Thesis, market, product, traction, business model, team, risks, ask. A memo that survives cross-examination.
Layout
Investor Memo
8 blocks · 3-row grid
"Write the memo your partner would write for you — then improve on it."
What it is
Eight blocks built around a thesis. Thesis is the proposition — "we believe X is true and others don't." Market, Product, Traction, Business Model, and Team are the evidence. Risks acknowledges what could go wrong. Ask & Use of Funds closes the loop by showing how the money becomes traction by the next round.
Origin
The investor memo originated inside venture firms — partners would write 6–10 page narratives to convince their colleagues to back a deal. Founder-written memos emerged as a forcing function: if the founder can already write the partner's deal memo, the partner's job is half done.
When to reach for it
You're heading into a partner meeting and want the partner you met to have ammunition.
You're sending to a fund that asked for "your most-up-to-date memo" pre-meeting.
You're briefing an angel syndicate or first-time check-writer who needs more than a deck.
The blocks
Worked example uses Stripe (Series C, 2014).
What good looks like
One paragraph: the insight, why it's true now, the bet that follows, the size of outcome possible.
Example — Stripe (Series C, 2014)
Online commerce is shifting to embedded, dev-first infrastructure. Stripe's 6-line API plus issuing, billing, and global rails compounds as new payment surfaces (marketplaces, subscriptions, in-app) outgrow legacy gateways. Every new layer (subscription billing, Connect) increases switching cost and ACV — the platform is becoming structurally cheaper to extend than any rival.
What good looks like
TAM/SAM with derivation, growth rate, why venture-scale is plausible.
Example — Stripe (Series C, 2014)
Global card-not-present volume ≈ $1.2T/year, growing 25% YoY. Embedded-fintech subset (marketplaces, SaaS platforms charging end-customers) is the fastest sub-segment. SAM today ≈ $40B in net interchange.
What good looks like
Plain-language description, the mechanism that makes it work, what's deliberately not built.
Example — Stripe (Series C, 2014)
A unified API for accepting payments, paying out, and managing money movement online. Connect (marketplace payouts) and Billing (subscription management) extend the core. Issuing (cards) and Sigma (analytics) launched this year.
What good looks like
Headline metric in absolutes, growth with period, retention proof, honest "too early" admissions.
Example — Stripe (Series C, 2014)
$20B annualised processing (up 4× YoY). 100k+ customers including Lyft, Postmates, Salesforce. 90% net dollar retention. International expansion to 18 countries.
What good looks like
Pricing, current CAC/LTV/payback, gross margin path, route to profitable unit economics.
Example — Stripe (Series C, 2014)
Take rate ≈ 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction with discounts at scale. Gross margin 70% (excluding interchange pass-through). Effective CAC near zero in early-stage segments via developer evangelism.
What good looks like
Founder credibility tied to the problem. Next 3 hires. Advisors / board.
Example — Stripe (Series C, 2014)
Patrick and John Collison (cofounders, prior YC exit). Cristina Cordova (BD lead from Pulse / LinkedIn). Will Gaybrick (CFO from Thrive). Next critical hires: Issuing GM, EU compliance lead.
What good looks like
Market, execution, regulatory risks named honestly. Mitigation per risk.
Example — Stripe (Series C, 2014)
Regulatory: PSD2 in EU could compress take rate. Mitigation: directly chartered EU entity in flight. Concentration: top-10 customers = 22% of GMV. Mitigation: marketplace expansion broadens base. Competition: Adyen up-market, PayPal/Braintree dev-tooling renewed investment.
What good looks like
Round size and stage, lead status, allocation across hiring/GTM/runway, milestones to next round.
Example — Stripe (Series C, 2014)
Raising $80M Series C, lead committed. ~50% to international engineering & compliance; 30% to Connect and Issuing growth; 20% reserve. Milestones to next round: 5× ARR, EU regulatory entity live, Issuing in 10 countries.
How to use it
Open with a 1-paragraph thesis. Everything that follows is its evidence.
Use absolute numbers with periods. "Traction" without units is a tell.
Risks section first-draft should make you uncomfortable. If it doesn't, you missed risks.
Aim for 1,500 words. Memos that need 3,000 usually have weak theses.
Common mistakes
Burying the thesis. If a partner can't restate it from page 1, the memo isn't doing its job.
Risks section that lists "competition" with no mitigation. That's table-stakes risk-naming.
Memos that are decks in disguise. Memos are paragraphs and tables; decks are bullets.
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