For funds, syndicates and corporate finance teams
Most inbound opportunities are screened on limited information.
Deal flow arrives with uneven levels of information and readiness. Early screening often happens in the first few slides, within minutes, by whoever opens the deck. The time spent before that is difficult to recover; the reasoning after the decision is often difficult to reconstruct.
The filtering problem
A consistent screen, with the reason recorded.
Inbound arrives with different levels of fit and evidence. The initial decision may be sound, but the criteria and reasoning are not always recorded, so the same company can be read differently over time.
You define and weight the criteria. Each company is then read against your stated thesis rather than a generic screen. The threshold remains yours, and the record states why the company did or did not clear it.
Companies below the threshold are not necessarily a final rejection. If they rescore, you can review whether their position has changed.
Illustrative only; not observed data. The example shows how a stated thesis can be applied consistently.
Your criteria, made explicit
Start with a structured set of criteria, then adapt it to the thesis.
Investors do not always have their criteria written down, and completed investments may not match the criteria they would draft in the abstract. The method provides a starting point that you can weight and amend, using a fixed budget of votes. Marking a criterion mission-critical uses more of that budget, so the weighting forces a small number of priorities.
The weighting sits over the canonical score. It ranks and filters against your thesis but does not alter the underlying result, so companies remain comparable on the published instrument.
- Your criteria on the record, weighted and revisable
- Inbound companies read against your weighting rather than a generic screen
- A consistent position on each company, using the same stated criteria
- A recorded reason for each screening decision
How matching behaves
No spraying. Terms agreed before any introduction.
Both sides opt in
A company chooses to enter matching. You see companies that clear your weighted threshold. Nothing is forwarded anywhere without the company choosing it.
In writing, in advance
The terms of an introduction are shown to both sides and agreed before it’s made, including who the company is already talking to, so nobody is introduced into a conversation that exists.
Not a one-off event
Matches refresh as companies rescore. A company two fixes short of your threshold today may clear it next quarter, and you see that happen.
Evidence for the next fund
Build the portfolio record before you need to use it.
A first fund begins building the case for its successor before exits exist. One question is whether the portfolio has moved, and how that movement is evidenced.
Measured twice a year on a versioned instrument, movement can be recorded per company from the start of investment. The record cannot be reconstructed reliably later, so it needs to begin at baseline.
| Measure | Current view | With the portfolio on the instrument |
|---|---|---|
| Inbound filtering | Manual screening, often completed in minutes, with limited record of the reasoning | Read against your weighted criteria, consistently |
| Portfolio progress between rounds | Board-pack narrative and lagging revenue measures | Movement per company, twice a year, on the same published scale |
| The evidence pack for your own investors | Prepared separately, with variable supporting evidence | Built from the measurement record and independently checkable where a reference is available |
| Post-investment support | Broad or generic offer | Directed towards each company’s indicated constraint |
A result you can check
A founder can send a report. A reference lets you check that it is current and produced by the published method, rather than rely on an undated slide.
- Confirm a result without requesting the underlying answers
- See when it was taken, so an older figure is not mistaken for a current position
- See the method version, so two companies can be read on the same published scale
- See the evidence level, so self-assessed is not mistaken for verified
A reference confirms four things only: that the result is real, which method version produced it, when it was taken and whether it is still current, and its evidence level. Never the score, the company name or any answer. How the register works. Verification is specified and not yet live
The line you report against
One published yardstick across the portfolio.
Band distribution at two points in time, using one instrument applied consistently across the portfolio. A weaker-looking holding can be compared with the same measure as a stronger-looking holding, with the indicated reason recorded rather than reconstructed from a board meeting.
Downward movement is reported alongside upward movement. It gives the portfolio team a clear set of companies to discuss and investigate.
The result is not a valuation input, mark or follow-on decision on its own. Companies see their own result in full; that is part of the operating boundary.
What each company receives
A ten-page report the founder receives in full: position, capability against momentum, the root cause indicated by the result and the first fix. The participant sees the reasoning and next action as well as the score.
Free to the company, whether or not it later enters a conversation with the fund. The same result aggregates into institutional reporting, giving both audiences a common record rather than separate views that can diverge.
What changes in the job
- Each screening decision has a recorded reason that can be reviewed later
- Execution risk is visible before it hits the investment case, not at the board meeting after
- Portfolio support can be directed towards each company’s indicated constraint, rather than offered in the same form to all
- Board reporting gains a comparable measure across companies at different stages and in different sectors
- The next fund has evidence that the portfolio moved, built from day one rather than reconstructed
Corporate finance
Your client relationship stays with you. Growth Score adds a common measurement layer.
Advisers can bring their clients onto the instrument while retaining the relationship, mandate and fee. The potential gain is less preparation work and a clearer evidence pack for their own investors.
Terms are agreed in writing before anything is introduced.
Growth Score does not claim to predict investment or improve the likelihood of investment. It reports a position and its movement; it does not replace investment judgement.