Built with founders and investors who've been on both sides of the term sheet, these twenty-one questions are drawn from what actually comes up in investor due diligence — cap table, IP, compliance, financials, contracts, data room and DPDP data-protection readiness. No judgment, no gimmicks — just honest questions about how ready your startup really is. Answer them, and the moment you submit you'll get a clear, personalised summary of where you stand and exactly what to fix before you raise.
First, a little contextTakes 30 seconds
Tell us about your startup so we read your answers in the right context.
Tell us about your startup so we read your answers in the right context — a pre-seed team and a company in due diligence are held to very different bars. These five answers keep your result fair and personal — nothing here is scored. No jargon needed — tap any underlined term for a plain-English explanation.
New to these terms? Plain-English glossary
Cap table
A list of who owns what in your company — founders, investors, ESOP — and how much.
ESOP
Employee Stock Option Pool — equity set aside to grant to employees.
Vesting
Earning equity over time (e.g. 4 years), so it isn't all owned on day one.
IP assignment
A signed document transferring ownership of work (code, designs) to the company.
Due diligence
The deep check an investor runs on your company before investing.
Data room
An organised (usually online) folder of all the documents an investor needs to review.
Term sheet
A short document setting out the key terms of an investment before final paperwork.
ROC / MCA
India's Registrar of Companies / Ministry of Corporate Affairs — where company filings are made.
Statutory compliance
The filings and payments the law requires (ROC, GST, TDS, PF/ESI).
Revenue recognition
The rules for when you count money as earned revenue.
Runway
How many months of cash you have left at current spend.
MSA
Master Services Agreement — the standard contract governing your customer relationships.
MIS
Management Information System report — a regular summary of the numbers that run the business.
Your stage
What stage is the company?
Your sector
What's your sector?
Your team
How big is the team?
Fundraising
Where are you on fundraising?
Raised so far
What have you raised so far?
Investment-Readiness DiagnosticQuestion 1 of 21
Throughout, "you" means your startup and "investors" are the people who'll run due diligence on it before they invest. There are no wrong answers — only a current state and a clear path to investment-ready. Tap any underlined term for a plain-English explanation.
Pillar · Structure
Is your cap table accurate, current, and in one authoritative place?
Be honest. There's no wrong answer - only a current state.
Pillar · Structure
Is the company cleanly incorporated, with share issuances properly documented (resolutions, share certificates, filings)?
Clean corporate records are the backbone of a fast diligence.
Pillar · Founders
Do the founders have vesting schedules in place?
Vesting protects the company (and the founders) from dead equity.
Pillar · Founders
Have all founders assigned their IP to the company, with founder agreements signed?
Investors always check that the company - not a founder - owns the work.
Pillar · IP
Is all IP (code, product, brand) owned by the company - including work by contractors and past employees?
Every person who touched the product should have assigned their work.
Pillar · IP
Have you protected key IP - a trademark on your brand, and awareness of any patents?
A little IP protection signals a company that takes its assets seriously.
Pillar · IP
Is your codebase clean on open-source and third-party licenses?
A quick licence review avoids surprises in a technical diligence.
Pillar · Compliance
Are your ROC / MCA filings (annual returns, board meetings, statutory registers) up to date?
Current filings are a simple signal that the company is well run.
Pillar · Compliance
Are tax and payroll dues (GST, TDS, PF/ESI) filed and paid on time?
Clean tax and payroll history keeps diligence smooth and quick.
Pillar · Compliance
Do you hold the sector licenses / registrations your business needs?
Having the right permissions in place avoids a diligence surprise.
Pillar · Financials
Do you have clean, up-to-date books and a monthly MIS?
Numbers investors can trust make everything downstream faster.
Pillar · Financials
Are your financials audited or reviewed, with clear revenue recognition and bank reconciliations?
Reviewed numbers with clean revenue recognition build fast confidence.
Pillar · Contracts
Are your key customer and vendor contracts signed and on file?
Signed, organised contracts are quick for diligence to work through.
Pillar · Contracts
Do you know your customer concentration and any unusual clauses (e.g. change-of-control)?
Knowing your risks before diligence does keeps you in control.
Pillar · Contracts
Are your standard terms (MSA, privacy policy, T&Cs) in place and consistent?
A consistent standard set signals a company that scales cleanly.
Pillar · Data Room
If an investor asked today, could you produce an organised data room (corporate, financial, legal, IP, HR) quickly?
A ready data room is what makes a raise feel calm and fast.
Pillar · Data Room
Are board minutes, resolutions and key policies documented and current?
Current governance records round out a diligence-ready data room.
Pillar · People
Are employment agreements, ESOP grants, and basic HR compliance (offer letters, POSH, labour) in place?
Clean people paperwork is one of the easiest areas to get diligence-ready.
Pillar · Data Protection
Do you know what personal data you collect, and show a clear privacy notice with consent at the point of collection?
Under the DPDP Act 2023, this is the first thing a data-aware investor checks.
Pillar · Data Protection
Is personal data secured (access controls, encryption) and covered by data-processing terms (a DPA) with the vendors who touch it?
Investors want to see personal data stays protected once it leaves your own systems too.
Pillar · Data Protection
Can users exercise their rights (access, correction, deletion), and do you have a breach-response plan and someone accountable for privacy?
A rights process, a breach plan and a named owner turn DPDP from a risk into a tick in diligence.
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% Readiness
Your Investment-Readiness Score
What's working
Biggest opportunity
Your next move
Readiness projection
If you closed the top three opportunities below over the next few months —
A directional view of how much of the investment-readiness picture you'd have covered. Indicative, not a legal opinion — real readiness depends on execution and your specific situation.
+0%Overall readiness lift
+0%Structure & IP lift
+0%Financials & data room lift
Corporate Structure & Cap Table0/6
Founder & Equity0/6
IP & Technology0/9
Statutory & Regulatory0/9
Financials & Records0/6
Contracts & Commercial0/9
Data Room & DD Readiness0/6
People & HR0/3
Data Protection (DPDP)0/9
Where focus would pay off fastest
DPDP compliance checklist
The eight data-protection items investors check under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Tick what you have — the gaps are your DPDP to-do list.
Want the full picture? Take the dedicated DPDP Readiness Diagnostic for a deeper, pillar-by-pillar assessment.
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This report is yours to act on at your own pace. If it's useful to talk it through, Muskan can read your diagnostic in advance and share an honest view on what to build first — but there's absolutely no pressure to.