Venture Capital LP One Pager

Fundraising in venture capital isn’t for the faint-hearted. Whilst founders might groan about the struggles of raising a $2m angel round, try raising $50m for a first-time fund to have enough MF to deliver on the value add thesis you dreamed up (Tl;dr good luck unless you are a big dog!)!

It’s not just a larger number; it’s a different game for which you are entirely unqualified for, but can’t admit, nor Google to check if you are delusional!

Whether you are raising your first fund or are an experienced manager looking to up your game, you know that your massive network (which helps your portco) doesn’t extend to LPs. You will ping your network, but rapidly you’ll be running a process with warm and cold outreach.

The first piece of information you will use to get an intro with most LPs you don’t know will be a “one-pager” (Yes, this world is more akin to banking).

Note: It will be painful to hear for some, but it needs to be said… the moment you leave your big-name firm, you’re starting all over again, so be prepared to make your first intro all over again!

You will get used as a GP to being hounded by founders (Being pitched at the urinal is a right of passage for men). be aware that even with tact (armed with a 25-year-old Macallan), LPs will feel hunted by you too!

Fortunately, if you can engage them, most LPs are open to giving you a few minutes of attention in an email (or take a meeting if through a qualified intro). But the issue us that they are triaging, have their own bias’, and they sales cycle can be enterprise level.

They know what they want, so if you aren’t already on fund 3, covered by Cambridge Associates as being top quartile, and that slightly creepy avuncular ‘friend’ from the 19th hole isn’t vouching for you, things aren’t so simple.

You have to suck it up and do as founders do, and work your way into LPs. The difference to startups is that you can get away with not sending a deck upfront- you can send something shorter, which is, in fact, preferable (or expected) for many.

Welcome to the VC one-pager

You want this to be concise, and compelling, but not thorough. It may feel as though a one-pager doesn’t share everything a LP needs to know, and that’s absolutely right! That is exactly the point. Your one-pager has only one objective, to get a meeting.

The goal of your first meeting is to get another meeting. It’s the same as startups.

LPs only need core information to get hooked and move the process forward. If you follow these guidelines and work to augment the content and presentation of your document, you will be on your way towards creating an LP-ready one-pager that highlights the differentiating factors of your fund in a clear, space-efficient manner.

As you know, there is just so little information around to help VCs, so I’ve been making resources. Knocking out a one-pager seemed like an easy win since I’ve literally not been able to find one example on the net.

VC Resources

On the topic of there not being much for GPs, here are some resources for your nerd pleasure:

• VC Investment Thesis Collection
• Investment Memo Collection
• VC Fund Deck Collection
• Hedge Fund Deck Collection
• Management Consulting Presentations Collection
• Investment Banking Presentations

The VC LP one-pager template

Here’s what the template looks like in all its majestic glory.

What are the core points of an LP one-pager?

• What is this LP looking for in a good fit? Does it meet their mandate?
• How can you share that information in as few words as possible?
• Easy to read & circulate among networks
• Sell your firm and thesis to get face time with an LP for a first meeting. It is all about the escalation of commitment; it is not meant to describe your fund in full detail!
• Investors will spend 3.5 minutes reading a one-pager at the most so you need to get to the point fast

How you can mess up an LP one-pager

Under no circumstances should you feel the need to overcrowd your one-pager with too many words. You know you have so much to say… only no one wants to hear it! They don’t care, yet.

Cramming is a surefire way to ensure the LP does not even read your pitch.

• Be succinct. Every word is important. If something doesn’t sell, kill it
• Keep design basic. Do not have crazy ass colours and formatting that will detract attention from the content. This is a communication game, not a design one
• Have someone check your doc for dumb ass errors. Bad grammar and spelling will cut you at the ankles, undermining your credibility immediately
• Keep your one-pager to ONE PAGE! Seriously (Unless you are an established fund, you don’t have enough to share at this point)

As a VC you get to be all judgey to founders and their decks day in and day out, but you still do the things you hate that founders do when you go begging for cash. Don’t be that guy.

Edit this template

Every fund is different. You all have different mandates and a different ‘thesis’ to sell. In my template, you can see that I have written a ‘thematic’ investment thesis.

Most of that was jacked from Foundry Group. 99.9% of VCs don’t espouse a thematic investment thesis. If you have one, great. Sample done.

In my experience most investors invest in ‘cool stuff’ but that makes for a crap investment focus. You need to pretend you have a focus if you don’t.

My friend works at the largest FoF in Canada and he told me that a very focused investment thesis one of the key things they look for as they can get specific exposure… and it makes the VC look like they know what they are doing (Credibility).

In the purpose and vision section at the top, I have bracketed out text. This is a good structure you can feel to abuse and build on. Clearly, you need to edit it to suit you (do I really need to explain?). But let’s be honest, all VCs say the same bollox about the stage, adding value and the like, so you only really need to adjust for the stage you are at, maybe geography and if you actually have OPs or not.

If you are a global fund, you can swap the ‘senior advisors’ for the location of your offices. If you don’t have advisors but have OPs, then change that title.

If you are a sole GP, then founding partners loses an ‘s’, and track record loses the ‘joint’. If you have 4+ partners I would kill ‘senior advisors’ and move track record to where ‘senior advisors’ are.

Fund summary is pretty much everything you want to show. So just edit stage, targeted fund size, geo focus, pre-money valuation, holding period etc. I did the thinking for you, just edit it. It’s a no-brainer. One note, for ‘fund commitments’, wait till you have got to about 20-25% before you add that in. That’s about the min I think before it becomes an interesting number.

If you are not thematic, then change thematic to ‘sector’ focus. This could be something like:

• Consumer and e-commerce
  • Innovative commerce solutions that forge deeper relationships with customers and deliver a seamless, more personalized transaction experience
• Financial services
  • Services that extend consumer financial capabilities, connect institutions to the point of transaction and help consumers make better choices
• Travel and Transportation
  • Unique business models that seamlessly reduce friction and pain across transportation categories and occasions
• Health and wellness
  • Connected products and platforms that take a holistic and tailored approach to health and wellness, enabling informed choices

Icons in investment themes and thesis need to be changed to what you do. I recommend iconfinder.com as a free source. You can pay for Envato too, but iconfinder is generally easier for your needs.

Finally, there is a legal notice at the bottom. It would be a prudent idea to have a lawyer check wording for you, especially if you are in a highly regulated environment.

What’s missing

Nothing key.

This is what you show in the early stage of your process raising from LPs.

Fees and return expectations? Yup, no. Why do LPs need to know your industry average terms now? Is that really something compelling they need to know now? No. It’s not. So who cares?

After sharing your one-pager with an LP, you have a long road ahead with a series of meetings before you get a funding commitment. You cover your terms etc in the pitch deck that you send. If you need your deck written, then reach out. I’ve done a few for first-time funds in the US.

Need help on your fund material?

I work with funds on their fundraising strategy and material. Reach out to me to assist you.

Download the LP template

You can download this in PPT here:

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