Inviting institutional buyers
Copy each address from the buyer's own signature, send them a heads-up from your own mailbox before inviting, and for banks and large funds ask them to pass the LockRoom allowlist to their IT first. The next morning, call anyone who has not accepted.
Banks, credit funds, large private equity firms and the big accounting firms run strict email gateways and web filters. Most invites land fine. The ones that don't fail silently: the buyer never sees the email, or clicks the link and gets a blocked page. Ten minutes before launch avoids a lost week.
Why an invite goes missing
- Wrong address. One typo and the invite goes nowhere.
- Mail gateway. Proofpoint, Mimecast, Microsoft Defender or Darktrace holds the email because it comes from a platform the firm has not seen before.
- Web filter. The email arrives, but the firm's filter blocks the link or the documents.
Before you invite
- Copy each address from the buyer's own email signature. Don't retype it from a list; a typo is the most common reason an invite never arrives.
- Send each buyer contact a short heads-up from your own mailbox (template below). If they reply, their mail system is more likely to trust your firm.
- For banks, credit funds and anyone you know runs strict IT, ask your contact to forward the LockRoom allowlist to their IT or security team now, not after something breaks.
After you invite
Open the room's member list. Fix and re-invite anyone flagged with an invalid email. Then, the next morning:
- Check who has accepted. Call or text anyone who hasn't after a day rather than sending another email.
- Ask them to search their inbox and their quarantine for "LockRoom" or the subject "You're invited to". Quarantine is often a separate place: a Microsoft Defender quarantine page, or a daily digest email at Proofpoint and Mimecast shops.
- If it is in quarantine, they release it and add support@lockroom.com as a safe sender.
- If the link is blocked, documents will not open, or downloads fail, their IT needs the allowlist. It takes about five minutes.
- Still stuck? Email support@lockroom.com with the buyer's address. We can see whether the invite was delivered or bounced and can get on a call with their IT.
Templates
Subject: [Project name] data room, invite coming [day]
Hi [name], we're opening the data room for [Project name] on [day]. You'll get an invite from LockRoom, sent from support@lockroom.com with [your firm] as the sender. If you don't see it by [day], check your quarantine or spam, or let me know and I'll resend.
Our data room for [Project name] runs on LockRoom. To make sure invitations and documents come through, please allow the sender support@lockroom.com and the web addresses listed at lockroom.com/help/email-allowlist.
Sorry about that. Can you check your quarantine or spam for "LockRoom"? If it's not there, I've just re-sent it. If your firm blocks the link itself, the note for your IT team fixes it in a few minutes.
Related
The full list of what IT needs to allow is on the LockRoom allowlist page. For the basics of groups and invites, see how to invite buyers, or browse the LockRoom help index.