At some point in a fundraise, a deal, or a legal process, you need to share a set of confidential documents with people outside your organisation and know exactly who looked at what. The documents are sensitive. The audience changes. Access needs to be controlled, tracked, and sometimes revoked. Traditional data rooms do this, but they're expensive, clunky, and built for enterprise legal teams, not for a founder sharing financials with ten VCs or a small firm managing diligence for a handful of deals. You end up choosing between something overbuilt and overpriced, or something underbuilt where you're emailing PDFs and hoping for the best.
This page is for founders, dealmakers, lawyers, and anyone who needs to share confidential documents securely, with control over who can access them and visibility into who has viewed them, without the cost and complexity of an enterprise data room.
The problem
Confidential documents need controlled access. You can't just drop a pitch deck and financial model into a shared folder and hope the right people see it and the wrong ones don't. Each recipient may need different access. Access needs to be revocable. And the documents themselves need to stay within your control rather than floating as email attachments that can be forwarded to anyone.
You don't know who's looked at what. You send a deck to five investors and hear back from two. Did the other three open it? Did they look at the financial model or just the summary? Without visibility into engagement, you're following up blind, guessing who's interested based on silence.
Enterprise data rooms are overkill and overpriced. Dedicated virtual data room platforms charge thousands per month and are designed for large-scale M&A diligence with hundreds of documents and dozens of parties. If you're a founder sharing ten documents with ten investors, or a small firm managing a handful of deals, the enterprise tool is the wrong fit.
What Fabric changes
You share documents with password protection and access controls. Every shared document or collection can be password-protected, so only people with the password can access it. You control who sees what without managing complex permissions or paying for enterprise seat-based pricing.
You see exactly who viewed what and when. Link analytics show you who accessed the shared documents, when they viewed them, how long they spent, and which documents they looked at. You follow up with information, not guesses.
It's simple enough for a small team but secure enough for confidential material. Fabric isn't an enterprise data room with hundreds of permission levels. It's a workspace where you can organise confidential documents, share them securely, and track engagement, without a procurement process or a monthly bill designed for large legal teams.
How it works
Organise documents in a space. Create a Fabric space for the deal, the fundraise, or the process. Add the relevant documents: financials, pitch decks, legal agreements, technical documentation, whatever the recipients need to review.
Password-protected sharing. Publish the collection or individual documents with a password-protected link. Each recipient gets a link and a password. You control who has access by controlling who has the password.
Link analytics and engagement tracking. Track who accessed the link, when, how often, and which documents they viewed. Analytics give you visibility into engagement so you can prioritise follow-ups and gauge interest.
Search across your documents. Fabric's AI search lets you find anything in the data room by meaning. When a counterparty asks about a specific clause or data point, you find it in seconds rather than opening documents one at a time.
An AI that knows the documents. The AI assistant works from the material in the space. Ask it to summarise a document, find a specific provision across multiple agreements, or pull together the key terms from a set of contracts.
Annotate documents. Annotate directly on documents and PDFs within the space. Internal notes and comments stay attached to the files, so your team's thinking is captured alongside the material.
Capture related communications. Forward relevant emails to your email-to-note address so correspondence related to the deal lives in the same space as the documents.
A data room workflow in Fabric
Set up the space for the deal. Create a space and add every document the recipients will need. Organise by category if the volume warrants it, or keep it flat if the set is small.
Share with password protection. Publish the collection with a password-protected link. Send the link and password to the recipients. Each party gets the same link, or you create separate links with separate passwords if you need to track engagement per recipient.
Monitor engagement. Check link analytics to see who's accessed the documents, which ones they've viewed, and how long they spent. Use this to prioritise follow-ups and identify who's actively engaged.
Update documents without breaking links. When you need to update a document, replace it in the space. The link stays the same, so recipients always see the current version without you needing to resend.
Revoke access when the process ends. When the deal closes or the process concludes, remove or unpublish the shared links. Access is cut off without needing to chase down copies.
Keep the record. The space stays as a complete record of what was shared, when, and with whom. Useful for audit trails and post-deal reference.
What compounds over time
A data room in Fabric persists beyond any single deal. The documents, the analytics, the correspondence, and the annotations stay searchable. When a future deal requires similar documents, the previous data room is still there as a starting point. Founders who fundraise multiple rounds find that each subsequent data room starts faster because the foundation of financial documents, corporate records, and legal materials is already organised and searchable.
The analytics history also has lasting value. Knowing which investors engaged deeply with your materials during a previous round informs how you approach the next one.
Related use cases
For ongoing client or partner relationships rather than one-time secure sharing, see client work and deliverables. For sharing sales and pitch material with tracked engagement, see sales collateral. For a public, always-current set of brand assets, see press kit. For a team knowledge base that includes confidential internal documentation, see team wiki.
Get started
Share confidential documents securely with password protection and analytics, without the cost and complexity of an enterprise data room. Try Fabric free.
Comparing tools? See how Fabric compares to dedicated data room platforms like Ansarada, Datasite, Firmex, Digify, iDeals, and DocSend.
FAQs
Can I password-protect shared documents?
Yes. Every shared document or collection can be published with a password. Only people with the password can access the material.
Can I see who has viewed my documents?
Yes. Link analytics show you who accessed the link, when, how often, and which specific documents they viewed. You get visibility into engagement without asking the recipients.
Can I share different documents with different parties?
Yes. Create separate published links with separate passwords for different parties, each pointing to a different set of documents. You control what each recipient sees.
Can I update documents without resending links?
Yes. Replace or update a document in the space and the existing link reflects the change. Recipients always see the current version.
Can I revoke access after the deal closes?
Yes. Unpublish or remove the shared link and access is cut off immediately. You don't need to chase down copies or change permissions across accounts.
How is this different from an enterprise virtual data room?
Enterprise data rooms like Datasite or Firmex are built for large-scale M&A with complex permissions, bulk document management, and compliance features. Fabric is a lighter, more affordable option for founders, small firms, and teams that need secure, tracked document sharing without enterprise complexity or pricing.
Can I search across the documents in the data room?
Yes. Fabric's AI search reads inside every document and searches by meaning. Find a specific clause, data point, or term across the entire set in seconds.
Can the AI summarise documents in the data room?
Yes. The AI assistant can summarise any document, compare provisions across agreements, or find specific terms. It works from the documents in the space.
Can I annotate documents with internal notes?
Yes. Annotate directly on any document or PDF. Your internal comments and notes stay attached to the files and are searchable, but only visible to people you've shared the space with, not to external recipients viewing via a published link.
Is the data room encrypted?
Yes. Your content is encrypted and only accessible to you, your team members, and anyone you've explicitly shared access with via a published link and password.
Can I use Fabric as a data room for fundraising?
Yes. Create a space with your pitch deck, financial model, cap table, corporate documents, and any other materials investors need. Share with a password-protected link and track who engages with what. It's a common use case.
Can I forward deal-related emails into the data room?
Yes. Forward any email to your email-to-note address and it becomes a searchable part of the deal record alongside the documents.
Is there a limit on how many documents I can share?
No practical limit. Share as many documents as the deal requires. The space and the published link handle the volume.
