IC Memo: Cavendish Coatings
Investment memo deck
A committee paper, not a pitch. Meridian Capital is an invented fund and Cavendish Coatings is an invented industrial coatings business, and this is the twelve slide version of the memo that decides whether the deal happens. It opens with the recommendation and the price, spends a whole slide on the four ways the investment fails, and ends with what the fund makes in three cases rather than with a thank you.
Every slide, in order
The whole deck as it renders, one slide after another. Read it the way the audience would.
The structure
What each slide is doing, so you can reuse the order even with different content.
- Slide 1cover
- A memo cover: what it is, who wrote it, and the recommendation in the margin.
- Slide 2takeaway
- Puts the recommendation and the price on their own slide, before any argument is made.
- Slide 3checklist
- The thesis as five numbered reasons, each one falsifiable rather than descriptive.
- Slide 4timeline
- The company in five dated periods, which is how a committee checks whether growth is durable.
- Slide 5metrics
- The market, sized to the part Cavendish can actually reach rather than to the category.
- Slide 6process
- Where Cavendish sits in the chain, which is what determines who it can raise prices on.
- Slide 7metrics
- Six years of revenue and EBITDA together, so the committee can see whether margin followed growth.
- Slide 8comparison
- The competitive map, with Cavendish placed on it rather than described as different.
- Slide 9metrics
- The financials as filed, with the one adjustment we made and why.
- Slide 10investment
- The deal itself, because in a memo the terms are the subject rather than the footer.
- Slide 11comparison
- The four ways this fails, each paired with what we would already have in place.
- Slide 12metrics
- The return under three cases, which is the section that has no equivalent in a pitch deck.
What makes this deck work
The conclusion comes first
Slide two is the amount, the stake and the multiple. A memo is read alone by people hunting for the hole in it, so burying the recommendation on the last slide only wastes their first two minutes.
The risks get equal billing
Four named ways this fails, each paired with what already sits against it. A published Bessemer memo calls this section ways this can fail, and a paper without one reads as advocacy rather than analysis.
It underwrites a return, not a story
Base, upside and downside with the multiple and the exit assumption written out. Nothing in a fundraising deck does this, because the founder is not the one who has to defend the number afterwards.
Questions people ask
What is an investment memo?
The document an investor writes to argue a deal to their own committee or partnership. It states the recommendation and the price, sets out the thesis, names the risks, and models the return. It gets filed and re-read at the next round.
How is it different from a pitch deck?
A pitch deck sells and ends on an ask. A memo decides and opens on the recommendation. It adds risks, deal terms and scenario returns, and it is written to be attacked rather than to be liked.
How long should an investment memo be?
About a page at seed and three to five pages at Series A for the written form. As a deck, ten to twenty body slides with an appendix that is often larger than the body itself.
Can a founder write one?
Yes, and many do during diligence, alongside the deck. The standing line is that the deck wins the meeting and the memo wins the cheque, because the memo is what the partner circulates when you are not in the room.
Why does the memo show an adjustment to the filed accounts?
Because a committee argues about the adjustment, not about the number. Slide nine shows the financials as filed alongside the single adjustment the deal team made and the reason for it. Presenting an adjusted figure on its own invites the question of what else was changed, which is the fastest way to lose a room.
What does the thesis slide have to do that a pitch deck's does not?
Be falsifiable. The five numbered reasons on slide three are each written so a committee member can test them in diligence rather than agree with them in the room. A pitch deck's equivalent is written to be persuasive; a memo's is written so the paper can be checked against reality in two years.
Build your own in about a minute
The button below opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match your own, generate, then edit anything you like.
Make one like thisOther presentation examples
Investor update deck
The update a funded founder sends every month to the people already on the cap table. This one is month fourteen for Northstem, an invented Boston company selling procurement software to research labs, and it is not a fundraise. Revenue beat plan, an engineer resigned, one customer went quiet and runway is fifteen months. All four of those are on the slides, because an update that only carries good news stops being read.
Board meeting deck that ends on decisions, not updates
Harrowgate Software’s Q3 board deck is twelve slides for a two hour meeting, sent as a pre-read five days before. Nine slides report and three ask, because a board that only receives updates has nothing to do, and a board that is not asked to decide anything will decide something anyway.
Series B pitch deck that proves the machine, not the product
Trueline raised its Series A on a construction estimating product and is now raising $25M to expand into two new countries. The Series B deck has no problem slide, because the investor is buying the efficiency of the growth engine, so cohorts, magic number and the hiring plan take the space the story used to.
Want the steps in the builder? Read Add charts, maps and diagrams to slides, then Make a pitch presentation with AI. For everything this generator can do, see the presentation maker.
Sources
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .