Blueprint Intelligence / Data Room and DDQ / Investment process, how the DDQ documents the way decisions actually get made
Data Room and DDQ
Investment process, how the DDQ documents the way decisions actually get made
Strategy describes what a fund invests in. This section describes how a decision to invest actually gets made, who votes, what quorum looks like, and whether a record of that decision exists anywhere.
The investment strategy section covers what a fund invests in. This section covers something narrower and more mechanical: how a specific deal actually gets from sourced to funded, who has a vote, what quorum requires, and whether a written record of each decision exists. A fund with a strong thesis and no documented process for applying it consistently is answering half the question.
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The three models an allocator is used to seeing
Investment committee structures generally fall into one of three models: consensus, where every partner must agree; majority, where a vote carries the decision; or conviction, where a lead partner can move forward without a formal vote, sometimes with a right for others to flag concerns. Kauffman Fellows' research on enduring firms finds a roughly even split between consensus and majority models, with a smaller share running on a conviction basis. None of the three is inherently stronger. What matters to an allocator is that the fund has picked one, written it down, and actually follows it.
Among enduring venture firms, roughly 40 percent use a consensus investment committee model, 40 percent use a majority vote, and 20 percent operate on conviction with no formal vote. Source, Kauffman Fellows, Zero to Four (April 2026).
What "documented" actually means here
- A written IC policy stating the model, the quorum required for a decision, and how a deal moves from initial screen to final vote.
- A stated deal attribution policy: who is recorded as the decision lead on each investment, which also feeds the track record attribution work covered elsewhere in this pillar.
- Whether voting records are actually stored, not just whether a policy describes that they should be.
- How conflicts are flagged and handled within the process itself, for example a partner's prior relationship with a founder, distinct from the broader conflicts of interest policy covered under firm governance.
The gap that shows up most often
The most common shortfall is not an absence of process, most funds do have some working method for reaching a decision. It is the absence of a written version of that process, which means an allocator has to take the GP's verbal description on faith rather than reviewing a document. Writing down a process that already exists informally is a low-cost fix relative to most of what a first-time manager has to build, and it closes a gap that shows up early in most reviews.
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