Startup Health Check  ·  pre-raise diligence from Raaise

Find out what kills your raise before an investor does.

Your investor is going to run this diligence anyway. We run it first, and hand you the fixes while there's still time to use them.

Request a Health Check → See the report
$2,500 + GSTFixed, one-off. Pre-seed, seed or Series A.
Usually 72 hoursDate agreed before you pay.
Nine partsOne report. Verdict on the first page.
Pro-planet onlyIt's all we've done since 2020.
01

Most investors never tell you
why they passed.

An investor opens your deck. Five minutes later they've made up their mind. You'll rarely be told what changed it.

So you guess. You rewrite the slide you were already worried about and send the same deck to the next twenty names on your list. A quarter later you find out it was never the slide.

You can't spot it on your own. You've read that deck four hundred times. And the people close enough to tell you are the ones least likely to. Your advisors want you to keep going. Your mates say it looks great.

02

It's almost never the thing
you're worried about.

Here's what we actually find.

01

Your deck and your model disagree. An investor spots it inside ten minutes.

02

You've labelled it a seed round. The evidence behind it is pre-seed.

03

Your market size is honest arithmetic that rules you out of venture capital. No fund will ever tell you that's why they passed.

04

A headline statistic that turns out to be from another country, about a different group of people.

05

Nothing in your materials says what an investor is actually buying.

06

IP that was never formally assigned from the founders to the company.

07

No independent voice anywhere near the founding team. An angel makes a note. A family office walks.

08

A moat that, read closely, is a six month head start.

09

Traction counted in a unit you've never defined.

10

An investor asks for one document and you can't send it that day.

Most of these are fixable, several of them in hours. Almost none are visible from where you're sitting.

03

Three real findings.

Pulled from a report we delivered. We've taken out the company, the sector and every number, which is why you're looking at blanks.

The deck sells three businesses and asks for money for one.

Credibility cost
What the investor sees
The cover names three lines of business. Slide 02 lays out three pillars, and mentions that two of them already earn. Slide 09 then mixes customers from those two in with the alpha numbers for the one you're raising for. By the end of it an investor can't tell what they're buying.
Why it hurts
It changes the valuation, the entity, the cap table and the exit story, all at once. It also lets a sceptical reader write off your best asset as a distraction, when it's the reason to back you.
The fix
Decide which one it is, then say so in one line on Slide 02. If is the company and the other two are how it wins customers for almost nothing, write that. Half a day.

A statistic used twice, holding up the whole why-now, that no source supports.

Credibility cost
What the investor sees
The figure appears on Slide 01, then again on Slide 05. We went looking for the source and couldn't find one for this market. It's a well known number from another country, about a different group of people, over twice the timeframe you've given it.
Why it hurts
An investor checks this out of habit, and one search gives them the answer. They won't mention it to you either. It doesn't get raised, it gets filed, and everything careful you did elsewhere now reads as less careful.
The fix
Find a source for this market, or cut the line. Cut it and your why-now still stands on the two facts underneath it. Half a day.

No model, and four numbers on the ask slide with no path to any of them.

Deal-killer
What the investor sees
Slide 11 quotes customers and of ARR at month 24, then at year three. Nothing in the deck shows how you get there. No current revenue, no burn, no runway, no hiring plan across twelve slides.
Why it hurts
Angels, family offices and funds all ask for the model about a day after a good first meeting. Having nothing to send stops everything dead, at the exact moment you had momentum.
The fix
Build the 24 month model with the assumptions on show. Then one slide showing its shape: monthly paying customers, ARR, cash balance, three dated milestones. Three to five days.

From the first five minutes

“I'd take the meeting because of slide 02, and I'd pass on the round because of slide 09.”

Part three of every report is your deck read cold, at investor speed, written in the first person. What hooks them. Where their attention dies. The honest gut call at the end of the first pass.

You won't get it from anyone who has a reason to keep you happy. The one person who could tell you has every reason not to.

04

The thing you actually get.

One report, written to be acted on without a follow-up meeting. The verdict is on the first page.

Specimen  ·  parts 01, 02 and 07, redacted

Web page and PDF

Startup Health Check

— ready for the room?

Your raise materials, read exactly the way your target investors will read them.

StageSeed, as labelled
Target investorsNot stated. Assessed against all three
Prepared byRaaise

01 — Executive summary

The verdict.

Overall score
4/10
Not yet — material gaps

Three things drive that. No paying customers and no revenue figure anywhere in twelve slides, so a seed label is sitting on pre-seed evidence. No model, no cap table and no data room behind the deck. And the deck's own numbers disagree with each other in two places an investor will find inside ten minutes.

Where to raise. Angels first, family offices alongside them. Venture capital is a structural mismatch at the market size you've drawn, and no amount of deck work fixes that.

02 — Scorecard

Eight dimensions, scored as they'll be judged.

DimensionScoreIn one line
Narrative & deck7/10
Strong story, clean design, honest self-marking. No financials slide.
Team & founder story6/10
Real, earned insight. No commercial hire and no independent voice anywhere.
Market & competition6/10
Right method, and the core claim survives a hard external check.
Traction & commercial3/10
No paying customers, no revenue figure stated. At seed this one carries the load.
Financials & model2/10
No model, and the outputs quoted contradict the deck's own market slide.
Cap table & structure2/10
Nothing provided, and the deck never says what an investor is buying into.

07 — Investor targeting

Who you should actually be raising from.

Angels

Strong fit. Founder-market fit is real, cheque size matches the ask, and they can back conviction before the metrics exist.

Family offices

Moderate. The downside case holds up. Governance is the blocker, and it's the cheapest of the three to fix.

Venture capital

Weak. The market you've drawn can't return a fund. That's arithmetic, not presentation.

The recommendation, plainly.

Angels now, family offices alongside once you've named two advisors. Venture capital only becomes viable if the market definition changes, and changing that honestly means changing the business. Nobody's telling you to want less. We're telling you which door the thing you want currently fits through.

What's in it

01
Executive summary
The verdict, the score, who to raise from, and the one sentence to hold on to before any investor meeting.
02
Scorecard
Eight dimensions scored out of ten against your stage, each with the one-line reason.
03
The first five minutes
Your deck read cold, at speed, in the first person. What hooks them, what confuses them, where their attention dies.
04
Findings
Every gap, by dimension. What the investor sees, why it hurts, how bad it is, and the fix.
05
Claims audit
Every claim you make, checked by us before an investor checks it.
06
Investor question bank
The 20 to 40 questions this investor class will ask, marked answered, partial or unanswered. Your exam paper, before the exam.
07
Investor targeting
Angels, family offices and venture capital rated for fit. Sometimes the finding is that you're pitching the wrong money altogether.
08
Fix-first plan
Every fix, in order, with the effort against each one. You always know the next move.
09
Appendix
What you've got against what your stage expects. Doubles as your data room checklist.
05

Three steps, one of them ours.

STEP 01

Send us what you've got

Deck, model, cap table, data room, whatever exists. A link to a folder is fine. If all you've got is a deck, say so and we'll scope to it.

STEP 02

Pay once

$2,500 AUD plus GST, in full, once scope is agreed. Same price pre-seed or Series A. How deep we go moves with your stage. The price doesn't.

STEP 03

Read it, then go and fix things

We agree a delivery date with you before you pay, and it's usually inside 72 hours. The fix-first plan then tells you what to do on Monday, in the order that actually unblocks the round.

06

One price. No tiers.

$2,500

AUD + GST, one-off  ·  nothing to cancel

A raise takes most founders three to six months. A failed one takes exactly as long, and you find out at the end.

There are maybe twenty or thirty investors on your list who are a genuine fit. You get one first read from each, and you don't get it back.

What it costs
$2,500 AUD plus GST, in full, up front. No instalments, and no retainer waiting on the other side of it.
How long
We confirm a date with you before you pay. It's usually inside 72 hours of the documents landing, and a full Series A data room takes longer than a twelve-slide deck.
Refunds
There aren't any. The report is the product whether you like what it says or not. So read the next line before you pay.
If you're not ready
We'll say so on page one, with what has to change and how long each item takes. That's the most useful version of this report and the one nobody wants. If you'd rather not hear it, don't buy it.
Your materials
Confidential. Never shared, never reused as an example, never shown to an investor. Deleted on request.
07

Fair questions.

“I already know my weak spots.”

You know some of them. You don't know which one an investor stops on. And half of what we send back isn't in your materials at all. It's what turns up when someone checks them: a statistic that doesn't survive one search, a competitor fact that's a year out of date. You'll never find those by rereading your own deck. They sit in the gap between your deck and the world.

“How's this different from a consultant with an opinion?”

Opinion isn't the product. Every finding names what the investor sees, with the slide number next to it. Every claim gets checked against a source and marked verified, unverified or founder-claim. Where your materials don't answer something, the report says so, and that becomes a finding. We never fill a gap with an assumption on your behalf.

“What if you tell me things I can't fix?”

Then that's the finding, and you'll have it in 72 hours instead of proving it the slow way over two quarters. Most of it is fixable though. Some items take an hour. Some take a quarter of selling before you go out at all. You'll know which is which.

08

Who you're dealing with.

Every Health Check is read and written by a Raaise founder. It isn't outsourced, and it isn't a template with your name dropped into it.

AAmy Carter-James

Amy Carter-James

Co-founder & CEO

Two decades living and working in northern Mozambique, running a business somewhere the climate crisis was never theoretical.

NNeal Carter-James

Neal Carter-James

Co-founder & CSO

The one who takes a deck apart and finds the number on slide eleven that doesn't reconcile with the number on slide seven.

BBen Keene

Ben Keene

Co-founder & CMO

Heads up community, and the reason Raaise has a network of founders and investors rather than a mailing list.

We built Raaise in 2020, after two decades in Mozambique and a cyclone that flattened communities who'd done close to nothing to cause the climate crisis. The idea was to get capital to the people fixing it, faster.

We raised for it ourselves, which is how two family offices and a small VC ended up on our cap table. So we've sat on the wrong side of a diligence process too, sweating a document request on a Friday afternoon. And we write the notes investors read before deciding whether to take a meeting, which teaches you how fast the decision really happens.

The longer version of the story, and more about the three of us.

Elsewhere

Impact at Scale  ·  podcast Amy on the number one mistake founders make raising climate capital OnImpact Raaise helps climate-tech startups get investor-ready

This is a review of your materials. Raaise doesn't raise capital on your behalf, introduce you to investors, or advise you on an investment. It isn't investment, legal, tax or financial product advice, and it isn't a prediction or a guarantee of any fundraising outcome.

09

The rest of it.

What exactly do I send?
Everything you'd hand an investor who asked. Deck, financial model, cap table, traction data, customer evidence, data room, prior round documents. One link to a folder is easiest. Send it as it is rather than tidying it up first. How it currently looks is part of what we're reviewing.
What if all I've got is a deck?
That's fine, and it's common. We scope the review to what you send. The missing documents then get reported as findings against what your stage expects, with the order to build them in. Just tell us up front that the deck is all there is. That way nothing gets marked down as absent when it was never asked for.
How long does it take?
Usually within 72 hours of your materials landing. There's no fixed commitment. A Series A data room takes a lot longer than a twelve-slide pre-seed deck. And we're not going to rush a document about being thorough just to hit a number on a website.
Who sees my materials?
Only the person doing the review. Nothing goes to investors, including ones we know. Nothing gets reused as an example with another client. Nothing goes onto the Raaise platform. Deleted on request once the report's delivered.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes. Send yours over and we'll sign it before anything changes hands. Confidentiality applies either way.
Is this financial advice?
No. It's a review of your materials from the perspective of the investor class you're targeting. Raaise doesn't raise capital for you, make introductions, or advise you on an investment. Nothing in the report is investment, legal, tax or financial product advice, and it's not a prediction or guarantee of any outcome.
What counts as pro-planet?
Anything that isn't harming the planet and is trying to make things better. Climate tech, energy, food and agriculture, nature and biodiversity, circular economy, materials, mobility, and plenty that doesn't sit neatly in any of those. If you're building something that leaves things better than it found them, you're in. If you're not sure, ask us.
Do you use AI?
Yes, for parts of it. Searching, cross-checking claims against sources, pulling figures out of documents. What it isn't is an AI writing your report. You could run your deck through a chatbot yourself in a minute, and you'd get your own framing back, politely formatted. What you're paying for is six years of knowing what to look for, which questions an angel asks that a fund doesn't, and which gaps actually kill a round. Every finding, score and verdict is a human judgment, and every number in the report is checked against your source documents by hand before it goes out.
Can I ask questions after I get the report?
Yes, within reason. Send them over and we'll answer. There's no follow-up call, and that's deliberate: the report is written so you don't need one, with every finding carrying its own fix. If what you actually need is someone alongside you for the whole raise, that's a different piece of work and we can point you to it.
What happens after the report?
You go and fix things, in the order the plan sets out. No upsell waiting, no retainer, nothing to decline. If you want a second review after a substantial rewrite that's a new engagement at the same price. Most founders don't need one.
10

Request a Health Check.

Tell us about the raise first. We'll come back with scope, a delivery date, an NDA if you want one, and a secure way to send the documents.

No documents needed yet. Everything you send is confidential, never goes to investors and never gets reused. Rather email? gday@raaise.co

If you go out next month and the round doesn't close, what will you know at the end of it that you don't know today?

Most founders come out of a failed raise with a list of names who said no and no idea why. Do this first and you find out while it's still cheap. And while there are still twenty investors on your list who haven't read you yet.

$2,500 AUD + GST, fixed. Pro-planet founders at pre-seed, seed or Series A.