A structured investment thesis template for early-stage funds and serious angels — the sections that make a thesis actionable rather than vague. Free to copy and adapt.
An investment thesis is the filter that decides which deals you take seriously. A good thesis is specific (which sectors, stages, signals), falsifiable (you can tell when a deal doesn't fit), and lived (you actually say no to off-thesis deals). This template forces those qualities.
Review the thesis quarterly. Most funds keep it as a living document — the anti-thesis section is the most useful, because it's where you record the deals you keep being tempted by but shouldn't take.
Yes. Copy and adapt freely.
Where you list the deals you say no to. Writing it down stops you from drifting into off-thesis deals when deal flow is slow.
Use the signal-criteria field to define a threshold (e.g. 'engineering acceleration above GitDealFlow's published threshold'). That makes the pre-round signal a first-class filter, not an afterthought.
About this page: Published 2026-07-18. Authored by The Data Nerd (ORCID 0009-0002-2222-4112), the pseudonymous maintainer of GitDealFlow. The methodology is published as SSRN preprint 6606558 and archived on Zenodo. Third-party statistics are sourced from the Ahrefs AEO methodology. Report an error.