Writing Investment Memos at Katha VC

Anand joined Katha VC as a Research Fellow on an unpaid basis, taking on the full cycle of early-stage startup evaluation in the fintech space.

He sourced founders himself, reaching out to early-stage fintech companies and representing Katha in those initial conversations. When a founder agreed to engage, he scheduled a meeting, often visiting them at their office, to gather the information needed for a structured assessment.

In those meetings, he ran a consistent set of questions: when the company was founded, team size, the problem being solved, the target customer, the revenue model, profitability status, and the funding ask. He audio-recorded the sessions and used those recordings to write his memos.

The memo followed a fixed structure: executive summary, problem and market opportunity, solution and product, business model and unit economics, competitive landscape, team assessment, traction and metrics, investment thesis and risk, terms and ask, and his own recommendation.

He submitted completed memos to the general partners at Katha. The memos triggered direct outreach to the companies he covered, and in some cases shaped how the partners approached those founders. Some of the companies he evaluated went on to raise funding.