Process
How we write the memo
Most firms ask the founder to assemble the case for the investment. We think that is backwards. If we cannot write the memo, we do not understand the company well enough to fund it.
So we write it first, then send it over.
The four steps, in practice
- Send the deck. No warm intro. Post-revenue preferred, conviction required.
- One real conversation. Product, talent, architecture. Straight answers, fast.
- Memo drafted. We populate the template. You fill only the gaps we can't.
- Check, then syndicate. Our check first, then accredited investors alongside it.
The memo template is public. Nothing in our process is a surprise.
What the memo has to answer
If this works, what had to be true — and did we have any way of knowing?
Everything else in the document is in service of that question. The sections we care most about:
- The mechanism. Not the market size. The specific reason this team converts effort into an unfair position.
- The second hundred units. What breaks at scale, and who on the team has broken it before.
- The procurement path. Who signs, on what budget line, in which fiscal year.
- The failure mode we would accept. If it dies, which way do we want it to die?
Why we send it to you
Two reasons. First, it is the fastest way to surface a misunderstanding — you will spot in thirty seconds what would have taken us a week. Second, a founder who reads our memo and disagrees with it is telling us something useful about how they think.
We have passed on companies because of that conversation. We have also raised our check size because of it.