By the seed stage, the startup may have developed an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) or gathered some early user feedback. The focus here is more on market validation, early traction, and the team’s ability to scale the product. There’s still limited financial history, so qualitative assessments matter a lot.
Key Areas of Due Diligence:
Team:
Key Hires: VCs will check whether the team has made, or plans to make, key hires for technology, sales, and marketing. Having the right people in place to drive product development and growth is crucial.
Team Expansion Plans: Evaluating how the team plans to grow and scale as the company starts to take off.
Market Validation & Customer Traction:
Product-Market Fit: VCs assess whether the startup has found product-market fit or is on the way to doing so. This involves analyzing customer feedback, retention rates, and overall satisfaction.
Customer Pipeline: Examination of the startup's sales pipeline or customer acquisition channels. VCs want to see evidence of growing interest, such as waitlists, pre-orders, or active customers.
Revenue or User Growth: If the startup has early revenue, VCs will review metrics such as monthly recurring revenue (MRR), customer acquisition cost (CAC), and customer lifetime value (LTV). For non-revenue-generating startups, metrics such as user sign-ups, retention, and engagement are key.
Competitive Position: A deeper dive into the competitive landscape to assess how the startup positions itself against existing competitors and if they have a unique value proposition.
Technology & Product Development:
Product Roadmap: VCs will want to see a clear product roadmap that outlines how the startup plans to iterate and improve its offering based on user feedback.
Technology Scalability: A more detailed technical review of the product or platform to assess scalability and potential technical challenges.
IP Ownership: Review of patents, trademarks, or proprietary technology to ensure the startup fully owns its innovations.
Business Model & Financial Projections:
Monetization Strategy: Clear articulation of how the startup plans to generate revenue. VCs will look at early monetization experiments or pilots.
Unit Economics: In some cases, early-stage unit economics might be scrutinized to ensure that the business model is sustainable. This could include gross margins, customer acquisition costs (CAC), and customer lifetime value (LTV).
Financial Projections: Though revenue may be minimal or non-existent, VCs often ask for 12-18 month financial projections to understand the startup’s funding needs and growth trajectory.
Legal & Compliance:
Contracts & Agreements: Review of any early customer contracts, partnership agreements, or vendor relationships.
Equity Ownership: A detailed review of the startup’s cap table to ensure clarity on founder and investor equity. VCs want to confirm that the founders still have enough equity to stay motivated.
Employment & Advisor Agreements: Ensuring that key team members and advisors are under formal contracts and agreements.
Use of Funds & Milestones:
Funding Allocation: VCs want to know how the startup plans to use the seed funding. Common areas include product development, customer acquisition, key hires, and operational scaling.
Milestones: The startup must outline key milestones they aim to achieve with the seed capital, such as product launches, customer acquisition targets, or geographic expansion plans.
Seed stage due diligence adds a greater focus on market validation, early traction, and business models, since the startup should be demonstrating proof of concept or product-market fit by this point.
The VCs balance qualitative factors (such as team strength and product vision) with early signs of traction or market demand.