCK

The venture capital fund management process is an intricate environment to work within, with large sums of money being sent and received by firms and partners alike. Despite this, the majority of these transactions are currently managed using traditional spreadsheets packed with data, leading to a higher risk of human error and mistrust.

Brightscout partnered with 6lock to envision, design and build a first of its kind fund management product that would revolutionize the venture capital landscape. As the design lead, I was responsible for clarifying the UX of the product, designing out the flows and UI, and more.

Clarifying users and product requirements.

The initial phase of this project was focused on understanding the exact expectations and limitations of the current venture capital management process. From initial research and discussions with the team, we established two core user bases that the product would need to cater towards:

Private Equity Firms

Responsible for managing their portfolio of funds, which have a set number of limited partners nested within them.

Priority Needs:

○ Creating capital calls to to collect money for investments

○ Sending payments to partners through distributions

Limited Partners, Deal Payees, +

Responsible for keeping up-to-date with firms they are a part of, and completing capital calls as requested by a firm.

Priority Needs:

○ Viewing and completing capital calls from firms

○ Receiving and approving distributions from firms

After collecting and documenting our findings during the research phase of the project, I was able to begin building out initial information architecture and user flows of the 6lock product, clarifying action points and overall product architecture to further aid with discovery and understanding.

Initial drafts of the product architecture and user flows were then hooked up to interactive prototypes using Figma, creating digital artifacts that were easily translated to the 6lock team for review, discussion and feedback.

Validating UX through collaborative workshops.

Collaborative exercises spearheaded our process, meant to tackle the more intricate design challenges that arose during our discovery phase. Utilizing asynchronous workshops, we ideated, discussed, and came to solutions as a unit.

Roles and Permissions

Without an understanding of the way user roles coordinated and interacted within the product, it became difficult to envision the exact user flows and solidify the MVP tech build for our account creation.

I built a mapping exercise that allowed the team at 6lock to visually show the separation of duties within their product. In doing so, we were able to come to a concrete understanding of our approach.

Notification Framework

As the majority of the product was built around extended workflows, communication to users of all roles became critical in order to properly indicate the status of user actions in relation to approvals and completion.

We utilized a figjam framework document that allowed the team and myself to build out groupings of notifications that handled a myriad of use cases: from initial invite, to workflow timelines, to error handling.

A seamless launch pad for all fund actions.

Much of the MVP design focused on simplifying complex processes into streamlined workflows, allowing users to quickly and easily accomplish actions that once took hours.

With the fund treated as the parent entity, firms can easily launch into workflows that adapt and shape to user needs, focusing on consistency and understandability.

Adaptive components to keep firms consistently up-to-date.

As part of 6lock's enhanced security, all user actions require at least a singular approval before initiating. As a result, a crucial challenge of the design process was how to best accommodate the "grey area" created by the approval process.

Fund pages naturally evolve to best reflect updated process information, providing at-a-glance information at all points of the process.

Peripherally, users can manage all aspects of the private equity process- from tracking fund actions, distributions, and transactions to organizing large networks of limited partners, deal payees, and more.

Seamless financial management for network entities.

Partners, payees, and other nested users needed a way to quickly view their incoming payments, required capital calls, and more. We built a product experience that mirrors that of the firm, allowing partners to easily access all their fund information and complete any necessary actions.

View and pay capital calls

Track and manage distributions

For more information on the project / process, contact me.

6lock made its first official firm-to-partner money transfer in October and launched a private beta in mid-November. Now, our partnership focuses on improvements at both a granular and broad level, expanding on product capabilities for both firm and payees.

Much more thought, effort, and heart went into this project than what this case study shows. I'd love to discuss it with you!

THE TEAM

Abhishek Porwal

Aditya Tyagi

Arush Vashishtha

Ayush Tiwari

Jaime Fili

Manoj Malik

Michael DeBonis

Pablo Rossetti