Know what investors will find before they do.
Before investor scrutiny begins, understand where your financial story, metrics and documentation are strong, and where gaps need attention.
Simplify Investment Readiness Review
A structured review before scrutiny begins.
What gets attention
The pitch.
What gets examined
The business behind it.
Financials · Metrics · Documentation · Business logic
Five areas investors actually test.
Are the numbers reliable and understandable?
Can key performance indicators be explained?
Is important information organised?
Do the business and financial stories align?
What questions or gaps need attention?
A score is not the point. Priority is.
Example output
Illustrative figuresA made-up business, shown to explain the format. It is not a client result.
Weakest area: Documentation
What needs attention first
- 01Strengthen financial model
- 02Organise critical documentation
- 03Clarify key business metrics
Readiness assessment
Gap analysis
Priority matrix
Preparation roadmap
Key question checklist
Four steps.
- 01Assess
- 02Identify gaps
- 03Prioritise
- 04Prepare
If this already describes your situation, there is no need to read to the end.
Who this is for.
Not designed for
- Investor introductions only
- Pitch deck creation only
- Bookkeeping support only
This is useful when
- Preparing for a funding round
- Need an objective readiness assessment
- Want to identify gaps before diligence
What diligence usually finds
It is rarely the pitch that causes trouble. Problems tend to show up in the same few places underneath it.
- The numbers are right but cannot be explained
- A simple model you can talk through beats a sophisticated one you cannot. Somebody will ask how a number was arrived at, and then they will ask again.
- Metrics are defined differently in different places
- Retention in the deck, retention in the model and retention in the data room quietly mean three different things. Investors tend to spot that before they look at the number itself.
- Growth is real but the unit economics are not shown
- Revenue going up answers less than it seems. What each customer costs to acquire and serve, and how that has moved, is where the conversation goes next.
- Cash and accrual are used interchangeably
- Revenue recognised, cash received and cash available are three different questions. Mixing them makes runway look longer than it is, which is a bad thing to be corrected on.
- Documentation is assembled during the process
- Building the data room while answering questions from it slows everything down, and slowness reads as disorganisation whether or not it is.
- Nobody has stress tested the plan
- The first hard question is usually what happens if the main assumption is wrong. Having thought about it beforehand is most of the answer.
Find out where you actually stand.
Twelve questions across business, financials, metrics, governance, documentation and fundraising. No sign-up, and nothing is sent anywhere. You get a view of your own gaps in a few minutes.
The piece most rounds need first
Worth reading first
The questions founders ask us most often about this, answered in full.
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