Investors require a large amount of data to make an informed investment decision. The more information that is available to them, the faster they will be able to examine it and make a decision. You must have all the necessary documents in your data room before you start contacting investors (or as soon as you can).

In addition to the key investment documents you’ll need for any due diligence, founders should include their most recent investor presentation, basic financials for past performance and projections, cap table, and company organization/formation documentation (including business certificates, articles of incorporation, tax information, etc.). Having these readily available in your investor data room will allow investors to quickly and efficiently create an agreement memo or exchange of information between their partners which could result in the making of a term sheet.

Another useful document to include in your investor data room is an analysis of deal attribution which will show how your team has invested in other startups, which can help to reassure potential LPs that you’re competent to make the right investments. You may also want to include other supplementary information, including intellectual property information, supplier and customer contracts, market research and more.

Although you can add additional documents to your investor data room at any point but it is important to only allow access when the investor is committed to moving toward a term sheet. If site link you allow an investor access to your data room prior to when they’re prepared, it could delay the process and may even lead investors to reconsider investing.