Resources
Fundraising

Data Room Checklist & Guide

Everything you need in your data room before investor diligence starts - organized by category, with notes on what investors are actually looking for in each section.

Have it ready before you start fundraising, but don’t share it until an investor asks. A data room is for diligence, not for first meetings. Build it in parallel with your outreach so you’re not scrambling when a serious investor requests access.

The checklist

Company Overview
The context layer. Investors often review this first to orient themselves before digging into numbers.
Current pitch deck
The same version you used to get the meeting. Don't swap it out mid-process.
One-pager or executive summary
A single-page overview for investors who forward your materials to partners.
Product demo or walkthrough video
A 3–5 min recorded demo. Saves back-and-forth when partners can't join live calls.
Financials
The most scrutinized section. Accuracy matters more than polish - investors will build their own model from your numbers.
Historical P&L (last 2-3 years or since founding)
Monthly view preferred. If you're pre-revenue, show actuals from incorporation.
Balance sheet (current)
Current assets, liabilities, and equity. Should reconcile with your bank statements.
Cash flow statement
Actual cash in / cash out by month. Separate from the P&L.
Financial model with 3-year projections
Bottom-up, not top-down. Show your assumptions - revenue drivers, headcount plan, COGS.
Current MRR / ARR breakdown
By customer, by product line, or by cohort - whatever is most meaningful for your business.
Burn rate and runway calculation
Current monthly net burn and months of runway at current burn, clearly labeled.
Cap table
Include all share classes, option pool, SAFEs, convertible notes, and any warrants. Carta or AngelList exports work.
Legal
Investors often hand this section to counsel. Organize it cleanly - missing documents slow diligence.
Articles of incorporation
Certificate of incorporation / articles from your jurisdiction.
Shareholder agreement
USA or equivalent. Drag-along, ROFR, voting rights.
Prior financing documents
All SAFEs, convertible notes, or term sheets - including side letters.
IP assignment agreements
Signed by all founders and any contractors who built core technology. This is a common diligence flag if missing.
Key customer and vendor contracts
Any contract over $10K ARR or material to the business. Redact pricing if NDA'd.
Employment and contractor agreements
For key hires. Confirms IP ownership and non-competes where applicable.
Stock option plan (ESOP)
The plan document and a summary of issued vs. available options.
Any litigation, IP disputes, or regulatory issues
Disclose proactively. Investors find out anyway - surprises kill deals.
Product & Technology
Helps technical investors or CTOs evaluate build quality and defensibility.
Product roadmap (6-12 months)
What's shipped, what's in progress, what's next. Links to Notion or Linear work fine.
Technical architecture overview
A one-page diagram or doc explaining your stack, data flow, and infrastructure. Not full documentation.
Demo access
A sandbox account or staging environment. Include credentials. More convincing than a recorded demo.
Customers & Go-to-Market
Shows whether the business works outside the founding team's network.
Customer list with ARR or contract value
Anonymized is fine (e.g. 'Fortune 500 logistics company'). Investors will ask to verify top accounts in reference calls.
Sales pipeline
Deals in flight, stage, and expected close. A CSV export from your CRM or a simple spreadsheet works.
Key customer contracts or LOIs
Signed agreements from your top 3-5 customers. Letters of intent for deals not yet closed.
Churn and retention data
Monthly churn %, cohort retention curves, NRR if applicable. If you have < 12 months of data, show what you have.
Unit economics
CAC, LTV, payback period. Include your methodology, not just the headline numbers.
Team
Investors bet on people first. Make it easy to understand who is here and why they're the right team.
Founder bios or LinkedIn profiles
Link is fine. Highlight directly relevant experience - prior exits, domain expertise, or technical depth.
Org chart
Current state + planned state at the end of this raise. Shows where you're deploying capital.
Hiring plan
Roles you're hiring for, timeline, and how they map to your use of proceeds.
Market
Optional for seed, expected at Series A. Do this well or skip it - a weak market slide is worse than none.
Market sizing (TAM/SAM/SOM)
Bottom-up preferred. Cite your sources. Show how you get from total market to your realistic target.
Competitive landscape
A comparison table or positioning map. Be honest about where competitors are stronger.
Third-party research
Any Gartner, Forrester, or industry reports that support your market thesis. Link or PDF.

How to manage it

1
Don't share it until asked
A data room is for diligence, not first meetings. Sending it unsolicited signals inexperience and wastes your time if the investor isn't serious.
2
Use a platform that tracks views
DocSend, Briefcase, or even Google Drive with activity tracking. Knowing who's spending time on which section tells you what's resonating and what isn't.
3
Organize with folders, not a file dump
One folder per category. Consistent naming: 'Acme Corp - 2025 Financial Model.xlsx', not 'final_v3_USE THIS.xlsx'.
4
Keep a lite and a full version
A lite version (deck, one-pager, financials summary) for early conversations. The full version for investors who've verbally committed to diligence.
5
Update it before every new intro
Stale financials or a deck from six months ago are red flags. Set a calendar reminder to refresh MRR, runway, and any closed deals monthly.
6
Never send a data room as an attachment
Use a shareable link with access control. Attachments get forwarded, saved, and you lose visibility. A link can be revoked.

Tools

DocSend
Industry standard. View analytics per page, per investor. Set link expiry and require NDA before access.
Notion
Works well for teams already on Notion. Less suited for document-heavy rooms (PDFs, spreadsheets).
Google Drive
Good enough for most seed rounds. Use 'View only' sharing and check the activity log. Free.