VC Deal Pipeline Tracking Template
Two documents and three sheets that date every deal by its last evidenced contact, so a dormant deal stops counting toward the forecast.
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Pipeline Definition Note
[Fund] — Pipeline Stages, Defined In Evidence
Each stage is defined by a document or an event that exists, not by a level of enthusiasm. A stage nobody can falsify is a stage that drifts.
1. The stages, defined in evidence
| Stage | Enters when | Evidence on file | Leaves when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sourced | — | — | — |
| Screened | — | — | — |
| Met | — | — | — |
| Diligence | — | — | — |
| Committee | — | — | — |
3. Two conversion rates from one history
The same pipeline produces one rate counting every row and another counting only the rows whose stage has its evidence on file. Both get stated, with the count behind each.
| Transition | All rows | Evidenced rows only | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sourced to screened | — | — | — |
| Screened to met | — | — | — |
| Met to diligence | — | — | — |
| Diligence to committee | — | — | — |
The difference between the two columns is the size of the hygiene problem, not a fact about the market. A dashboard showing one rate is showing the flattering one by accident.
7. Source attribution, and the mix that matters
Where each row came from, counted by what progressed rather than by what arrived.
A seed fund's CRM holds 198 open deals. The dashboard multiplies the stage counts by the firm's own conversion rates and reports 31.1 new investments coming. Joined to the mail and calendar record, 44 of those deals were touched inside their stage's own dormancy window and 154 were not. 16 appear nowhere in the record at all. Those 198 deals will produce 6.3 investments rather than 31.1, and the fund closes 11.3 a year.
Every venture pipeline template ships the same board: Sourced, Screening, First Meeting, Diligence, IC, Term Sheet. The better ones sync your inbox so you type less, then compute conversion off the stage field anyway. Two errors follow and they point the same way. Stalled deals are never marked lost, so the counts inflate. Conversion is advanced over advanced plus lost, so those same deals leave the denominator. The same collapse runs through screening inbound, where an absent figure is not a failed one.
Smaller is not the same as right, so the corrected number gets checked twice. Working 11.3 closes a year back up the funnel implies 403 screened deals annually, and the fund screened 403. Applying the dwell times predicts 45 live deals, and the join found 44. Against a plan of 12, 201 companies still have to be sourced. For a registered adviser this correspondence is already retained under the books and records rule, and a written standard reviewed annually is the shape the compliance rule expects.
What is in the pack
Pipeline Register
One row per open deal, dated by its last evidenced contact, with the stage threshold, live or dormant, the partner actually corresponding, and both the recorded and the evidenced source.
Data Quality Report
Five exception types counted, each with its share of the register, its count at First Meeting or beyond, what it costs and the action. Plus the union and the complement, so the number reads as a register problem rather than an indictment.
Source Attribution
The recorded mix against the mix the first evidenced touch supports, then the mix among live deals only, which is the one a sourcing decision should use. What that sourcing is drawing from is counted in the market map.
Pipeline Definition Note
Each stage defined by the artifact that has to exist, both conversion rates from one history, the yield decomposition, two independent checks, and the sourcing requirement that follows.
Data Entry Standard
Three mandatory fields and no more, the weekly cycle, and the default-closed rule that clears the sediment. Last-touch date is deliberately not a field anybody maintains by hand.
A stage is a claim about evidence
The space rule. Each stage names an artifact, the artifact has to exist, and absence of evidence raises a question for a named partner rather than settling one. The same one-way reading governs a portfolio company that has gone quiet.
How it works
- 1
Join the register to the record
Send the CRM export and the mail and calendar record for the whole team, not only the recorded owners. Every open deal gets dated by its last evidenced contact, matched on the company.
- 2
Derive the thresholds from your own history
Twice the median evidenced dwell of deals that advanced out of each stage. In the worked example that runs from 22 days at Screened to 68 days in Diligence, so one firm-wide rule fails.
- 3
Compute conversion both ways
Once on resolved deals only, once on everything that entered each stage. In the worked example 94 of 604 screened deals were never resolved at all, and that wedge compounds across five stages.
- 4
Turn the corrected number into a sourcing figure
Run both checks, present the yield as a decomposition rather than one smaller figure, then divide the gap against plan by your screened-to-closed rate. The answer is a count of companies, not a verdict.
Frequently asked questions
Why not just add a last-contacted field to the CRM?
Because it is the field most likely to be wrong when a person maintains it. Deriving it from the mail and calendar record every time the register rebuilds costs nobody any typing and cannot go stale. In the worked example 15 deals had an owner who had gone silent while a different partner was actively corresponding.
Is 78 per cent dormant not just a badly run fund?
It is arithmetic, not negligence. Over the historical window 94 of 604 screened deals were never explicitly resolved, 15.6 per cent. Carry that rate across a fund's life and it predicts about 178 stale rows. 154 were found. Sediment accumulates from inaction, which is why only a default that acts on inaction clears it.
My CRM already syncs my inbox. Is this not the same thing?
Sync saves you typing. It does not use the record to invalidate a stage, and it does not change the denominator conversion is computed on. A synced inbox and a stage field reading Diligence still produce 31.1 expected investments from a register that will deliver 6.3. Capture is not verification, the same way a deck's stated figure is not an established one.
What if a deal is live but the conversation happened on a call?
Then the mail record misses it, which is why the rule cuts one way only. Evidence promotes a deal to live, and absence of evidence raises a question rather than settling one. Every dormant deal goes on a list a named partner answers, and a partner who says a deal is live re-dates it with a note.
Does this tell me which sources produce my best deals?
No. It tells you whether the source field is accurate and which channels are currently live, which are different questions. Ranking by quality needs realized outcomes, which is what a dedicated source-outcome register computes. A category supplying a fifth of the register and none of the closes is a finding that live-versus-recorded counts alone cannot reach.
Does the corrected number replace my annual forecast?
No, and reading it that way repeats the original error in the other direction. It is the expected yield of the deals already in the register, which resolve inside four quarters at these dwell times. Most of next year's investments are in companies nobody has seen yet, which is what the sourcing figure is for.
Does it replace the CRM, or write back to it?
Neither. The CRM stays the system of record and nothing here writes to it, because a system that silently corrects the record destroys the only signal that the entry standard is being ignored. Deals that clear the register still feed the investment committee memo.
Find out how many of your open deals are still deals
Send the CRM export and the mail and calendar record behind it. The first pass dates every open deal, marks the dormant ones, and says what the register will actually produce.
Reconcile my pipeline