Dividend Data vs Poach

Comprehensive Spreadsheet Functions

Dividend Data provides 16 custom functions that cover every essential data point for fundamental analysis. Simply type formulas like =DIVIDENDDATA_DIVIDENDS("TICKER") to pull forward dividends, yields, and ex-dates, or use =DIVIDENDDATA_RATIOS() and =DIVIDENDDATA_METRICS() for valuation multiples and financial statement items. This turns your spreadsheet into a dynamic, auto-updating research dashboard, replacing hours of manual data collection with instant, reliable results.

Extensive Historical Data Library

Access over 30 years of historical market and financial data for a universe of 80,000+ global tickers. This deep history is crucial for conducting robust long-term analysis, calculating consistent dividend growth rates, assessing company performance through multiple market cycles, and building reliable financial models. The data is standardized and clean, ready for immediate use in your analysis.

Dual-Platform Compatibility

The tool works seamlessly in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel environments. Whether you collaborate in the cloud with Google Workspace or prefer the advanced capabilities of desktop Excel, you get the same consistent formulas and data quality. This flexibility ensures teams and individual investors can use their preferred platform without sacrificing functionality or data access.

AI-Powered Research Assistant

Available in the Pro Terminal, the AI Analyst acts as a dedicated research assistant. You can chat with it to screen for stocks based on custom criteria, get explanations of financial metrics, summarize company performance, and generate investment theses. This feature accelerates the initial research phase by providing instant, data-backed insights and answers to complex analytical questions.

VC Social Signal Tracking

Poach's core engine monitors the Twitter accounts of leading venture capitalists, tracking who they choose to follow. This action is a key behavioral signal, as VCs often follow founders they are researching, advising, or considering for investment long before any public announcement. The platform aggregates these signals, transforming passive social data into a structured early-warning system for new entrepreneurial talent and emerging companies.

LinkedIn Enrichment & Identity Resolution

To add depth and context to each Twitter lead, Poach employs proprietary identity resolution technology to accurately match Twitter profiles with corresponding LinkedIn accounts. This process enriches each record with verified professional details, including full work history, educational background, and current role, providing the crucial context needed to properly evaluate a founder's experience and trajectory.

AI-Powered Categorization & Bio Generation

Using advanced AI, Poach analyzes the combined data from Twitter bios and LinkedIn profiles to automatically label each individual with relevant tags such as "founder," "engineering," "funded," or "research." The AI also synthesizes this information to generate a concise, informative medium biography for each person, saving you hours of manual research and profiling.

Flexible Data Delivery & Filtering

Users receive enriched lead data daily via email, complete with executive summaries and a full CSV attachment. For deeper analysis, the platform and its API allow for powerful filtering based on any criteria—such as finding "unfunded founders" in a specific location or individuals with a "research" background. This flexibility lets you tailor the deal flow to match your specific investment thesis perfectly.

Building a Dividend Growth Screener

Create a dynamic stock screener directly in your spreadsheet to identify companies that meet specific dividend investment criteria. Use functions to pull dividend yield, payout ratio, and 5-year dividend growth rate for thousands of stocks simultaneously. Filter and sort to find companies with a yield above 3%, a payout ratio below 60%, and consistent annual growth, all with data that updates automatically.

Automating Portfolio Tracking and Reporting

Manually updating a portfolio spreadsheet with current prices, dividend payments, and yield-on-cost is time-consuming. With Dividend Data, link your holdings using the ticker symbols. Formulas will automatically pull the latest price, dividend announcements, and ex-dates, giving you a real-time view of your portfolio's income, valuation, and performance without any manual input.

Conducting Deep Fundamental Valuation Analysis

Perform thorough company analysis by building a integrated model that pulls live data. Use functions to import years of income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow data directly into your discounted cash flow (DCF) or ratio analysis model. This allows you to test valuation scenarios with current and historical data, ensuring your analysis is based on the most accurate and recent figures available.

Preparing Investment Committee Reports

Quickly generate professional, data-rich reports for presentations or investment reviews. Instead of manually compiling charts and tables from multiple sources, use your spreadsheet with live Dividend Data links to create executive summaries showing key metrics, dividend histories, and peer comparisons. The data refreshes automatically, ensuring every report is based on the latest market information.

Identifying Stealth-Mode Founders

Early-stage VCs and angels use Poach to filter for individuals labeled as "founder" but not "funded." This allows them to discover entrepreneurs who are building in stealth, often before they have a public product or have spoken to any other investors, enabling the very earliest possible entry into a promising deal.

Sourcing for Specific Investment Theses

Investors with a niche focus—such as AI, climate tech, or web3—can use Poach's labeling and filtering to find individuals whose bios and work history signal expertise in those areas. For example, tracking VCs known for AI investments can surface researchers and engineers transitioning to entrepreneurship in that specific field.

Enhancing Outbound Sourcing Efforts

Investment teams can systematize and supercharge their outbound sourcing by using Poach's daily CSV exports as a qualified lead list. Instead of cold outreach, they can reference the specific VC who followed the founder as a signal of genuine interest, creating a warmer, more credible introduction.

Competitive & Market Intelligence

Beyond direct sourcing, firms use Poach to monitor which founders and trends are capturing the attention of competing VC firms. This provides valuable market intelligence on what other savvy investors are looking at, helping to validate or challenge their own market theses.

Dividend Data is a powerful financial data platform designed to eliminate the tedious manual work of stock research. It brings institutional-grade market data directly into the tools investors already use: Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. The core product is a spreadsheet add-in that provides instant access to over 30 years of historical data for more than 80,000 tickers through simple, custom formulas. Built specifically for dividend and fundamental investors, it delivers critical metrics like dividend amounts, yields, payout ratios, growth rates, full financial statements, earnings, valuation ratios, and price history without requiring API keys, coding, or copying and pasting from unreliable sources. Its generous free tier offers 2,500 monthly credits with no trial expiration, making professional data accessible to everyone. The platform also includes a web-based Terminal for advanced visualizations, AI-powered research, and portfolio tracking. Ultimately, Dividend Data solves the problem of costly, complex data feeds by giving self-directed investors the comprehensive, accurate, and live data they need to make informed decisions, all within their familiar spreadsheet workflow.

Poach is a specialized intelligence platform built for venture capitalists, angel investors, and other dealmakers who want to move beyond reactive deal flow. It solves the fundamental problem of finding high-potential founders before they officially enter a fundraising process, turning cold outreach into warm, signal-backed introductions. The platform operates by tracking the social media activity, specifically Twitter follows, of a curated list of top-tier VCs. These follows are powerful, early signals of interest in emerging entrepreneurs and their projects. Poach then enriches this raw signal with professional data from LinkedIn and uses AI to categorize individuals, delivering a daily stream of vetted, actionable leads directly to your inbox. This proactive approach empowers investors to build a competitive edge, ensuring they are first in line to discover and support the next generation of innovative startups, often months before a formal round is announced.

How does the free tier work?

The free tier provides 2,500 credits per month, which do not expire and renew each month. No credit card is required to start. Each data point retrieved by a formula (e.g., one cell with a price or a dividend yield) typically costs one credit. This allows for substantial usage for individual investors tracking a portfolio or analyzing a handful of stocks regularly.

What data can I access with the spreadsheet add-in?

You can access over 100 key metrics including dividend data (amount, yield, date, growth), real-time quotes, valuation ratios (P/E, P/B), profitability metrics, and full financial statement items (revenue, EPS, cash flow). The add-in also provides 30+ years of historical data for most of these metrics, enabling deep historical trend analysis.

Do I need to know how to code or use APIs?

Absolutely not. Dividend Data is designed for investors, not programmers. There is no need for API keys, scripting, or any coding knowledge. You simply install the add-in for Google Sheets or Excel and start using the plain-English custom formulas directly in your spreadsheet cells to pull data instantly.

Is my data secure and private?

Yes. Your spreadsheet data and queries remain private. Dividend Data operates as a read-only add-in; it does not collect, store, or have access to the contents of your spreadsheets or your portfolio holdings. It only receives the ticker symbols and metric names you explicitly request in your formulas to return the corresponding public market data.

How does Poach identify promising founders?

Poach identifies founders by tracking the Twitter follow activity of selected top-tier venture capitalists. When a VC follows someone, it is often an early signal of interest in that person's work or startup. We capture this signal, enrich the profile with data from LinkedIn, and use AI to classify the individual, highlighting those most likely to be founders.

What kind of data do I receive each day?

Subscribers receive a daily email digest containing an executive summary of new leads. Attached is a comprehensive CSV file with detailed data on each person, including their Twitter handle, full name, LinkedIn URL, which VC followed them, AI-generated labels (e.g., founder, engineer), and a concise bio summarizing their background and current work.

Can I filter the leads to match my investment focus?

Absolutely. The provided CSV data and platform filters allow you to sort and search based on any column. You can easily filter for specific labels like "founder" while excluding "funded," or search for keywords in bios to find talent in specific sectors like AI, biotech, or fintech, aligning the deal flow with your precise thesis.

How early can Poach signal a potential investment opportunity?

The signal can be exceptionally early. As evidenced by case studies on the platform, Poach has identified founders who went on to raise significant seed or Series A rounds 7 to 10 months later. The tool is designed to give you a multi-month head start by capitalizing on the earliest non-public indicators of VC interest.

Dividend Data is a specialized tool for fundamental and dividend investors, providing deep historical market data directly within spreadsheet platforms like Google Sheets and Excel. It falls into the category of financial data and analysis tools designed for individual investors and analysts. Users often explore alternatives for various reasons, such as budget constraints, the need for different data points, specific platform compatibility, or seeking a different pricing model like a one-time purchase versus a subscription. When evaluating other options, it's crucial to consider your core needs. Key factors include the depth and historical range of the financial data offered, the ease of integration with your existing workflow (especially within spreadsheets), the total cost relative to your usage, and whether the tool's features are built with a genuine understanding of fundamental and dividend investing strategies. The right solution should save you time and provide reliable data without unnecessary complexity.

Poach is a dealflow intelligence platform designed for venture capitalists and investors. It operates in the business and finance software category, specifically focusing on providing early signals on promising founders by analyzing the social media activity of other VCs. Users may explore alternatives for various reasons. These can include budget constraints, a need for different feature sets like CRM integration or broader data sources, or a preference for a platform that covers more than just social media signals. Some teams might seek tools with a different user interface or workflow that better matches their existing processes. When evaluating alternatives, key considerations should include the core data sources and their freshness, the depth of founder and company profiling, integration capabilities with other investment tools, and the overall value relative to the cost. The goal is to find a solution that reliably surfaces high-potential opportunities at the right stage for your investment thesis.