Ask this deal

Ask this deal answers questions about one deal from the material you can open on it, and writes the answer as a short analyst's note with every fact cited. Open any deal and click Ask this deal next to the deal's tabs. A side sheet opens over the tab you are on, so you keep your place.

You need to be able to open the deal. Analysts see the deals they own, plus unowned New and Screening deals in the inbound queue when it's on. Committee members don't use Ask this deal; they read the packets they review.

What it reads#

Deck, interview and data room files are what the founder reports. Accepted claims and accepted research are your team's working view. Each source in an answer is labelled Founder reported or Team view.

Ask a question#

1. Click Ask this deal.
2. On the Ask tab, pick one of the suggested questions or write your own, then click the send button (or press ⌘ Enter on a Mac, Ctrl Enter elsewhere).
3. The answer is written in the background. You see the steps while it works, and you can keep reading the deal.

Suggested questions are the ones partners ask: the ask (round size, valuation, instrument, lead), how revenue is recognised and what share recurs, which customer claims are verified and by what, the biggest risks and what would kill the deal, what's open in diligence by workstream, a summary for the Monday partner meeting, and reference-call questions.

Each answer has:

• The note: a one-line answer, then short bullets. Numbers in brackets, such as [2], link to the sources below it.
• Sources: each citation with its label (document, version and page, slide, or interview timestamp) and the exact quote. Click the label to open the slide, the interview, the file in the data room, the claim or the research brief.
• Add as claim and Attach to claim under each source, for people who can change the deal's claims: the quote becomes a new claim (Founder reported) or a source of an existing one, kept with its document, version and page, slide, or interview time. See Track and verify claims.
• Unknown from what you can open: what the material doesn't answer. Ask this deal says unknown rather than guessing.
• When sources disagree, for example the deck says 20 enterprise customers and the contracts show 12 paid pilots, the note shows both sides with their citations.

Questions stay with you: your conversations on a deal are yours, and teammates don't see them. Use the history button at the top of the sheet to go back to an earlier conversation, and New to start another.

Check a claim against the room#

1. Open the Check a claim tab.
2. Pick a claim under Claim.
3. Click Check against the room.

The result says, for each relevant passage, Supported, Contradicted or Not found, with the document, version and page (or the slide or timestamp) and the quote. Not found means nothing you can open speaks to the claim.

Each supported or contradicted finding comes with Attach as supporting or Attach as contradicting. One click adds the quote to the claim as a source that links to the document at that version and page (or the slide or interview time). Anyone opening it later has their own access checked again. Attaching a contradicting source marks the claim Disputed and opens a verification task (see Track and verify claims). Before attaching, the source is checked again: if the file was deleted, replaced or moved out of your reach, it can't be attached.

Follow-up questions#

When the material leaves gaps, an answer may suggest Follow-up questions for the founder. Untick any you don't want, then click Save as request draft. This creates a draft request on the deal's Requests tab. Nothing is sent to the founder until someone reviews and sends it there (see Send a request to a founder).

Click Dismiss on any suggestion you don't want. You see "Suggestion dismissed." with Undo.

Saving a request draft and attaching evidence need permission to edit the deal. If your role can only read the deal, you see the suggestions without the buttons.

Search#

The Search tab is a keyword search across the same sources, without AI. Type a few words and press Enter. Use the source buttons (Deck, Interview, Data room, Claim, Research) to search only some of them. Each result shows where it is and a short passage, and opens the source when you click it.

What it never uses#

Ask this deal, search and claim checks all apply your access at the moment you ask, before anything is searched or sent to the AI model:

• Files in data room folders you can't open.
• Files still being scanned for malware, or quarantined.
• Older versions of a file once a newer version is uploaded, and deleted files.
• Live interview drafts, dismissed claims, and research findings nobody accepted.
• Other deals and other funds.

If a file an answer cited is later deleted, replaced or moved out of your reach, that answer is hidden and says so. Ask again to get an answer from what you can open now.

Founder email addresses and phone numbers are removed from the text before it reaches the AI model. Files and web pages are treated as untrusted: instructions written inside a document are ignored, and the model can't send anything, change a deal or read beyond the sources it was given.

Files that can't be read#

Text is read from PDFs and from text, Markdown and CSV files after they pass the malware scan. Other file types (Word, Excel, images) can be previewed or downloaded in the data room but aren't searched.

When a PDF is password protected, has no text layer (scanned pages), or is damaged, it isn't searched. The deal owner gets a task, Review "file name" by hand, on the deal's Tasks tab and in My tasks, saying why. Ask the founder for a copy without a password or with a text layer, or read the file yourself.

Frequently asked questions#

Does Ask this deal make decisions?#

No. It writes notes and suggestions. It never changes a deal's stage, never sends anything to a founder or guest, and never attaches evidence or creates a request until a person clicks.

Why does an answer say Offline?#

No AI model was available, so the answer lists the closest passages you can open without judging them. Read them and decide, or ask again later.

Why was a quote removed?#

Every quote is checked against its source before you see it. When the model quotes something that isn't in the source, the quote and its citation are dropped, and the answer says how many were removed.

Is my question stored?#

Your conversations are kept on the deal so you can come back to them. The activity log records that a question was asked, never the question, the answer or the quotes. AI usage records hold the model, token counts and cost, never document text.