What does a VC Investment thesis look like?
Creating a VC investment thesis from scratch
Originally published in 2017
When I was appearing for VC interviews I always wondered what an investment thesis for a VC interview looked like? I tried for many days looking for online resources but couldn’t find anything. Ofcourse I found a lot of blogs talking about a thesis but I couldn’t get my hands on an actual thesis (the way one finds resources on case study interviews for consulting).
I spoke to multiple VCs and read numerous blogs (posts similar to these, but again I could never find an actual thesis) and sought help from all my Mckinsey and BCG friends to up my presentation game and finally I was able to come up with something which was worth sharing (or atleast I thought).
During my VC phase I made multiple thesis (which means I interviewed with multiple firms). I am putting one up here to help folks who are thinking of interviewing with VC firms and want to know what an investment thesis looks like. Your thesis is your own and I’d say there’s no magic formula, but there are frameworks and tips and tricks that can help you. Often we learn via exemplars. This is one such example.
You can get a copy of the investment thesis I made for a top tier venture capital firm here:
At 500 INR / 5 GBP, it’s costs as much as 2 pints of the cheapest beer at an average bar.
Folks were working or have entered the following firms post buying the thesis:
VC/PE/Venture Debt/Accelerators:: Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, CDC, Stellaris Venture Partners, Chiratae (formely IDG Ventures), Alteria Capital, Guild Capital, Entrepreneur First, Speciale Invest, Endiya Partners, F6S, Vilgro
And come from following backgrounds:
Consulting: Mckinsey, BCG, AT Kearney, Accenture Strategy, PwC
Finance: BofA — ML, American Express, Elara Capital, Credit Suisse
Corporates (incl. CorpDev): Xiaomi, CRED, Urban Company, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, OYO, WeWork, Olam International, PhonePe, Meesho, 1mg, Inc42
Business Schools: HBS, Haas, MIT Sloan, Stanford GSB, ISB, INSEAD, London Business School, IIM-A, IIM-B, IIM-C, IIM-L.
Image credit: Markus Winkler via Unsplash