We’re launching The Investor Check, a founder tool designed to help take the guesswork out of evaluating venture capital partners.
Most founders understand the due diligence process from one side of the table. Investors examine the team, the market, the product, the technology, the financial model, the risks, and the upside before deciding whether to invest.
But taking capital is also a decision founders need to diligence carefully.
An investor is not just a funding source. They may become part of your board, your strategic discussions, your future fundraising process, and the moments that shape the company long after the round closes. The right partner can create leverage. The wrong one can create friction at exactly the wrong time.
The Investor Check tool was built to help founders look beyond fund reputation and meeting chemistry. By entering details about the fund, the partner, your company, and the round you are planning, founders receive a structured brief based on public sources, designed to help them understand investor fit, identify what to verify, and walk into meetings with sharper questions.
Start your investor due diligence here.
Investor due diligence is the process of evaluating the people who may soon become part of your company’s decision-making circle.
A fund’s brand may open the door, but the founder’s actual experience is usually shaped by a specific partner. That partner may be the one advocating internally for the deal, joining the board, supporting follow-on decisions, making customer or talent introductions, and helping navigate difficult company moments.
The Investor Due Diligence tool looks at both the fund and the individual partner, helping founders build a clearer view of the investor they are considering before signing a term sheet.
The goal is not to produce a simple “yes” or “no.” The goal is to give founders a better starting point for judgment.
A term sheet can create momentum. Once capital is on the table, the pressure to move quickly is real.
That is exactly why diligence matters before the decision is made.
Founders should understand whether the investor has relevant experience, decision-making authority, available capital, category knowledge, and a track record of showing up beyond the first check. They should also understand how the investor behaves when a company misses a plan, needs more time, raises a difficult round, changes direction, or faces hard board-level decisions.
Every investor sounds supportive during the fundraising process. The real signal is how they operate after the round closes.
The tool helps founders prepare for that deeper evaluation, using public information to surface patterns, gaps, and questions worth asking directly.
Run the investor check here.
The tool evaluates four core signals that can help founders move from passive fundraising to active investor evaluation.
The first is fund lifecycle and dry powder. A fund’s latest vintage and time since announcement can help indicate where it may be in its deployment cycle. If a fund raised its last major pool several years ago, founders may want to understand whether it is still actively leading new investments or primarily managing reserves for existing portfolio companies.
The second is portfolio attribution and partner DNA. A firm may have a strong portfolio, but the relevant question is whether the partner in front of you has personally led, supported, or sat on the board of companies that matter to your context. The Check looks for public signals that connect the individual partner to specific companies, not only the fund brand.
The third is conviction in tough moments. Company-building rarely follows the clean version in the deck. Funding gaps, pivots, leadership changes, down rounds, and missed milestones can all create pressure. The Check helps identify visible moments in a partner’s portfolio that founders may want to explore in reference calls.
The fourth is network and ecosystem reach. A useful investor should bring more than commentary. The Check looks at downstream funding patterns, ecosystem footprint, and visible network quality to help founders assess whether a partner may be able to support future rounds, strategic introductions, customers, or key hires.
None of these signals tells the whole story. Together, they help founders know where to dig.
The value of this tool is not only in the data. It is in the questions the data creates.
A generic investor reference call often produces generic answers. The better questions are more specific: how the partner behaved when a company needed more time, how follow-on decisions were handled, whether support came personally from the partner or only from the platform team, and which introductions actually moved the company forward.
The tool helps founders walk into investor conversations with context. It gives them the ability to ask direct, behavioral questions based on visible patterns rather than broad impressions.
That changes the tone of the meeting. Instead of only being evaluated, the founder is also evaluating.
Before taking the check, run The Investor Check.
