Deal Screening Criteria Template
Three documents and three sheets that screen on three values, so a figure the deck never stated stops counting as a figure that missed.
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Screening Criteria
[Fund] — Inbound Screening Criteria
Every criterion resolves to yes, no, or the deck did not say. The third value is the one this space exists to keep.
Stage 1. Mandate gates
A deck failing any gate is declined on stated facts, the same day, with no follow-up question attached.
| Gate | Threshold | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Stage and round size | — | The round being raised now, not the total ever raised |
| Sector | — | The thesis as written, not the partner’s current interest |
| Geography | — | Where the team and the customers are, not where the entity is registered |
Stage 2. Threshold criteria
| Criterion | Threshold | Definition that makes it checkable |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring revenue | — | — |
| Growth | — | — |
| Net dollar retention | — | — |
| Gross margin | — | — |
| Burn multiple | — | — |
| Founder evidence | — | — |
Write the number even where it feels arbitrary. One arbitrary threshold applied to sixty decks a week is a policy. A vague one applied sixty times is sixty policies.
The advance rule
How many criteria must be met, and how many may be unmet, before a deck advances. Fixed before the week starts rather than argued deck by deck.
Sixty decks arrive in a week. Twenty-seven decline at the mandate gate on stated facts. Thirty reach the threshold criteria, where 72 of the 180 criterion cells were never stated at all. Two advance, thirteen decline, and fifteen cannot be decided either way. On a scorecard those fifteen score low and get binned with the three unclear gates, which makes eighteen of the week's fifty-eight declines an absence rather than a fact.
Every screening scorecard rates each criterion one to ten, weights the dimensions and totals them. A company with a 41 per cent gross margin scores low. A company whose deck never mentioned gross margin scores low too, because there is nothing else to type. The same collapse shows up in portfolio reporting, where an absent figure is not a bad quarter. This screen has a third value and a rule that uses it: a verdict is a verdict only when no assignment of the missing fields would change it. Everything else is a request.
That same rule also cuts the number of requests. Twenty-eight of the thirty screened decks carry a blank; only fifteen need an email, because in thirteen the answer could not have moved the verdict. The mandate gates are not preference either. Rule 203(l)-1 caps a venture capital fund at 20 per cent of its committed capital in assets that are not qualifying investments, and the Marketing Rule expects an adviser to substantiate a material claim on demand.
What is in the pack
Screening Criteria
Two stages of criterion, each with the threshold as a number and the definition that makes it checkable, plus an advance rule a sheet can evaluate
Screen Result
One row per deck and one column per criterion, three values and no score, with the arithmetic behind each verdict written out in the row
Missing Information Log
Every blank with the load-bearing test computed, so a field the deck omitted only becomes an email when the answer would move the verdict
Pipeline Register
The object of record, with five stages, five verdict phrasings and source attribution captured at arrival rather than reconstructed later
Follow-up Question Set
One question per criterion, asking for the input rather than the metric, so a reply resolves the criterion instead of restarting the definition argument
Pass Note Templates
Four notes, one per way a deck leaves the funnel, each naming the actual reason instead of saying the timing is not right when timing is not the reason
The blank rule
A standing instruction that nothing in the space averages, weights or totals the three values, because one number cannot hold a fact and a gap at once
How it works
- 1
Put numbers on the criteria
Every criterion gets a threshold as a number and the definition that makes it checkable. Strong growth cannot be met or not met, so it becomes 100 per cent year on year.
- 2
Screen on three values
Met, not met, or never stated. A figure computed on a definition you cannot reconcile is never stated, not met. Nothing gets a score.
- 3
Compute the verdict
Enumerate every way the blanks could come back. If they all agree, that is the verdict. If they disagree, the deck is undetermined and the output is a request.
- 4
Send one email each
Only for blanks that move the verdict, with every one of them in the same message. Everything else gets a pass note or a meeting the same day.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a third outcome matter this much?
Because it is usually the biggest pile. In the worked week it is fifteen decks against two advances and thirteen declines. A scorecard cannot represent it, so all fifteen score low and leave the funnel looking like decisions when they were never decided. That undecided pile is what later fills a deal pipeline nobody trusts.
Will this generate more follow-up emails, not fewer?
Fewer. Twenty-eight of thirty screened decks carry a blank, and a chaser working from completeness emails all twenty-eight. The load-bearing test cuts that to fifteen, because in thirteen the missing figure could not have changed a verdict that was already settled.
Our criteria are not written down. Does this still work?
That is the normal starting point, and the first pass turns whatever you say into numbers and reads them back for correction. Correcting a proposed threshold is much faster than supplying one, and a criterion without a number can only be scored by impression. Where those numbers should come from is the thesis itself.
Is sixty decks a week realistic to screen properly?
Most of it costs almost nothing. Twenty-seven of the sixty fail a mandate gate on something the deck itself says, which needs no follow-up and no thought. Clearing those first is what leaves time to read the thirty that reached the criteria.
Does it decide anything or rank the deals?
Neither, and the boundary is deliberate. It sorts inbound against thresholds you set and names what to ask for. Nothing here scores or ranks companies against each other. Reading one deck closely is a separate job, which is what pitch deck analysis does.
What happens to a deck once it advances?
It leaves this space. The screen answers whether to take a first meeting, not whether to invest. What to actually ask in that meeting is a separate question, ranked by what the deck cannot answer, in the first-meeting question set. The document a partnership eventually votes from is a different artifact again, built by the investment committee memo pack.
What format are the downloaded files?
Word documents for the criteria, question set and pass notes, and CSV for the three sheets. The documents open in Word, Pages and Google Docs. The sheets open in Excel, Numbers and Sheets with the columns intact, and nothing needs converting.
Find out how many of last week's passes were never decisions
Send a week of inbound and your criteria, however rough. The first pass returns the three verdict counts and the decks that need one email each.
Screen my inbound