Automating 4 Repetitive VC Tasks with AI: Translinkโs AX Grow Case Study
| Summary ๐ก | Global venture capital firm Translink Investment participated in AX Grow, the organizational AI transformation program by AXMOS and Codepresso, and learned how to build its own automation Skills for four recurring workflows: tracking email replies, saving attachments, extracting data from PDFs, and syncing spreadsheets. |
Translinkโs business is evaluating startups for investment. Whether the company is assessing an AI startup or a SaaS business, its investment professionals spend their days examining how efficiently other companies operate.
Yet internally, employees were still spending significant amounts of time manually transferring data from audit reports and financial statement PDFs, reconciling spreadsheets submitted by portfolio companies with internal tracking sheets, and checking whether recipients had replied to reporting emails sent across multiple organizations.
Translink Investment, which operates across Korea, Silicon Valley in the United States through its partnership with Translink Capital, and Singapore, and has invested in approximately 71 companies to date, decided to tackle these repetitive workflows directly.
Four Repetitive Tasks VC Teams Were Tired of Doing Manually
During the AX Grow program, Translink Investment identified four recurring tasks it specifically wanted to address.
| Repetitive Task | Where It Repeats |
|---|---|
| Automated email sending and reply tracking | Sending regular reports and materials to multiple recipients, then manually checking each response |
| Automated email attachment saving | Identifying attachments from emails that meet specific conditions, then saving and organizing them |
| PDF data extraction (OCR) | Manually transferring figures from audit reports, financial statements, and portfolio company PDFs |
| Spreadsheet synchronization | Re-entering data from portfolio company spreadsheets into internal management sheets |
None of these tasks is limited to a single workflow. They recur throughout due diligence, portfolio monitoring, and LP reporting.
Every time a new deal comes in, or another quarterly reporting cycle begins, the same patterns repeat.
How to Eliminate Repetitive Work Without Writing a Single Line of Code
Eliminating these workflows did not require hiring additional developers. It required just over a week of practical training.
AX Grow, the organizational AI transformation program operated by AXMOS and Codepresso, is designed for investment professionals, investment managers, fund operations teams, and business support staff with little or no coding experience.
The program introduces AI into day-to-day work through four stages.
| Stage | What Participants Learn |
|---|---|
| Instruct AI | Build web-based tools with natural-language instructions instead of code |
| Delegate to AI | Learn how to assign complete workflows to AI Agents using Skills and MCP |
| Build complete services | Take a service from initial planning through deployment |
| Apply AI to real work | Solve actual operational problems from participantsโ own roles |
Now, These Four Tasks Can Be Handled with a Single Slash Command
The training examined how each of the four identified requirements could be designed as a practical Skill.
Because each workflow involved different tools and different levels of complexity for non-developers, the implementation approach varied.
- Automated email sending and reply tracking: Gmail MCP handles tracking and draft creation, while the CLI supports fully automated sending.
- Automated attachment saving: The CLI downloads attachments, while Drive MCP handles storage.
- PDF data extraction: Claudeโs built-in Read capability performs the role of OCR, with little additional authentication required.
- Spreadsheet synchronization: This is handled through the Google Workspace CLI. Because Sheets does not have a dedicated MCP, this workflow relies more heavily on CLI commands.
Among the four use cases, PDF data extraction had the lowest barrier to entry.
It works primarily through Claudeโs built-in ability to read PDF files, without requiring users to configure separate service integrations or authentication.
Spreadsheet synchronization, by contrast, requires more direct interaction with CLI commands and therefore comes with a somewhat steeper learning curve.
Once created, these Skills can be triggered with a single slash command.
There is no need to write separate code every time an email needs to be sent and tracked. Likewise, extracting figures from a PDF and transferring them into a spreadsheet no longer requires repetitive copying and pasting.
Giving Investment Professionals More Time to Focus on Judgment
The ultimate goal of the training was not simply automation. It was a reallocation of time.
Time previously spent sending emails, checking responses, organizing attachments, transferring figures from PDFs, and consolidating spreadsheets can instead be directed toward work that requires professional judgment, including deal sourcing, company due diligence, and investment review.
In other words, the objective was not automation for its own sake. The program was designed to help investment professionals spend more of their time on the work they are actually responsible for doing.
The people evaluating AI startups are now applying AI to their own workflows.
Human judgment remains essential. But much of the manual work required before that judgment can be made can now be handled with a single slash command.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Can non-developers really follow this training?
Yes. Claude Code operates through natural-language instructions.
Rather than focusing on learning programming syntax, participants practice describing the outcomes they want in clear language. At Translink, investment professionals, investment managers, and business support staff all worked through the same curriculum.
What type of workflow should we automate first?
A good starting point is a task that requires minimal authentication and produces results that are easy to verify.
In this case, the PDF data extraction Skill served that role because participants could quickly see whether the extracted data was correct.
Is authentication for external services such as Gmail and Drive complicated?
Using MCP, an interface for connecting external services, can reduce the need for repeated authentication once the initial configuration is complete.
However, workflows that depend more heavily on CLI commands may require additional learning time.
Can this approach work for organizations outside the VC industry?
Yes. The same approach can apply broadly to organizations with recurring workflows such as email processing, extracting data from documents, or consolidating information across spreadsheets.
AX Grow is structured so that employees identify repetitive tasks from their own day-to-day work and turn those tasks into practical training projects.
What exactly is AX Grow?
AX Grow is an organizational AI transformation training program jointly operated by AXMOS and Codepresso.
The program begins with an organization-level AX assessment and continues through hands-on training and an internal builder program, enabling employees to build AI Agents and automation tools themselves.
It is a different track from AX Build, in which AXMOS builds solutions on behalf of an organization.
For more information, see the AX Grow program overview .
