How do I write a credible portfolio-company case study?

The twelve fields, in order

One page per company. SVB's emerging manager guidance names two to three case studies among the sections a limited partner deck should carry, which is roughly the right number: enough to show a pattern, few enough that each can be honest.

• Sourcing. How the company reached you, named specifically enough to tie to a channel in your sourcing map rather than described as a relationship.
• Entry thesis. What you believed at the time, in the words you used then. If a memo exists, quote it rather than paraphrasing with hindsight.
• Diligence. What you actually did, including what you could not resolve. The unresolved item is more informative than the checklist.
• Investment decision. Who decided, on what date, and whether anyone dissented.
• Ownership. The stake at entry, and what happened to it through subsequent rounds.
• Support. What you did after the money went in, stated as actions with dates rather than as a value-add claim.
• Follow-on. What you did at the next round and why, including the times you declined.
• Outcome. Where it stands now, labelled as realized, partially realized, unrealized, marked down, or written off.
• Attribution. Your specific role, and who else was decisive. Where this is a prior-firm deal, the permission position belongs here too.
• Result status. Whether the value is cash returned or an estimate, with the valuation basis and date if it is an estimate.
• Lesson. One, specific, and connected to a change in how you work if there was one.
• Current uncertainty. What could still go wrong, or what you still do not know. This field is why the document reads as analysis.

The public version and the confidential version

Two documents, same facts, different detail, and the difference is set by consent rather than by preference.

• Public version, in a deck or on a website: company name where permitted, sector, stage at entry, year, your role, what you did, and outcome status in general terms. No valuations, no ownership percentages, no financing terms, and nothing about a company's internal performance.
• Confidential version, in the data room: all twelve fields, with the entry memo, the ownership figures, the follow-on decisions, the valuation basis, and the co-investors who can corroborate it.
• Conversation only: anything a company treats as sensitive that they have not agreed to have written down, and anything about a live financing.
• Neither: a company's confidential metrics used to illustrate your judgment without consent. That is the company's information, not your evidence.

Consent, and why it is asked for in writing

The company decides what may be said about it. That is true whether or not your fund documents give you publicity rights, and it is true regardless of how well the relationship is going.

Ask for consent per document rather than in general, because a founder agreeing to be named in a data room has not agreed to appear on a public website. Where the deal came from a prior firm, the firm's permission is a separate gate from the company's, and both are needed before a public version exists. Blueprint's page on presenting deals from a prior firm covers that gate.

Where consent is refused or unavailable, the case study can usually still be written anonymously: sector, stage, year, your role, and the decision, without naming the company. An anonymous case study that is specific about the decision is more useful than a named one that is vague about it.

Selection, and the question that follows any set of case studies

Choosing which companies to write up is itself a claim, and allocators treat it that way.

• Expect to be asked how these were chosen. Have an answer that is not that they were the best outcomes.
• Include at least one case that did not work. A set of three winners tells an allocator about your writing rather than about your judgment.
• Where the portfolio is small enough, say how many companies exist in total, so the reader knows the denominator behind the selection.
• Avoid the pattern where every case study demonstrates the same strength. Three companies proving you have a sourcing edge is one piece of evidence repeated, not three.
• Do not write up a company whose outcome is still highly uncertain as though the outcome were settled. The current uncertainty field exists so you do not have to.

The hero story problem, named plainly

The default draft of any case study is a story in which the manager saw what others missed, moved decisively, and was proved right. It is a satisfying document and it persuades nobody who reads several a week.

Three edits fix most of it. Replace hindsight reasoning with the reasoning you actually had, which is usually less complete and more credible. Name the thing you got wrong even in a company that worked, because most successful investments contain one. And attribute the outcome honestly, including to the founder, the market, and the co-investors, since a manager who claims full credit for a company's success has told an allocator how they will describe the next one.

A well-written failure case is worth more than two successes, because it demonstrates the analysis a manager applies when the story does not flatter them.

What limited partners are testing

Case studies are read as a sample of how the manager thinks, not as evidence about the companies.

• Is the entry reasoning contemporaneous, or reconstructed to fit the outcome?
• Does the manager distinguish what they did from what happened?
• Is the ownership and follow-on history consistent with the construction model elsewhere in the deck?
• Is at least one case a loss, and is it analysed rather than explained away?
• Would the founder and the co-investors describe the manager's role the same way?

What a case study does not prove

It does not prove repeatability. One company is one data point, and three chosen by the manager are three chosen by the manager. Repeatability is evidenced by the sourcing funnel and the decision history across the whole portfolio rather than by the best examples from it.

It also does not substitute for the record. A deck with vivid case studies and no complete track record table reads as a manager presenting the parts that flatter them.

This page is educational and general. It is not legal advice. Consent, confidentiality, and the use of a portfolio company's information in marketing materials should be confirmed with counsel and with the company.