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VC Portfolio Company Support Template

Three documents and three sheets that close every support request on a recorded outcome, not on the introduction or the candidate slate being sent.

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Support Delivered Log

[Fund] — Delivered Requests, This Period

Every delivered request gets an outcome status before it counts as closed, not before the action happens.

Outcome status

CompanyCategoryOutcome StatusOutcome
Unknown

Delivered and outcome unknown are not the same state as declined. The action happened. Nobody has checked back since.

Kestrel Ventures logged twenty-four support requests from its twelve portfolio companies in the first quarter of 2026: enterprise BD introductions, engineering hiring help, follow-on introductions, PR and launch support, and technical advisory. Eighteen were delivered, four declined, two still open. Split the eighteen delivered requests by outcome and the number that matters drops again: eleven have a recorded result, a signed contract, a hire, a term sheet. The other seven are introductions made and candidate slates sent, with no update logged since either happened.

Hiring support shows the widest gap of the five categories: five requests delivered, one with a recorded outcome. Enterprise BD and follow-on introductions look almost as strong as technical advisory and PR on delivery alone, six and two delivered, but fall once an outcome is required too. An introduction depends on a third party's own hiring or fundraising timeline. A technical review or a placed story usually resolves inside one conversation. A portfolio-wide "value-add" number that folds all five categories together, the way most funds report it beside the quarterly cash position, buries that difference.

Limited partners already ask for the evidence this log produces. ILPA's Due Diligence Questionnaire asks a GP directly to provide case studies illustrating the firm's value creation capabilities, a request a register with no outcome column cannot answer. A survey of venture capitalists found seventy-two per cent report helping companies connect with future investors, and sixty-nine per cent report customer introductions. The survey measures what a VC says it does, not what got recorded when one specific introduction closed or died.

Eighteen requests delivered this quarter, eleven with a recorded outcome, and hiring the widest gap of the five categories

The Request Register, the Support Delivered Log, the Introduction Tracker and the Support Offering.

Request Register

Kestrel Ventures, illustrative, Q1 2026. 10 of 24 rows shown. Every request is logged the day it is raised, including the ones that get declined or are still open.

CompanyCategoryDate raisedStatus
Oakcastle HealthEnterprise BD intro2026-01-12Delivered
Thornfield AnalyticsHiring support2026-01-20Delivered
Hazelwick SystemsFollow-on intro2026-01-22Delivered
Stonebridge FreightTechnical advisory2026-01-28Delivered
Corvid AnalyticsEnterprise BD intro2026-02-05Delivered
Fenrose SystemsHiring support2026-02-14Delivered
Elsmere HealthEnterprise BD intro2026-03-13Declined
Gantry LogisticsPR / launch support2026-03-16Declined
Fenrose SystemsEnterprise BD intro2026-03-24Open
Corvid AnalyticsFollow-on intro2026-03-27Open

24 requests, 18 delivered, 4 declined, 2 still open at the end of the quarter. Declined always carries a stated reason, not a general "unable to help."

Support Delivered Log

The 18 delivered requests from the register above. 10 of 18 rows shown. Outcome Status is Recorded or Unknown, never left blank.

CompanyCategoryOutcome statusOutcome
Oakcastle HealthEnterprise BD introRecordedSigned, $185,000 ARR, 6 weeks
Millbrook LogisticsEnterprise BD introRecordedSigned, $95,000 ARR, 10 weeks
Thornfield AnalyticsHiring supportRecordedHired, 9 weeks from first candidate
Hazelwick SystemsFollow-on introRecordedTerm sheet issued, 14 weeks later
Corvid AnalyticsEnterprise BD introUnknownIntro made, no update since
Duncastle FreightEnterprise BD introUnknownIntro made, no update since
Fenrose SystemsHiring supportUnknown2 candidates sent, no word
Gantry LogisticsHiring supportUnknown1 candidate sent, no word
Harrowgate DataHiring supportUnknown3 candidates sent, no word
Millbrook LogisticsHiring supportUnknown1 candidate sent, no word

11 of 18 delivered requests have a recorded outcome. 7 do not. Hiring support is the widest gap: 5 delivered, 1 recorded, and all 4 unrecorded rows are shown above rather than folded into an aggregate rate.

Introduction Tracker

The BD, hiring and follow-on rows from the delivered log, all 13 shown, isolated because "did the introduction work" is usually the first question anyone asks.

CompanyIntroduction typeOutcome status
Oakcastle HealthEnterprise BD introRecorded
Millbrook LogisticsEnterprise BD introRecorded
Bramwell RoboticsEnterprise BD introRecorded
Corvid AnalyticsEnterprise BD introUnknown
Duncastle FreightEnterprise BD introUnknown
Elsmere HealthEnterprise BD introRecorded
Thornfield AnalyticsHiring supportRecorded
Fenrose SystemsHiring supportUnknown
Gantry LogisticsHiring supportUnknown
Harrowgate DataHiring supportUnknown
Millbrook LogisticsHiring supportUnknown
Hazelwick SystemsFollow-on introRecorded
Oakcastle HealthFollow-on introRecorded

7 of 13 introductions have a recorded outcome, 53.8 percent, against 80 percent for technical advisory and PR combined. An introduction depends on a third party’s own timeline; a review or a placed story resolves in one conversation.

Support Offering

What the fund tells a company on the day it joins, including this period’s real numbers rather than a capability list alone.

What is available

Enterprise BD introductions, engineering hiring support, follow-on fundraise introductions, PR and launch support, technical advisory, and international expansion help where the fund has a relationship.

This quarter, by the numbers

CategoryDeliveredRecorded outcome
Enterprise BD intro64
Hiring support51
Follow-on intro22
PR / launch support21
Technical advisory33

Hiring support’s recorded rate is stated here on purpose. A low rate is a reason to tighten the check-back, not a reason to drop the category from the offering or hide the number.

What's in the pack

01

Request Register

Every incoming request logged the day it is raised, company, category and status, including declined and still-open ones

02

Support Delivered Log

The delivered subset, with an Outcome Status of Recorded or Unknown on every row, never left blank

03

Introduction Tracker

BD, hiring and follow-on introductions isolated from technical and PR support, because an introduction resolves on someone else's timeline

04

Support Offering

What the fund tells a company on the day it joins, refreshed quarterly with that period's delivered and recorded counts

05

Introduction Protocol

How a request becomes a logged introduction, who owns the check-back and on what schedule, and what closes an outcome

06

Playbook Set

Per-category playbooks defining what counts as an outcome for BD, hiring, follow-on, PR and technical requests before the quarter starts

How it works

  1. 1

    Log every request

    Company, category and the date it was raised, the day it comes in. Delivered, declined or open, and a declined request always carries a stated reason.

  2. 2

    Deliver and set a check-back date

    A delivered request gets an owner and a date to check back, matched to the category's playbook: weeks for a technical review, a full quarter for a follow-on introduction.

  3. 3

    Record Recorded or Unknown

    Every delivered request closes with an outcome status, never a blank cell. Recorded means a specific result. Unknown means the action happened and nobody has confirmed what it led to since.

  4. 4

    Roll up by category, not by portfolio

    Compare the recorded rate for introductions against technical and PR support separately, because a category-wide number is what a single blended rate always hides.

Frequently asked questions

Why track outcomes instead of just what was delivered?

Because delivered only means the action happened, an introduction sent or a candidate slate forwarded. Whether it led anywhere is a separate fact that nobody logs by default. In the worked example eighteen of twenty-four requests are delivered, but only eleven of those eighteen carry a recorded result.

Why isolate introductions from technical and PR support?

Because they resolve on different clocks. A technical review or a placed story is usually answered in one conversation, which is why both record at a high rate here. A BD or follow-on introduction depends on a third party's own hiring or fundraising timeline, and can sit at Unknown for months without anyone having failed at anything.

How does this differ from board meeting prep?

Board prep reads one company's pack against its own prior minutes ahead of a single meeting. This tracks a different document entirely, every support request across the whole portfolio, and stays open between meetings rather than resetting each cycle. The board meeting prep pack is the per-company, per-meeting complement to this portfolio-wide log.

Does a recorded outcome feed the reserve decision?

It is an input, not the decision. A company whose BD introductions keep converting is a different reserve conversation than one where five hiring requests went out and one came back with a result. Follow-on and reserve analysis is where that gets modelled against ownership and remaining capital.

Does this evidence feed the next fundraise too?

Yes, that is usually where a recorded outcome gets used. A specific instance, a named company and a checkable result, is what a founder reference can confirm and what a claim with no record cannot survive. Competitive round and allocation checks exactly that claim before it goes in front of a syndicate.

Does it replace the investment committee memo?

No. The memo carries the thesis and the definitions a position was taken on, at entry. This pack tracks what the fund actually did for the company afterward and whether it worked, which is a different question the investment committee memo was never built to answer.

What format are the downloaded files?

Word documents for the support offering, the introduction protocol and the playbook set, 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 no conversion step in between.

Find out which requests never got a recorded outcome

Send this quarter's request log, however you track it today. The first pass separates delivered from recorded and flags every request still open.

Log this quarter's support