Method · Checklist

Pre-seed due diligence checklist: documents, questions, blind spots

The Flaynn pre-seed pre-diligence checklist lists, pillar by pillar, the claims found in most decks, the document that lets an investor check them for themselves, the question to ask on the call and the blind spot that most often sinks a deal. It covers six blocks: market, product, traction, team, finance and use of funds, legal and register. Each line also gives the status Flaynn Intelligence can give the information today according to the Flaynn provenance grid: verified, declared or inferred, with two reading signals, missing and inconsistent.

By Sirven Flaynn Ouamba, founder and president of Flaynn

Published on 15 September 2026 · Updated on 5 November 2026 · Version 1.1

One clarification underpins the whole page: an attached document lets the investor check it; it does not make a data point verified at Flaynn. At Flaynn, verified means consistency with a register source; it is neither a banking, legal or accounting audit, nor a human check.

Investors

How to use it.

Before the first call. Go through the six blocks with the deck open. For each claim that matters to your reading, find the matching document; if it is missing, request it before the call rather than during it. Prioritise the questions on lines where the document is missing or is not consistent with the deck.

During the call. Start with the differences between two documents on the amount sought, revenue or milestones: these are the answers you can cross-check afterwards.

Before deciding. Go back over the blind spots below. For each one, note whether the dossier answers it with a document, with a simple declaration, or not at all. What remains declared remains for you, your group or your advisers to verify: the checklist structures the reading, while the final checks and the decision are yours.

Founders

Prepare your dossier with the checklist.

Preparing a pre-seed round? Read the same tables the other way round: for each claim in your deck, gather the document that makes it verifiable and prepare the answer to the call question. An attached document makes your claim verifiable by the investor; it does not change its provenance status at Flaynn. This checklist gives no access to any investor and promises no outcome.

Six blocks

Documents to request and questions to ask, pillar by pillar.

Attaching a document makes the claim verifiable by you; it does not make the data verified at Flaynn. For a deal you import, the status column mostly shows inferred: the import contains no entered figures, and the company number (SIREN in France) is optional there.

Market

Pre-seed pre-diligence checklist: Market
Deck claim	Document to request	Flaynn status today	Call question	Common blind spot
« €2bn market »	Bottom-up calculation from customers: number of target customers, annual spend per customer, named sources	Declared (form) or Inferred (deck); external cross-check: Inferred	How many customers in three years, at what annual spend, and where does each figure come from?	Global market with no geographic entry plan
« The problem is urgent »	Dated interview records, interviewees' roles	Declared or Inferred	How many interviews, with whom, and what contradicted your hypothesis?	Need described as obvious, with no interview or pre-order
« We target SMEs »	Segment, decision-maker, example accounts	Declared (form) or Inferred	Who signs, who pays, who uses it?	Target too broad to be tested
« No direct competitor »	Feature-by-feature table against named players	Inferred; competitors found by external research: to be confirmed	What do your customers use today, and why would they switch?	« We are better » with no reasoned differentiation
« It is the right time »	Dated, sourced fact: regulation, technology, market	Inferred	What makes this possible now?	Timing asserted with no dated fact

Product

Pre-seed pre-diligence checklist: Product
Deck claim	Document to request	Flaynn status today	Call question	Common blind spot
« Product in production »	Demo or test access, go-live date	Inferred	Show me a real customer's journey.	Technical maturity only declared
« Proprietary technology »	Filing number, or what is hard to reproduce	Inferred	What would it take a funded competitor to reproduce it, and how long would it take?	Differentiation with no enforceable proof
« Customers love it »	Reachable customer reference, measured usage	Inferred	Can I speak to two active users?	An adjective in place of an observable signal
« Defensible advantage »	Nature of the advantage (technology, data, distribution, regulatory, network) and threats	Inferred	What threat would erase this advantage?	Nature of the advantage never named
« Both sides will come » (marketplace)	Seeding sequence for supply and demand, tested channel	Inferred	Which side do you seed first, through which channel?	Cold start not addressed

Traction

At pre-seed, having no revenue is not a negative signal in itself. The evidence suited to the stage is documented interviews, signed letters of intent, active test users, pilots and signed partnerships.

Pre-seed pre-diligence checklist: Traction
Deck claim	Document to request	Flaynn status today	Call question	Common blind spot
« €12k MRR »	Month-by-month billing export, period stated	Declared if entered in the form or read in the document, page cited; Inferred if only spotted by the engine. Verified only for revenue published in the register, with the company identified by the company number entered in the form (SIREN in France) and a name in the register that carries the declared name	What MRR for the last closed month, and how many customers make it up?	« Strong traction » with no raw figure or period
« Three letters of intent »	Signed, named letters, with volume and terms	Inferred (attached or cited in the deck); with no document: to request before the call	Which one is binding, and on what condition does it become a paid pilot?	Exploratory letter read as a commitment
« +20% per month »	Raw monthly series, starting base included	Inferred	From what base, and what does the series show without the best month?	Growth extrapolated from too small a base
« Waiting list of 5,000 »	Conversion to usage or payment, date	Inferred	How many sign-ups have used or paid?	Waiting list with no conversion
« Healthy unit economics »	Acquisition cost by channel, unit margin, observed lifetime	Inferred	How much does a customer cost, and in how many months is it paid back?	Unit economics never quantified
« Pilot with a large corporate »	Contract or purchase order: scope, duration, consideration	Inferred; with no contract: to request	Is the pilot paid, and what criterion triggers rollout?	Free pilot presented as a customer

Team

Pre-seed pre-diligence checklist: Team
Deck claim	Document to request	Flaynn status today	Call question	Common blind spot
« Full-time team »	Departure date from the previous job, status	Declared (form); « multiple mandates » signal: Inferred	Who has been full-time since when, and who has another activity?	Part-time, with a previous activity not wound down
« 10 years in the sector »	Dated career history: employers, roles, achievements	Inferred	What have you delivered that is comparable, and who can vouch for it?	« Strong team » with no name or date
« Solo founder, CTO being recruited »	Costed hiring plan within the use of funds, timeline, adviser agreements	Inferred	What budget, what timeline, and what if the hire fails?	Founder with no counterweight
« Committed co-founders »	Shareholders' agreement (vesting, departure)	No Flaynn status: document to request. Flaynn gives no legal reading	What vesting applies, and what happens to the code if the technical co-founder leaves?	No founder vesting
« The founders keep control »	Fully diluted cap table	Inferred, read in the document; a cap table is not in the register	What share do the founders hold today and after this round?	Founders holding little equity as early as pre-seed

Finance and use of funds

Pre-seed pre-diligence checklist: Finance and use of funds
Deck claim	Document to request	Flaynn status today	Call question	Common blind spot
« We are raising €600k »	Same amount in the deck, the form and the forecast	Declared (form); difference between deck and form: Inconsistent	Two amounts are circulating: which is the real target?	Amount that changes from one document to another
« 18 months of runway »	Monthly cash plan, burn, hiring assumptions	Inferred: Flaynn estimate, never Declared	What burn with a full team, and in which month do you hit zero?	Burn out of proportion to the amount raised
« Product, marketing, hiring »	Breakdown by line item, each item tied to a milestone	Declared (form) or Inferred	Which milestone does each item fund, and by what date?	Generic use of funds
« Milestones at 18 months »	Dated, measurable milestones, evidence for past milestones	Declared (form)	Which milestones from earlier versions of the deck have been reached?	« Future » milestone already passed
« €3m pre-money »	Method and sourced comparables	Declared or Inferred; Flaynn provides no comparables	How did you set this price?	Valuation with no method
« Profitable in year 3 »	Forecast with explicit assumptions	Inferred; financial documents that contradict each other: Inconsistent	Which assumption brings the plan down?	Projections unconnected to the unit economics

Legal and register

Pre-seed pre-diligence checklist: Legal and register
Deck claim	Document to request	Flaynn status today	Call question	Common blind spot
« Company incorporated in 2024 »	SIREN, registration extract	Verified in the register (date, legal form, capital, NAF code) if the company is identified by the company number entered in the form (SIREN in France), its name in the register contains the declared name and the register is the one for its country; Inferred if it is found by its name or by a SIREN picked up in the text	Which entity will issue the securities?	Namesakes, wrong entity
« Healthy company »	Insolvency proceedings, strike-off	Verified for the fact recorded in the register; the alert drawn from it: Inferred	What happened, and what has changed?	Recent insolvency proceeding
« 2025 revenue of €180k »	Filed annual accounts	Verified in the register if the company is identified by the company number entered in the form (SIREN in France) and its name in the register contains the declared name; the deck figure remains declared, and its difference from the register is a question for the call, never a contradiction	Why does the deck differ from the published accounts?	Deck figure not consistent
« Available director »	Active mandates in the register	« Multiple mandates » signal: Inferred	What other mandates, and how much time do you give them?	Several active mandates held at once
« Appropriate capital »	Share capital, shareholder current accounts	Verified in the register (amount); fit with the plan: Inferred	How is the business financed until the round?	Very low capital compared with needs
« Eligible for JEI, CIR, IR-PME relief »	Opinion from a chartered accountant, documented R&D spending	Inferred: presumptive reading, never tax advice; to be confirmed by a chartered accountant	Who confirmed eligibility, and on which expenses?	Eligibility assumed

Blind spots

The blind spots that sink a deal.

Any one of these points can sink an otherwise well-built deal:

no founder vesting;
a stated market never recalculated from customers;
unit economics never quantified;
claims with no document (no letter of intent, no paying customer, no observable metric);
a founder with no counterweight or costed hiring plan;
a deck and a dossier that contradict each other;
a use of funds with no milestone per line item;
competition with no reasoned differentiation;
an amount sought with no valuation method.

To read the provenance of each piece of information, see the Flaynn provenance grid. For the scoring across five pillars and the weighting by stage, see the pre-diligence methodology.

Questions

Questions about the checklist.

What does verified mean?

That a piece of information is consistent with a register source: creation date, legal form, capital, insolvency proceedings, revenue published for a closed fiscal year, when the company is identified by the company number entered in the form (SIREN in France), when its name in the register contains the declared name and when the register is the one for its country. A SIREN picked up in the text or a company found by its name confirms nothing. It is neither a banking audit, nor a legal or accounting audit, nor a human check. Market information is never verified: external research produces inferred information, to be confirmed.

If the founder attaches their billing exports, does the data become verified?

No. The document lets you recalculate the figure yourself, and that is its whole value. At Flaynn, a figure read in a document or in the deck is declared, with its page, like a figure entered in the submission form. Only consistency with a register source gives the verified status.

At pre-seed, should you require revenue?

No. At this stage, having no revenue is not a negative signal in itself. The appropriate evidence is documented interviews, signed letters of intent, active test users, pilots and signed partnerships. In the Flaynn weighting, published in the methodology, the team weighs more and traction less at pre-seed than at seed.

What do missing and inconsistent mean?

The missing signal flags data that is expected and not provided in the dossier: it is listed, nothing is deduced from it. The inconsistent signal flags two elements of the dossier that contradict each other, for example a different amount sought in the deck and in the form. In both cases, the call question on the line is there to clear up the point.

Does Flaynn say whether to invest?

No. Flaynn structures the reading of a deal: provenance of the information, inconsistencies, points to verify, call questions. Flaynn does not recommend investing and gives no legal, accounting, tax, financial or investment advice. The final checks and the decision remain yours, your group's or your advisers'.

What this checklist is not.

This checklist is an aid to reading a deal, not investment advice. Flaynn does not recommend investing and gives no legal, accounting, tax, financial or investment advice.