In Zapflow, deals and companies are the same most of the time but there are times when a company can have multiple deals associated with it.
For example, take the company 100AM. If our GP, say Investor A, is interested in investing for the first time in this company at the seed round, then they can create a deal also called 100AM. Let us say this deal passed their due diligence and now they have invested and 100AM became their portfolio holding.
Now, 100AM is growing and is ready for its next funding round. This time Investor A wants to also invest in a follow on round in Series A or Series B. Then 100AM the company stays the same but the new deal now created should be named something like "100AM Series B" so as not to have a naming conflict with the first deal.
Therefore we have separate deal and company modules in Zapflow because sometimes an investor can
participate in multiple deal rounds for the same company Eg: Seed, Series A, Series B etc and
this differentiation helps them further down the road.
In Zapflow, we give our users the ability to show these associations. Our example company 100AM, on its company page, will show all the related deals in the section "Target Asset in" as shown below:
Hope this gives you a clearer understanding of the Deal Vs Company differentiation in Zapflow.