A practical guide for startup founders - from setting up your first data room to controlling exactly who sees what and when.
You're deep in a fundraising conversation. An investor asks for your data room. You scramble to put something together, share a Google Drive link, and move on - hoping for the best.
That approach works until it doesn't. Investors share links. Ex-employees still have access. You have no idea who actually looked at your financials, or for how long. When a deal falls through, you can't even revoke access cleanly.
This guide covers how to share a data room link the right way - with proper access controls, tracking, and security - so you always know what's happening with your documents.
What is a data room link, exactly?
A data room link is a URL that gives someone access to a secure, organized collection of your company documents. Unlike a standard file-sharing link, a data room link comes with access controls, tracking, and permission settings baked in.
When you share a data room link securely, you're not just handing someone a URL. You're controlling:
- Who can open it
- What they can do with the contents (view, download, print)
- How long they have access
- What you can see about their activity
That's a very different thing from a shared Google Drive folder.
A well-set-up data room link lets you grant access in seconds and revoke it just as fast - without any back-and-forth with IT or manually removing someone from a folder.
How to create a data room
Setting up a data room doesn't have to take days. With a modern tool, you can have a functional, secure room live in under an hour - if your documents are ready to upload.
Here's the basic process:
1. Choose your platform
Pick a tool built for secure document sharing - not a general cloud storage service. More on this below.
2. Create a new data room
Name it clearly. For fundraising, something like "Acme Inc - Series A" works. For M&A, use a codename if you need confidentiality at the deal level.
3. Organize your folder structure
Group documents logically. Common categories: Financials, Legal, Product, Team, Cap Table. Keep it clean - investors will judge your organization.
4. Upload your documents
Upload PDFs, spreadsheets, and pitch decks. Most platforms accept bulk uploads. Label files clearly - "Q3 2025 P&L" beats "financials_final_v3".
5. Set permissions
Decide who gets access to what. Some documents - like your full cap table - might only go to lead investors. Others go to everyone in the room.
6. Enable security features
Turn on NDA gating, watermarking, and download restrictions as needed. More on each of these below.
7. Generate your share link
Create a trackable link. Some platforms let you create different links for different investors so you can track engagement per person.
How to create a share link
Once your data room is set up, creating a share link is the easy part. Here's how it typically works across most platforms:
You go to your data room settings, find the "sharing" or "invite" section, and either add viewers by email or generate a link. The link option is usually faster if you're sharing with multiple people at once.
With a platform like Ellty, you can generate a shareable link directly from your data room, and that link will be tied to analytics - so you see who clicked it, when, and for how long. You can also create separate links for separate recipients if you want to track engagement by investor.
A few things worth configuring before you send the link:
- Set an expiry date if you don't want the link to live forever
- Require email verification to see who's actually opening it
- Enable NDA acceptance before access is granted
- Turn off download permissions for sensitive materials
Don't just copy-paste the link and send it. Take 90 seconds to configure these settings. It matters more than you think.
How to share a data room link via email
Most founders share their data room link over email. It's simple and direct. But how you frame that email - and how the link is set up - makes a real difference.
Here's what a clean data room invite email looks like:
Example email
Hi [Name],
Here's access to our data room for the Series A process:
[Link]
You'll be asked to verify your email and agree to an NDA before accessing the documents. Everything is organized by category - financials, legal, product, team. Let me know if you'd like anything else added.
Best,
[Your name]
Keep it short. Investors don't need a paragraph of context about why you're sharing a data room - they know why. Just give them the link and tell them what to expect (email verification, NDA, etc.) so they're not caught off guard.
One more thing: don't send the link in a group email unless you want everyone to have the same access level. If you're sharing with multiple parties in parallel, send individual emails with individual links. This way you can track each party's engagement separately.
What makes a data room link secure?
Not all share links are equal. A link from Google Drive and a link from a purpose-built virtual data room look similar on the surface. But they're very different under the hood.
Here are the security features that actually matter:
You don't necessarily need all of these features for every situation. A pitch deck share doesn't need watermarking. A full due diligence process probably does. Use what fits the sensitivity level of what you're sharing.
Can I use Google Drive for a data room?
Yes. And plenty of founders do - especially at the earliest stages. But it comes with real trade-offs you should understand before you decide.
Google Drive works fine for sharing marketing materials or internal collaboration. It falls short the moment you care about any of the following:
- Knowing who actually looked at your documents
- Preventing someone from downloading and sharing your financials
- Creating a legal record that someone agreed to an NDA
- Revoking access cleanly and knowing it actually worked
If you're doing a seed round with three angels you personally know, Google Drive might be fine. If you're in active diligence with institutional investors, it's probably not the right tool.
One thing Google Drive doesn't tell you: whether the "view" counted because a partner opened it or because an associate accidentally clicked the link. A virtual data room gives you the context a raw access log doesn't.
Affordable data room providers worth knowing
The virtual data room market has two tiers that are very far apart. The enterprise tier - Intralinks, Datasite, Donnelley - is built for $100M+ M&A transactions with compliance requirements and teams of lawyers. Pricing is often $1,000-$5,000+ per month, and you usually need to talk to sales before getting access.
For most startup founders running a seed through Series B process, that's way more than you need. Here's how the more affordable options compare:
The per-user pricing issue is worth highlighting on its own. A single VC firm might send a partner, two associates, and a legal contact to your data room. That's four users from one investor. Multiply that by five interested firms and you're at 20 users before you've signed a term sheet. At $50/user/month, that's $1,000/month extra on top of the base plan.
Ellty offers data room features without per-user pricing - which keeps the math simple as more people need access during your round. The Data Room plan is $149/month for up to three admin users, with no extra charges per viewer.
What Ellty offers - and who it's for
Ellty started as a pitch deck sharing and analytics platform. It's expanded into a full virtual data room for startup fundraising and early-stage due diligence. Here's what each plan actually includes:
Where Ellty works well: you're raising seed through Series B, you need to share documents with multiple investors simultaneously, you want to track engagement without a per-viewer cost, and you need setup speed - not a multi-week onboarding process.
Where it's not the right fit: you're running a complex M&A deal with hundreds of documents, multiple bidding parties, and a legal team that requires ISO 27001 certification and a Q&A module. For those situations, enterprise providers like Intralinks or Datasite are built for that specific context.
For simpler use cases, Ellty provides the data room features that actually matter at a flat monthly rate - with no demo calls required to get started
How to share a data room link - security checklist
Before you send that link, run through this. It takes five minutes and saves real problems later.
Not every item applies to every situation. Sharing your pitch deck with a warm intro? You might skip NDA gating. Sharing your full cap table and IP assignments with a lead investor in active diligence? Check everything.
How to read your data room analytics
Once your link is live, the analytics are where you start making smarter decisions about your raise.
Here's what to pay attention to:
Time spent per document tells you what investors actually care about. If someone spent 18 minutes on your financial model and two seconds on the team page, they're deep in the numbers. That's the conversation to have on the follow-up call.
Pages viewed inside a document reveals which sections got attention. If three out of four investors skipped your market size slides but dwelled on customer case studies, that's useful signal for updating your pitch deck.
Return visits matter. An investor who opens your data room three times in a week is much more engaged than one who opened it once. Real-time notifications let you follow up while you're top of mind.
No activity after a week usually means one of two things: they're not interested, or your link didn't work. Both are worth checking. A quick "just following up - did the link come through?" email often surfaces a soft no early, which saves everyone time.
Common mistakes founders make with data room links
These come up constantly. Most are easy to avoid once you know to look for them.
Sharing everything upfront is the most common one. You don't need to dump your entire document library on an investor who's still in the first meeting phase. Share your pitch deck first. Share the full data room when they ask for it. Keeping some things behind a request gate also signals that you have leverage in the conversation.
Using the same link for everyone is a close second. If you create one generic link and share it with ten investors, you can't tell who's active and who isn't. Create unique links or use email-gated access so your analytics mean something.
Forgetting to revoke access after a deal closes is a real operational risk. If an investor passes or a deal falls through, their access should end. A proper data room lets you do this in one click. A Google Drive folder makes it much messier.
Uploading disorganized documents signals something about how you run your company. If an investor opens your data room and finds files named "final_FINAL_v4_USE_THIS.pdf," that's a problem. Spend time on organization before you share. It's worth it.
Not checking analytics after sharing is a missed opportunity. If your data room has been open for two weeks and three investors haven't looked at it once, that's a signal. Either follow up or move on. Don't wait blindly for feedback that might not come.
Frequently asked questions
How do I create a share link for a data room?
In most virtual data room platforms, you go to your data room settings, find the sharing or invite section, and generate a link. In Ellty, you can create a trackable link directly from your data room - and you can create separate links for different recipients to track engagement individually. Before sharing, configure email verification, NDA gating, and permission settings.
How do I share a data room link via email?
Keep the email short. Include the link, tell them what to expect (email verification, NDA if applicable), and mention what's inside. Don't send the same link to multiple investors in a group email if you want individual tracking - send separate emails with separate links instead.
Can I use Google Drive as a data room?
Technically, yes. But Google Drive doesn't give you view analytics, NDA gating, watermarking, or meaningful download controls. If you're sharing sensitive financial documents with investors, those missing features become real gaps. Google Drive works fine for internal collaboration or sharing non-sensitive materials. For due diligence or fundraising, a purpose-built tool is worth it.
What is NDA gating and do I need it?
NDA gating requires visitors to digitally sign a non-disclosure agreement before accessing your data room. The signature is timestamped and logged. For early conversations or pitch deck sharing, you probably don't need it. For full due diligence - where you're sharing financials, cap tables, IP assignments, and contracts - NDA gating creates a legal record that confidentiality was agreed to. It's a standard expectation in any serious M&A or institutional fundraising process.
What does dynamic watermarking do?
Dynamic watermarking stamps every page of a document with the viewer's email address and sometimes their IP. If a document gets shared outside the data room, you can trace exactly who sent it. It's a deterrent as much as a detection tool - most people won't share a document with their name written across every page.
How much does a virtual data room cost?
Pricing varies widely. Enterprise providers like Intralinks and Datasite can run $1,000-$5,000+ per month. Mid-tier tools like iDeals start around $460/month. For startup fundraising, flat-rate tools are a better fit. Ellty offers a free plan for basic document tracking and secure sharing. The Data Room plan - which includes NDA gating, watermarking, and granular permissions - is $149/month with no per-user fees. The Data Room Plus plan at $349/month adds group permissions and audit logs.
What's the difference between a pitch deck and a data room?
A pitch deck is a short visual presentation you share early to generate investor interest. A data room is the comprehensive document package you share during active diligence - financials, legal docs, cap table, contracts, and so on. You share the pitch deck first, then provide data room access once an investor expresses serious interest.
What documents should I put in a data room?
At minimum for a seed round: pitch deck, financial model, cap table, certificate of incorporation, and a team overview. For Series A and beyond, add 12 months of financials, IP assignments, key customer contracts, employment agreements for key hires, and any existing investor agreements. Keep it organized and avoid uploading everything you have - include what's material and what investors will actually look for.
How do I revoke data room access?
In a proper virtual data room, revoking access is a single action - you remove the viewer or disable their link, and access ends immediately. This is one of the practical advantages over Google Drive, where "removing" someone from a shared folder doesn't guarantee they didn't already download or screenshot what they needed. Set link expiry dates from the start for any time-limited process like a fundraising round.
Are affordable data room providers actually secure?
Yes - provided you're checking for the right things. Look for encrypted storage, access controls, and a clear privacy policy about how your data is handled. For most startup fundraising contexts, the core security features you need are the same whether you're paying $149/month or $1,500/month. The enterprise platforms are priced higher because of compliance certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2), dedicated support, and features built for complex M&A - not because the basic security is meaningfully better.
