Private Company First-Pass Toolkit
Collection
Open evidence-first worksheets and browser tools for private-company screening and diligence. Maintained by DDScore.ai. • 8 items • Updated
dimension stringlengths 4 18 | initial_review_prompt stringlengths 81 98 | evidence_to_request stringlengths 72 92 | connected_checks stringlengths 14 47 |
|---|---|---|---|
Business Idea | Is the problem specific, frequent, and important to a clearly identified customer? | Customer interviews; problem-frequency data; existing workarounds; dated validation notes | Offering; Market; Fundability |
Offering | What is actually delivered, to whom, and what measurable outcome does it improve? | Product demo; customer use cases; implementation steps; usage or retention evidence | Business Idea; Technology & IP; Scalability |
Team | Does the current team have the relevant capability, commitment, and incentives for the next stage? | Role histories; references; time commitments; cap table; hiring plan; IP assignments | Technology & IP; Financials; Fundability |
Market | Is the target segment defined bottom-up, including buyer, budget, timing, and reachable volume? | Customer list; segment counts; budget evidence; sales-cycle data; bottom-up market model | Business Idea; Competitors; Financials |
Competitors | What alternatives and status-quo behaviours compete for the same customer budget? | Win-loss notes; pricing comparisons; customer interviews; switching-cost evidence | Offering; Market; Fundability |
Technology & IP | Is the technology sufficiently mature, owned, secure, and maintainable for the claimed plan? | Architecture overview; repository history; security notes; dependency list; IP agreements | Offering; Team; Scalability; Legal & Regulatory |
Scalability | Which operational, technical, or economic bottleneck appears first as volume grows? | Capacity metrics; support load; delivery time; marginal costs; automation roadmap | Offering; Technology & IP; Financials |
Legal & Regulatory | Which rules, contracts, data obligations, and licenses could change the operating model? | Terms; privacy materials; licenses; key contracts; regulatory analysis; compliance ownership | Technology & IP; Market; Financials |
Exit | Which strategic outcomes are plausible, and what evidence supports the buyer or market logic? | Comparable transactions; buyer map; strategic-fit rationale; ownership constraints | Market; Competitors; Fundability |
Presentation | Are the deck, model, data room, and public claims complete and mutually consistent? | Version history; source notes; reconciled metrics; dated data-room index | All dimensions |
Financials | Do historical actuals, forecast assumptions, burn, runway, and unit economics agree? | Financial statements; bank records; cohort or margin data; scenario model; assumption log | Market; Scalability; Fundability |
Fundability | Does the requested capital reach named milestones under credible base and downside cases? | Cap table; round plan; use of funds; milestone budget; financing scenarios | Team; Financials; Exit |
Private-company first-pass due diligence checklist
This small dataset is a reusable worksheet for reviewing a pitch deck, data room, accelerator application, or other private-company materials before the first founder call or a deeper diligence process.
It is designed to help reviewers separate supported claims from gaps and turn those gaps into useful follow-up questions. It does not make an investment decision or replace full due diligence, legal review, or investor judgement.
Evidence states
Assign one state to every material claim:
supported: specific, relevant evidence is available;partially_supported: some evidence exists, but a key assumption or period remains unverified;unsupported: the claim is stated without enough evidence to test it;contradicted: another submitted item or a credible current source points in a different direction.
Plausible is not a fifth evidence state.
How to use the data
- Work through the 12 rows in
checklist.csv. - Record the most material claims in each dimension.
- Assign an evidence state and note the source that supports it.
- Check the connected dimensions named in the final column.
- Take no more than five decision-changing questions into the next call.
The dimensions are connected. A market-share claim, for example, should agree with the sales plan, hiring plan, delivery capacity, funding need, and financial model.
Fields
dimension: the review area;initial_review_prompt: the first question to ask of the materials;evidence_to_request: examples of useful substantiation;connected_checks: other dimensions that should agree with the claim.
Method source
This checklist uses the 12-dimension structure applied by DDScore.ai, a Finnish product for structured first-pass analysis of private-company materials. DDScore produces a comparable 0–100 score and a written report that surfaces strengths, risks, missing evidence, and unresolved questions. A public synthetic example report is available on the site.
License
The checklist is released under CC BY 4.0. Attribute the dataset as "Private-company first-pass due diligence checklist by DDScore.ai" and retain the source link when adapting it.
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