Meranti Growth
Emerging Manager Diagnostic Back to the site

Self-directed · about 15 minutes

Find out what they cannot see yet.

Twenty questions on the operating architecture behind a first institutional raise. You answer on evidence you hold today, not on intent. At the end you get a summary read. Every submission is reviewed, and where it is worth a conversation a scheduling link is emailed to you.

No capital is solicited, introduced, or placed. Your answers are scored against published diligence frameworks, not against any allocator's investment policy.

JavaScript is off. Every question is shown on this one page and the form still submits. No score is calculated here; the read comes back from us.

What it asks

Evidence, not intent

  • 20 questions, all required
  • Eight weighted dimensions
  • Optional evidence notes

What you get

A summary read

  • One weighted figure
  • A copy of your answers
  • The detail, on a call

What it is not

Not an LP verdict

  • No funding probability
  • No capital introduction
  • Not investment advice

Answer at the level you could defend in a data room. Choosing a lower option is not a confession; it is the whole value of the exercise. Several managers answer not yet designed to half of these and are still perfectly fundable once they know which half matters.

Context

The fund, in one screen

None of this is scored. It sets the standard the twenty questions are read against, because capacity and operations mean different things in venture and in credit.

Part one of five · six questions

The investment edge

A defined universe, and a reason this team wins inside it. A named network is a hypothesis until an example shows it changing access, price or selection.

Question 1 of 20 · Opportunity and strategy Can you state the investable universe you pursue, and roughly how many qualifying opportunities exist in it each year?

Segment, geography, size band, and a count you could source.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 2 of 20 · Opportunity and strategy Why is this opportunity attractive now, rather than three years ago or three years from now?

Allocators discount timing claims that rest only on the manager's own observation.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 3 of 20 · Opportunity and strategy How does your strategy differ from the three managers an allocator would most likely compare you to?

Name them. Being new is not a position.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 4 of 20 · Edge and access Of your last ten opportunities, how many arrived through a channel a competitor could not easily replicate?

The question is channel attribution, not volume.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 5 of 20 · Edge and access Can you show one investment where your access, information or judgment changed the price, the terms, or your ability to participate at all?

Dated evidence beats a well-told story.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 6 of 20 · Edge and access What attractive-looking opportunity did you decline, and what rule or evidence made you say no?

Recorded passes are one of the few cheap proofs of discipline available to a first fund.

Add the evidence, if you have it

Part two of five · four questions

Record and attribution

The heaviest dimension, and the one first funds most often lose on presentation rather than substance. The burden is a transparent deal-by-deal bridge from prior work to this mandate.

Question 7 of 20 · Record and attribution For each prior investment you claim, can you state who sourced it, who led the underwriting, who approved it, and who managed it afterwards?

Attribution to the proposed principals is what converts prior work into a record.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 8 of 20 · Record and attribution Are your figures shown gross and net, with realized separated from unrealized, and losses included?

A single blended number reads as a presentation choice, and allocators treat it as one.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 9 of 20 · Record and attribution For your strongest result, can you separate what came from entry price, market movement, leverage, and your team's own actions?

This is the causality question, and it is where borrowed outcomes come apart.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 10 of 20 · Record and attribution Which prior results would an allocator reasonably exclude from this strategy's record, and have you said so before being asked?

Volunteering exclusions is usually read as a credibility signal rather than a weakness.

Add the evidence, if you have it

Part three of five · five questions

People and decisions

Biographies cannot establish a working model. What an allocator underwrites is who can say no, what is required before a yes, and what continues when someone is gone.

Question 11 of 20 · Process and decision rights Who can stop a deal, and is that written down?

Name the person and the threshold, not the committee.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 12 of 20 · Process and decision rights What information is required before an investment decision, and is dissent recorded?

Recorded dissent is the clearest available evidence that a process exists.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 13 of 20 · Process and decision rights Give one example of a disagreement that changed a decision. How was it resolved?

If every decision has been unanimous, an allocator will ask whether anyone can dissent.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 14 of 20 · Team and continuity Are roles, economics and the carry split documented among the principals?

Unresolved economics between founders is a diligence stopper, not a detail.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 15 of 20 · Team and continuity If a key person were unavailable for six months, which duties continue and which stop?

Separate investment duties from fund duties.

Add the evidence, if you have it

Part four of five · three questions

Fund design and capacity

Target size has to reconcile to the opportunities that actually exist. A larger fund can dilute the very edge used to justify it, and the relevant ceiling differs by strategy.

Question 16 of 20 · Fund design and capacity Does your target fund size reconcile to check size, number of investments, reserves and pace, in a model rather than a narrative?

Name the assumption you have tested least.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 17 of 20 · Fund design and capacity At what fund size does your edge begin to erode, and can you show the arithmetic?

Deal supply, ownership targets, pricing discipline, or team bandwidth, depending on strategy.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 18 of 20 · Fund design and capacity How much of the fund is reserved for follow-ons, and on what rule is it deployed?

A reserve percentage with no deployment rule is a number, not a plan.

Add the evidence, if you have it

Part five of five · two questions

Alignment and operations

A first fund does not need to mimic a large platform on day one. It does need named owners, engaged providers and escalation paths sized to the risk it is asking an LP to carry.

Question 19 of 20 · Alignment and terms Is your GP commitment sized, funded, and explainable, including where the money comes from?

Alignment is not reducible to the commitment percentage, and LPs test the funding source.

Add the evidence, if you have it
Question 20 of 20 · Institutional operations Who owns valuation, cash approvals, investor reporting, audit and compliance today, by name or by provider?

Five functions. Count only the ones with an actual owner.

Add the evidence, if you have it

Optional · reviewed separately

Your pitch deck

The deck is scored on its own, against the same eight dimensions, on what is visible in it and nothing else. Where evidence is absent the review records not shown rather than concluding the capability is missing. That distinction is usually the finding.

Is a deck coming?

The upload link and your reference code are on the next screen.

Two questions in your own words

Not scored. These are where the debrief usually starts.

Your read

Where the proof is thinnest

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Evidence readiness across eight dimensions, weighted as an institutional allocator would weight them.

What this number is. Your own assessment of the evidence you can produce today, weighted. It is a conversation aid. It is not a probability of funding, and a high score clears no part of legal, operational, reference or investment diligence.

Your reference code

Quote it if you send anything through, so it reaches the right submission.

Your answers

Take a copy before you leave this page.

The next step

Sixty minutes on the gaps.

Your answers are read first, not after you have booked something. Where there is something worth discussing, a link to schedule the call is emailed to you. The discussion tests the most consequential gaps and separates evidence you hold from design work still to do. If cleaner financials really are the only missing piece, a generalist fractional CFO firm will do that capably and for less.

No capital is solicited, introduced, or placed. Meranti Growth is not a placement agent, broker-dealer, or investment adviser.