Many of our portfolio companies will start raising their Series As in the coming 6-12 months. I use this as an opportunity to curate a list of the ideal 'due diligence data room' which will help them prepare for their Series A raise. The idea is to start at your last round and keep building it from time to time.
Please note: Most of our current investments are B2B, enterprise software and this list will lean toward the same
Intro Deck (5-7 slides)
Keep it simple- Problem, Solution, Benefits, Market, Team, Ask, Contact
Deep dive deck (15 slides + appendix)
Expand the above deck and add supporting materials, and detailed materials in the appendix
Demo
Record a video which can be accessed via a password. Loom/youtube video works too.
Product roadmap
Detailed competitive landscape
List all players in the market, their offerings, and what their USP is. Explain how is your approach different and more likely to win.
Industry reports
Industry reports, white papers, research papers
FAQs from investors & customers
List all questions that you've been asked, and put them into FAQs so you don't waste time going through the same things again and again
Last 12 months investor updates
Investors will like to see how you've progressed. Good to show you take investor communication seriously and diligently
P&L
Past 12-month and future 24-month projections from revenues, variable costs, and fixed costs (BD, R&D, G&A). Split your revenues into service, product, one-time, and recurring revenues. Have your ARR waterfall ready. Show how COGS evolves, don't punch in a percentage.
Balance sheet & cash flows
Show how cash position changes MoM
The 12-month org hiring plan
Have a hiring plan with JDs, compensation, and ESOP allocation ready. Use it to ask incoming investors to help find talent
Revenue analysis
No of customers and revenue per customer over time
Usage Data
Important for usage-based pricing companies to see how deeply entrenched is your solution
Retention
Cohort-based retention over time
Churned customers
List of churned customers, revenue churn, reasons
Case studies
Case studies of key customers, how your solution helped them achieve X
References
Investors will want to talk to customers. Make it easier to provide an intro
Material
Your sales deck, marketing collateral etc
Pipeline & movement
What does your current pipeline look like? How does your pipeline move? How do you qualify leads from one level to the next?
Customer recordings
If you have CX/demo/user interview recordings, please add them with a double opt-in
Systems architecture
API docs
This is not an exhaustive list. But this covers pretty much what every investor will ask for. If you have most of these ready, your fundraising process can be smoother.