Guide
Read in this order, not in the order of the animation
Beauty is the invitation. The order is the work.
One-liner: can you say the product? If not, stop — the file is still a lab. Who pays: is there a budget that already exists, or only a token fantasy? Path: counsel-named, locked not-offering, or silent? Traction: named pilots, even if redacted; waitlist is demand, not a book. Risks: what can kill it, in English. Structure: how money would move if they raise, and confirmation that this pad is not in that flow.
If those six land, read the claims table. Live claims should be boring and evidenced. Draft claims are the company’s ambition. Withdrawn claims are the company’s self-control. A file with no withdrawn claims and many live superlatives is a file that has not yet met a desk.
Diligence file, not a prospectus. If this company raises, it raises with its own counsel.
Guide
What the four statuses actually mean
They are not a funnel you join. They are a description of the file.
In market: campaign live, claims locked, waitlist possibly open, no participate button. In diligence: fourteen-day write-up in motion — treat numbers as in flux. Screened: passed the desk, diligence not open, do not cold-email as if they are selling. Closed: window over or pack archived; useful as history, not as an order ticket.
375 on the board, 570 screened out. The second number is the one that should make the first number mean something. A board with no rejects is an advertisement.
Guide
Traps in files that still look beautiful
Completeness can hide a hole if you skip the path.
Silent pathway plus heated waitlist. High waitlist plus no named pilot. “Utility” in the one-liner plus no memo. US HQ plus “global” audience. Sprint day 2 presented as if it were live. A score of 91 that you treat as a rating agency. The score is our desk diligence, not Moody’s. Use it as a queue, not a substitute for your own.
If you want to talk to the issuer, you still talk to the issuer. We are not a broker-dealer. We will not introduce a round as a placement. We can tell you what the file says. We cannot tell you to buy it.
Walk away, or at least slow down, if:
- You cannot find how money would move.
- The path is silent and the copy sounds like a sale.
- Restricted geographies include the country you sit in — and you still got a buy CTA.
- The only traction is a waitlist.
- Risks read like a legal footer instead of English.
Guide
If you take the call
Ask the questions the file already told you to ask.
Each dossier ends with “ask these next.” Ask them. Who is the first named paying customer? Has counsel written the perimeter? What happens if a founder later wants a public token? Which incumbent copies this in a quarter? Where are the keys / the title / the NAV liability? You are not being rude. You are matching the house that wrote the file.
If the founder wants to talk about the pad’s waitlist as if it were committed capital, correct them. If they want us on the call as the “exchange,” we will not join on those terms.