Readiness card: raising pre-seed
Pre-revenue is not pre-evidence. The twenty-four things a pre-seed investor tests, across six pillars, and the twenty-four red flags to sort before you raise.
A one-page scorecard for founders raising pre-seed: the bar a pre-seed investor holds you to, in twenty-four checks across six pillars, with the red flags that cap a pillar until they are fixed. Most are fixable before you raise, so fix them first.
What’s inside
- Team: coverage, commitment, hiring, governance
- Product: in production, usage, technical position, engineering maturity
- Market: ICP, market size, why now, competitive position
- Revenue: level, growth, repeatability, retention and quality
- Systems: cash and finance, KPI reporting, sales system, people systems
- Trust: security posture, data and privacy, AI governance, procurement readiness
- Red flags: 24 to sort before you raise, by pillar
How to score it. Boxes ticked plus one is each pillar’s score, so 0 to 4 boxes gives 1 to 5: six numbers, never one. Any red flag caps that pillar at 2 until it is cleared. The thresholds are SVV’s, in sterling; your investor’s numbers will differ, but the shape of the test will not. The full scorecard, with the evidence list for each stage, is at docs.svv.ai/scorecard.
Start here. Print it and score this card today. Then read the seed card: it is your twelve-month plan.
