Fundability
Fundability and investor readiness
Investor readiness is evidence preparation: the records, the numbers and the habits that let a serious person check your claims quickly. It is not a promise of funding.
Investors are asked to believe a lot on very little evidence. Readiness means making your claims easy to check: a stated problem, a product people use, numbers you can explain, company records that are in order, and a habit of telling the people who back you what is happening.
None of that decides whether anyone will invest. It only decides whether a serious person can check your story quickly. That is why this section is written as evidence preparation, and why the page begins with the plain statement that WE does not promise funding.
The self-check below lists twelve statements. Tick the ones that are true today and it shows you what is left, with a link to the guide or playbook that helps. It does not score you, and nothing you tick is stored or sent anywhere.
The guides cover the readiness checklist, the data room, how a SAFE works in general terms, a term sheet checklist, answers to security questionnaires, pricing experiments, customer interview synthesis and investor updates. The library holds the matching templates. The guides are general information. For anything specific to your company, ask your own lawyer.
Confirm each statement that is true today. Nothing you tick here is saved or sent anywhere. The result is a list of gaps to work on, not a score, and it does not predict whether any company will raise money. WE makes no promise of funding.
In this section
- Investor readiness checklist Twelve statements that show a SaaS company has its evidence in order, each with the artifact that proves it and where to start if it is missing.
- The seed data room What a seed-stage data room is, the folders it usually holds, and how to keep it organized and current without exposing anything it should not.
- SAFEs in plain language A plain-language explanation of the SAFE, a short contract for future shares: how it works, the terms to know and questions for your own lawyer.
- Investor updates How to write a short, consistent progress update for investors, advisers and supporters, with a fixed structure and honest numbers.
- Customer interview synthesis How to turn a set of customer interview notes into findings: separate what people did from what they said, cluster the notes and report what you do not know.
- Pricing experiments How to test a first SaaS price without guessing: write a hypothesis, change one thing, record what each customer does and decide before you look.
- Security questionnaire answers How to answer a customer security questionnaire honestly: build an answer library, say what you do and do not have, and keep every answer provable.
- Term sheet checklist A checklist of questions to answer before you sign a term sheet: what each section covers, what to ask, and what to bring to your own counsel.
Readiness, drawn as a shape
Six areas carry most of the questions a careful reader asks: entity and ownership records, IP and compliance, product and technology, market and traction, financials, and team and governance. Readiness is the shape those six make together. A gap on one side shows long before a meeting does.
The work is to close the weakest sides first with records a stranger can open, then check the same six areas again a month later.
- Baseline at the diagnostic
- A later review
The six areas: Entity and ownership records, IP and compliance, Product and technology, Market and traction, Financials, Team and governance.
- Baseline The diagnostic records where each area starts, with the evidence behind it.
- Review Each review checks the same six areas against the records the company keeps.
- Close the gaps The plan targets the weakest sides first, so the shape grows evenly.
Illustration only; the shapes are not real scores.
An illustration of how a review reads a company. No scores, weights or thresholds. WE makes no promise of funding.
The funding clock is measured in years
For the companies that raise venture money at all, rounds come about two years apart, and a priced Series A arrives at the median when the company is close to three. Preparation is a habit kept for that long, not a sprint before one meeting.
- Year 1 77.9% still operating 1
- Year 2.8 Series A, at the median 2 Age of a venture-backed company when it raises
- Year 3.5 Established 3 Forty-two months of paying wages
- Year 5 51.4% still operating 1
- Year 7.4 Series D, at the median 2 Most companies never reach this round
- Year 9.5 Series E and later, at the median 2 The private life of a venture-backed company
- Year 10 34.7% still operating 1
Rounds are medians for venture-backed companies on Carta; the gates are the share of all new U.S. businesses still operating. Most companies never raise venture money.
These figures describe the wider market, not WE's results. WE makes no promise of funding.
What a prepared company keeps
Two things carry a conversation with an investor: one folder where every claim has a record behind it, and a plain sequence for each meeting, with your own counsel at the end.
A seed data room, folder by folder
- Index The file a stranger opens first
- One row per document
- Gaps noted with a date
- 1. Company That the company exists and who owns it
- Formation documents
- Current cap table
- 2. Product What exists
- Roadmap
- Deferred decisions
- 3. Customers Who committed to what
- Signed pilot scopes
- Conversation log summary
- 4. Metrics and finance Numbers defined once
- Metric definitions
- Monthly figures
- 5. People and contracts That the company owns its work
- Assignments of work
- 6. Intellectual property What the company controls
- Repositories and who controls them
- 7. Security and privacy Where customer data lives
- Data inventory
- Access list
- 8. Legal Obligations taken on
- Customer agreements
- 9. Updates A history of reporting
- Dated investor updates
From a first note to a signed document
- Introduction A short note on the company and what you are raising for.
- First meeting The story, the evidence, and the questions you cannot answer yet.
- Overview folders Company, product and metrics first, from the data room index.
- Diligence Claims checked against records; sensitive folders opened when needed.
- Terms or a pass A term sheet, a no, or a request to stay in touch.
- Your counsel Your own lawyer reads any terms before you sign.
Four figures to plan around
These figures describe the wider market, not WE's results. WE makes no promise of funding.
Prepare with a team that steers the work
Service Line F covers fundability and investor readiness inside the program. WE prepares the evidence. The raise itself, and the legal advice around it, stay with you and your own counsel.