The VC Partners Meeting
The notorious the Monday Morning Partners’ Meeting or just the Partners Meeting which usually refers to the weekly meeting at venture capital firms where all the firms partners get together and review deals. For some firms, investment decisions are decided at this meeting.
So what happens in these meetings? For each firm operates differently. The main activities are initial startup review, startup pitch, and investment committee.
Initial Startup Review
Since we have multiple teams and partners operating independently each team and partner will get 10–15 minutes to present their top 2–3 startups they have spoken to that week. In the meeting the partners will provide preliminary feedback to the lead which can be a junior team member. The purpose is for the partners and teammates to share their knowledge in relation to the deal based on the history of usually thousands of deals and subject matter expertise in an area.
Also, our ‘Startup Snapshot’ to review the high level information we have collected on each startup.
Startup Pitch
After due diligence, for select investments, we may require one of the founders to come present to the partners for a final meeting. This meeting can take place in-person or virtually. This meeting will last 30–45 minutes where the founder will plan to present for 15, but will more likely get peppered with questions. At this point the partners would have read the investment committee memo written by a junior team member summarizing the due diligence completed. At this meeting the partners may already have completed an investment committee, which we will cover next.
Investment Committees (The ‘IC’)
When a lead on the investment team has completed due diligence, described more in our post on our investment process, the analyses are packaged into a single memorandum called the ‘IC Memo’. At some other investment firms this is a PowerPoint presentation. The lead schedules a 90-minute meeting and at this meeting presents their findings from due diligence to the investment committee. The investment committee is made up of the partners and may include independent directors, subject matter experts, and guest investors.
After discussions and review of the IC deck the partners will decide if an investment should be made. The decision can either be a ‘hard pass’, a ‘soft yes’ pending follow up due diligence, or a clear ‘yes’. If there is follow up due diligence the lead will complete the pending due diligence items and schedule an ad hoc meeting with the partners to review for a final decision. If there is a clear ‘yes’ the startup continued to the next phase — closing the deal. About 70–80% of startups that make it to the investment committee phase receive investment.
The investment committees are usually held toward the end of the meeting after the initial startup reviews and pitch presentations.
If you have feedback, or even better, your own stories related to Partners Meetings, as a founder or an investor — leave a comment, share your story!
Best,
