Never miss a DD step again
DD checklists in Google Docs, inconsistent across deals, items falling through the cracks. When every deal uses a different format and different rigor, your diligence quality becomes unpredictable — and that's a risk your LPs shouldn't have to bear.
Start your free trialYou have a Google Doc template that you copy for each new deal. Sometimes you remember to use it. Sometimes you start from scratch. Sometimes you skip items because you're moving fast on a hot deal and the founder has three other term sheets. The result: wildly inconsistent diligence quality across your portfolio.
When a deal goes sideways 18 months later, you look back and realize you skipped the customer reference calls. Or you never verified the revenue numbers. Or the cap table had a buried provision that nobody caught because legal review wasn't on the checklist for that deal. These aren't hypotheticals — they're the stories every experienced GP tells over drinks.
The problem isn't that GPs don't know what good DD looks like. The problem is that ad-hoc checklists in random documents don't create accountability. Items get skipped without anyone noticing. Documents get attached to email threads instead of the DD file. And when your LP asks about your diligence process, you describe the ideal — not the reality.
Start with battle-tested templates calibrated for pre-seed, seed, and Series A deals. Pre-seed templates focus on team assessment and market validation. Series A templates add financial analysis, customer diligence, and legal review. Each reflects the appropriate depth for the stage.
Add your fund's specific DD requirements to any template. If you always check for open-source license compliance, add it. If your thesis requires a TAM bottoms-up analysis, make it a required item. Build the checklist that matches your actual process, not a generic best practice guide.
Assign specific checklist items to team members, advisors, or external consultants. Your associate handles financial model review while your venture partner handles customer calls. Everyone knows exactly what they own and can track their items independently.
Attach supporting documents directly to each checklist item. The financial model links to the "Financial Review" item. Reference call notes attach to "Customer References." Everything stays organized with the deal, not scattered across email, Drive, and Slack.
See DD progress at a glance — 18 of 32 items complete, 4 flagged for follow-up, 10 remaining. The deal lead can identify blockers and push the process forward. Progress updates automatically as team members complete their assigned items.
Mark any checklist item as a red flag to surface concerns during IC review. A red-flagged item includes a note explaining the concern, attached evidence, and a recommendation. IC members see all red flags in a summary view before the deal discussion begins.
At seed, speed matters. The lightweight template covers the essentials — founder background checks, market sizing, product demo, basic financial review, and cap table verification. Comprehensive enough to catch deal-breakers, lean enough to close in weeks, not months.
Larger checks demand deeper diligence. The Series A template adds customer reference calls, cohort analysis review, technical architecture assessment, legal document review, and competitive landscape mapping. Assign items across a team of 3-4 people and track progress to IC deadline.
When you're following on into a portfolio company's next round, you already know the business. The follow-on template focuses on what's changed: updated financials, new cap table implications, round terms, co-investor quality, and progress against the milestones you set at the last investment.
Archstone includes templates for pre-seed/seed (lightweight, 15-20 items focused on team, market, and product), Series A (comprehensive, 40-50 items including financials, legal, technical, and customer diligence), and follow-on rounds (abbreviated, 10-15 items focused on what's changed since your last investment). Each template reflects real VC DD workflows, not generic checklists.
Completely. Add, remove, reorder, or rename any item. Create custom sections for your fund's specific focus areas — for example, a 'Regulatory Risk' section for healthcare deals or a 'Token Economics' section for crypto companies. Save customized templates so you can reuse them across similar deals without rebuilding each time.
Assign individual checklist items to team members. Each person sees their assigned items, can mark them complete, add notes, and attach relevant documents. The deal lead sees a unified view of progress across all assignees. Comments on individual items create a threaded discussion for context that persists with the deal record.
Yes. Every checklist action is logged — who completed each item, when, what notes they added, and what documents they attached. This creates a defensible record of your diligence process for LP reporting, regulatory compliance, and internal review. You can export the complete DD record as a PDF for your files.
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