Services
Testimonials
Pitch Deck Template
Investment Memo
Elevator Pitch
This investment memo template and example includes sample content plus simple, actionable recommendations that will help you write a crisp investment memo that gets investors excited.
See what the template looks like before you download it.
Open the file on your desktop then use the File > Make a copy to make your personal copy.
Contact me if you have any problems.
An investment memo deck is a 2-4 page document you can use to share your startup idea and investment thesis. It should be clear, concise, and compelling. As a founder, you can use it to attract potential investors like angel investors, venture capitalists, and private equity firms. You can also use it to recruit co-founders, advisors, and early employees.
Bessemer Venture Partners has an excellent collection of investment memos for their investments in leading startups like Shopify, Pinterest, Yelp, Twilio, Twitch, Wix, Fiverr, SendGrid, PagerDuty, Toast, and more. Check them out here. They're also included in my Pitch Deck Coach Library.
You need both. They provide the exact same information to investors. The only difference between your investment memo and your pitch deck is format. An investment memo is your startup pitch delivered as a 2-4 page document, whereas a pitch deck is your startup pitch delivered as a 15-20 slide presentation. Each section in your investment memo is a slide in your pitch deck.
Some investors prefer investment memos, while others prefer a pitch deck. Compare the Gleamr startup information presented in my investment memo example and my pitch deck example. You'll see they're almost identical. There's no reason for your story to change based on your delivery format.
Write your investment memo before you build your pitch deck. Your investment memo is the outline for your pitch deck in the same way a blueprint is the outline for a house. You wouldn't build a house without a blueprint, and you shouldn't build a pitch deck without an outline.
Personally, I wouldn't wait until you need a pitch deck to write your investment memo. I recommend writing an investment memo as soon as you have a startup idea in mind. Documenting your idea in the form of an investment memo will help you think through — and critically evaluate — every assumption driving your idea and its commercialization.
Like a great pitch deck, a great investment memo is an effective way to answer common investor questions like:
The same things they look for in a pitch deck. In either case, investors want to invest early in a startup that offers a substantial return with minimal risk. Return means the potential return on their investment. Risks are things that might prevent investors from getting that return. Your goal is to convince investors that your startup can provide high returns with lower risks than other businesses competing for their investment.
Investors aim for a 10-50x return on their investment in a startup. They require these high returns because they know most of their investments will fail, so they need the winners to be big winners to make up for the losers. Since valuations are largely a function of revenue, a 10-50x increase in valuation requires a 10-50x increase in revenue over the life of the investment.
Some of the best startups in recent history experienced T2D3 growth in their early years. T2D3 means 'triple-triple-double-double-double.' This means they tripled revenue in their first two years, then doubled revenue for each of the following three years. If you can project a growth trajectory that resembles T2D3, with strong supporting data, you will get investors very excited. Here's an example of T2D3 growth:
$1M > $3M > $9M > $18M > $36M > $72M
Investors consider five core risks when evaluating your startup. Your investment memo should proactively address how your startup will overcome these risks.
Stage Risk
What stage is your startup at? Idea-only, no product is the riskiest stage. Product plus customers who pay and stay is less risky. Stage failure is when you're unable to build a product, unable to prove product-market fit (PMF), or unable to grow beyond small-scale PMF.
Market Risk
Is your startup targeting a large, growing market that can drive significant revenue growth? Market failure is when your target market is too small to drive interesting revenue growth.
Product Risk
Do you offer a compelling product with sustainable competitive advantages that customers will find useful and usable? Product failure is when your product is not useful, not usable, or not differentiated in ways that your customers care about.
Team Risk
Does your team have the necessary industry, operations, startup, and technology expertise to launch your business? Team failure results from insufficient leadership in Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Product Development, or Financial Management. Or your team lacks expertise in your chosen industry or technology.
Execution Risk
Do you have solid operating plans in place to efficiently scale Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, and Product Development? Execution failure results from ineffective planning and execution across any combination of Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Product Development, or Financial Management.
To paraphrase, traction speaks louder than words. Traction reduces market, product, team, and execution risk for investors. By traction, I mean accelerating customer adoption and revenue growth. Traction shows there is at least a small group of customers willing to pay for your product. Strong traction increases your chances of getting funded.
There's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all investment memo template, but this flow is as good as any for most early-stage tech startups.
Your investment memo needs to address every aspect of your business that you might include in a business plan. Here's what to include in each section:
Announce your big idea—the one thing you do better than anyone else. You have 10 seconds to hook your audience. Introduction example.
Summarize the highlights of your business and investment opportunity. Provide a teaser for what's to come. Investment Highlights example.
Introduce a team with the experience and expertise to transform your opportunity into a large, profitable business. Team example.
Describe the problem you solve. Identify your target customers (and users) and explain why they are frustrated with current solutions. Problem example.
Explain how you provide a better solution and list the unique benefits for customers and users. Solution example.
Show how your product works in three simple steps. Keep it visual. Product example.
List your competitors. Explain why your product is better than theirs in the eyes of your customers and users. Competition example.
Explain how you make money. Business Model example.
Show how much money you'll make when you dominate your target market. Market Sizing example.
Prove that customers love your product and are willing to pay for it. Traction example.
Explain how you'll acquire and retain customers. Growth Strategy example.
Show how you'll keep your product competitive. Product Roadmap example.
Provide a simple model, with explicit assumptions, of how much money you can make in the next 3-5 years. Financials example.
Ask for the money you need and explain what you'll do with it. Funding example.
Restate the highlights of your business and investment opportunity as a closer. Investment Highlights Recap example.
Provide contact details for your primary investor contact. Usually the founder/CEO. Contact example
Now let's review what you should include in each section of your investment memo. I'll start with the Introduction section.
Note: I've illustrated each section with sample content for a fictitious startup called Gleamr. Some of you will know Gleamr as the same fictitious startup company I used to provide sample content for my pitch deck template. I hope the sample content gives you a deeper understanding of what's required of you for each section of the template. I invented Gleamr back in 2015, so don't get hung up on some of the claims in this memo :)
Pro Tips: Use a simple [ product category ] for [ audience ] format. Use a second line to list your primary use case and benefit. Also hint at your differentiation using 'the first' or 'the best' qualifiers.
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
This section is often missing from investment memo templates. And yet, it provides investors with a welcome summary of your investment thesis. Include this section and stand out from the crowd.
Here's why we think Gleamr is a strong investment candidate:
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Our team has deep, relevant experience in SaaS and auto detailing.
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Consumers lack an easy way to get a professional, affordable auto detail at their home or office.
Detailers waste too much time and money finding customers when they’d rather be detailing cars.
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Pro Tip: Match your solution benefits to the limitations of current solutions listed in your Problem section.
Introducing Gleamr, the first consumer app for on-demand mobile details. Like Uber, but for mobile auto details.
Benefits for consumers
Benefits for detailers
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Pro Tip: Break your product’s primary use case down into 3-5 simple steps and show the user experience for each step. Add a Case Study if you like.
How our app works for consumers
How our app works for detailers
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Pro Tip: Only list competitive advantages that customers truly care about. Advantages that will win deals over your competition. The 3-5 must-have solution attributes that would top your customer's RFP if they write one. Group competitors by type. Types of competition can include manual processes, legacy third-party solutions (standalone or modules within a larger legacy solution), legacy home-grown solutions, and other newer startups like yours.
We compete with a couple of slow followers: Competitor 1 and Competitor 2. We win on detailer coverage, user traction, and user ratings. Like Uber vs. Lyft, we expect to maintain and extend our lead via network effects.
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Pro Tips: Keep it simple. List all revenue streams if you have more than one. Include a typical transaction.
Mobile auto detailers pay us 15% for each job. The average cost for a mobile detail is $75 in the US (Source):
We currently use Stripe for payment processing. In the future, we may build our own payment processor and collect an additional payment processing fee with no additional cost to the detailer or consumer.
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Pro Tips: A bottom-up calculation is best for credibility and explicit assumptions. Use customer count x ARR per customer. List sources for customer counts and other data. List the annual revenue opportunity for logical market and/or product expansions to get to $1B and beyond.
We’re tapping into a $2B market (US only). Our bottom-up calculation:
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Pro Tips: Pick metrics that matter most for your business. E.g. MAUs and DAUs vs sign-ups. Trends over time are more useful than snapshots.
We've experienced strong growth in our first 9 months
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
This section can also be referred to as 'Go-To-Market (GTM)' or 'Sales & Distribution.'
Pro Tips: Break out your strategies and tactics by function. Be as specific as possible. E.g. If you mention industry trade shows, list the top 2-3 that you’ll attend for your market.
Here's how we’ll acquire and retain users and detailers.
Marketing & Sales — Customer acquisition
Customer Success — Customer retention
Product — Customer retention
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Pro Tips: In addition to major product features and modules, consider certifications (e.g. SOC) and integrations that might also enhance your competitive position. Include past milestones accomplished.
Here's how we’ll maintain and extend our product lead.
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Pro Tips: Offer to share your pro forma Income Statement on request including explicit assumptions for revenue and expense drivers. Investors care less about the numbers and more about your thought process in building the model.
We’re projecting a $29M run rate by EOY 2026.
Detailed model with explicit revenue & expense assumptions available on request.
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Pro Tip: Be as specific as possible on your ask and use of proceeds. Address what you’ll achieve in addition to where you’ll spend.
We’re raising $2M on a SAFE. We have$ 500K committed, so $1.5M remaining.
Prior Funding
Current Raise
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Pro Tip: Repeating this information reminds investors what they have read (if they got this far). It also provides them with a ready-to-go investment thesis they can share with their team.
Our investment thesis (again for convenience)
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Pro Tip: Include your phone, email, and a link to your LinkedIn profile. Make sure you (and your team members plus advisors) all update your LinkedIn profile to match the story in your pitch deck.
I’d love to tell you more!
Ben Brown, Co-founder & CEO.
949-637-1234 · ben@gleamr.com · LinkedIn
Back to Overview · View memo as PDF · Download memo template
Thanks for reading. I hope you found my investment memo template and example helpful. If you're interested in my help with your investment memo, check out my coaching services.