# Investment memo template for venture funds

> This investment memo template gives a venture deal team ten sections: recommendation, terms, the company in a paragraph, thesis fit, team, key claims with their evidence and status, market, risks, open questions and what would change your mind. Copy it as plain text, delete what your fund never uses, and fill it from your notes and the data room. It works in any document tool.

Source: https://delsivo.com/templates/investment-memo-template · Updated 2026-11-06

## Key takeaways

- Put the recommendation and its reasons at the top, so readers know what they are testing.
- Give every key figure a definition, a source and a status.
- Write the risks and open questions honestly, with an owner for each.
- Keep earlier versions: the committee should see what changed.

## Investment memo template to copy

Replace everything in square brackets. Section 6 is the one most memos skip: it is where you show what was checked and what was only reported.

Investment memo (plain text):

```text
INVESTMENT MEMO

Company: [name]
Date: [date]                Memo version: [1]
Deal team: [sponsoring partner], [associate or analyst]
Decision requested: [invest / pass / more work] at [meeting and date]

1. RECOMMENDATION
[Invest / Pass]. [Amount] in [the company's round] on [a SAFE / a priced round] at [cap or valuation].
Why, in two or three sentences: [the reasons that matter most].

2. TERMS
Round size: [ ]                 Our cheque: [ ]
Instrument: [ ]                 Valuation or cap: [ ]     Discount: [ ]
Lead investor: [ ]              Other investors: [ ]
Our ownership after the round, fully diluted: [ ]
Rights: [board seat / observer / pro rata / information rights]
Reserves we expect to use later: [ ]

3. THE COMPANY IN ONE PARAGRAPH
What they sell, to whom, how they charge, and what has happened so far.

4. THESIS FIT
For each criterion: Met, Mismatch or Unknown, with where the answer came from.
Stage: [ ]                       Source: [deck slide / call / document]
Customer and sector: [ ]         Source: [ ]
Geography: [ ]                   Source: [ ]
Cheque size and ownership: [ ]   Source: [ ]
Exceptions to our thesis, and why we accept them: [ ]

5. TEAM
Who the founders are, what they have done that matters for this market, how they work together, and the gaps in the team today.

6. KEY CLAIMS AND EVIDENCE
For each claim: the figure, its definition and period, where it came from, and its status
(Founder reported / Corroborated / Disputed / Unresolved).
Revenue: [figure, definition, month] | Source: [ ] | Status: [ ]
Customers: [count, paid or pilot] | Source: [ ] | Status: [ ]
Retention or usage: [ ] | Source: [ ] | Status: [ ]
Pipeline or other: [ ] | Source: [ ] | Status: [ ]
Where a figure changed during our process, give both versions and why.

7. MARKET AND COMPETITION
Bottom-up market size with the assumptions stated. Who else solves this problem, and why customers choose this company.

8. RISKS
The three to five things most likely to make this investment fail. For each: what we know, what we don't, and what would reduce it.

9. OPEN QUESTIONS
Question | Who will answer it | By when

10. WHAT WOULD CHANGE OUR MIND
The evidence that would turn this recommendation around.

APPENDICES
Call and interview notes, reference notes, financial model, cap table, data room index, earlier memo versions.
```

## When to use it

Write the memo once a deal has passed screening and a first meeting, and the team wants a partner or committee decision. Start a draft early: a half-filled section 9 is a good diligence plan. For a quick pass at the screening stage, a short note against your [deal screening scorecard](https://delsivo.com/templates/deal-screening-scorecard) is enough.

## What to change for your fund

- Match section 4 to the criteria in your written thesis, in the same order.
- If your fund always asks certain questions at committee, add them as headings so the team answers them in advance.
- Small funds deciding by two partners can merge sections 3, 5 and 7 into one page.
- Accelerators can replace section 2 with the programme's standard terms and add a cohort-fit section.

## What to leave out

- Copied deck text. The memo is the fund's view, not the founder's pitch again.
- Personal details about founders that have nothing to do with the investment, such as age or family.
- Long appendices nobody will read. Link to the data room instead of pasting documents.
- Unlabelled numbers. If you don't know whether a figure was checked, say so.

## Do you need Delsivo for this memo?

No. The template works in a document, a wiki or an email. Delsivo is designed to make section 6 easier: its [claim tracker](https://delsivo.com/claims-and-evidence), planned for the Pilot release, keeps each claim with its source and evidence label, and its AI can draft a brief from cited findings for a person to edit and approve. Committee memos and frozen packets are planned for a later release.

## Frequently asked questions

### What should an investment memo include?

A recommendation, the terms, why the company fits the thesis, the team, the evidence for key claims, the market, the main risks, open questions and what would change the recommendation.

### How long should a seed-stage investment memo be?

Long enough to support the decision, often two to six pages with appendices linked rather than pasted.

### Should a memo include the founders' own numbers?

Yes, labelled as founder reported, next to what the fund verified. Showing both helps the committee see what is still uncertain.

### Can I share the memo with the founders?

Some funds share parts of it. Remove internal discussion of terms, other deals and references before sharing anything.

## Related pages

- [How to write an investment memo](https://delsivo.com/how-to-write-an-investment-memo)
- [Investment memo](https://delsivo.com/glossary/investment-memo)
- [Investment committee agenda](https://delsivo.com/templates/investment-committee-agenda)
- [Claims and evidence](https://delsivo.com/claims-and-evidence)