Technology Company Capital Raise Questionnaire

This questionnaire gathers the information needed to prepare fundraising materials (pitch deck, financial model, data room) and to respond efficiently to technical and commercial investor diligence. Please complete each section as fully as possible; enter "N/A" or "TBD" where a question does not apply or an answer is still in progress.

Prepared for: Black Pagoda (blackpagoda.com)

1. Company Overview & Contact Information

Legal entity name *

Trade / brand name

Website

Date of incorporation

Jurisdiction of incorporation

Registered address

Primary contact (name, title) *

Contact email *

Contact phone

Q1. In one to two sentences, what does the company do and for whom?

Q2. What problem are you solving, and why does it matter now?

Q3. What is the company's current stage?

e.g., pre-seed / seed / Series A+ / revenue-generating / pre-revenue

2. Market & Business Model

Q4. What industry/sector does the company operate in, and what is the target market?

Q5. How large is the addressable market (TAM / SAM / SOM), and what is the source for these figures?

Q6. What is the business model (how does the company make money)?

e.g., subscription, transaction fee, licensing, marketplace take-rate, direct sales

Q7. Who are the main competitors or alternatives, and what is the differentiation / moat?

Distinguish technical moat (proprietary algorithms, data, architecture, patents) from go-to-market or brand moat.

Q8. What key customer, partnership, or distribution traction exists to date?

Named customers/partners, pilot programs, design partners, LOIs, waitlists, integrations/marketplace listings, etc.

3. Product, Technology & Traction

Q9. What is the current state of the product? What platforms does it run on?

Concept, MVP, live/GA, scaling. Web, mobile, API, on-prem.

Q10. Describe the core technology stack and architecture.

Languages, frameworks, cloud provider(s), key infrastructure.

Q11. What is proprietary or hard to replicate about the technology?

e.g., algorithms, models, datasets, patents, trade secrets.

Q12. Does the product rely on any material third-party/open-source technology, APIs, or foundation models? Any licensing constraints?

Q13. How does the architecture scale with user/data growth, and what are known bottlenecks or technical debt?

Q14. What is the product roadmap for the next 12-24 months, and how does it map to the fundraise's use of proceeds?

Q15. What are the key traction / product metrics to date?

e.g., MRR/ARR, ARR growth rate, DAU/MAU, activation & retention, net revenue retention, logo churn, CAC, LTV, gross margin.

Q16. What milestones were achieved in the last 12 months, and what are the next 3-4 planned?

4. Team & Organization

Q17. Who are the founders and key executives? Include background and relevant experience.

Q18. What is the engineering/product team composition (headcount by function)?

Engineering, product, design, data/ML, DevOps/security.

Q19. How much of engineering is in-house vs. outsourced/contracted, and where is the team located?

Q20. Are there any gaps in the team you plan to fill with this round?

Q21. Does the company have a board of directors, technical advisory board, or notable advisors? Please list.

5. Financial Overview

Q22. What is current revenue (MRR/ARR) and revenue over the trailing 12 months?

Q23. What is the current monthly burn rate and cash runway (in months) at present spend?

Q24. What are gross margin and key unit economics (CAC, LTV, payback period)?

Note infrastructure/hosting costs and usage-based costs (e.g., third-party API or compute) embedded in COGS.

Q25. Summarize historical financial statements available (P&L, balance sheet, cash flow) and periods covered.

Q26. What are the revenue and headcount projections for the next 12-36 months, and key assumptions?

6. The Raise — Amount, Terms & Use of Funds

Amount being raised

Instrument

Pre-money valuation / cap

Minimum check size

Target close date

Lead investor (if any)

Q27. Why raise capital now, and why this amount specifically?

Q28. How will proceeds be allocated?

e.g., % to engineering/product, sales & marketing, infrastructure, hiring, operations.

Q29. What milestones will this raise fund the company to reach, and what would the next raise look like?

Q30. Are there any special rights being offered to investors in this round?

e.g., board seat, pro-rata, information rights, MFN.

7. Cap Table & Prior Financing History

Q31. What is the current fully-diluted cap table (founders, employees/option pool, prior investors, % ownership each)?

Q32. What prior financing rounds has the company raised (round, date, amount, instrument, valuation, lead investor)?

Q33. Is there any outstanding debt, convertible notes, SAFEs, venture debt, or other obligations that will convert or affect this round?

Q34. Is there an existing employee option pool, and will it need to be increased as part of this round?

8. Technology, Data & Security

Q35. What is the hosting/infrastructure setup?

Cloud provider(s), regions, multi-tenant vs. single-tenant, containerization/orchestration.

Q36. What security certifications or attestations does the company hold or is pursuing?

e.g., SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI-DSS.

Q37. What data does the company collect and process, and what privacy regulations apply?

e.g., GDPR, CCPA/CPRA. Is there a documented data retention/deletion policy?

Q38. Has the company had any security incidents, data breaches, or material outages? What is the incident response process?

Q39. What is the current uptime/reliability track record, and are there SLAs in place with customers?

Q40. Has the company undergone any third-party security audits or penetration tests?

Q41. What is the backup and disaster-recovery plan, and estimated recovery time in a major outage?

9. Legal, IP & Compliance

Q42. Does the company own or have licenses to all IP critical to the business?

Patents, trademarks, copyrights, source code, models, training data.

Q43. Has the codebase undergone an open-source license audit (e.g., for copyleft licenses)?

Q44. Are there any pending, threatened, or historical litigation, IP disputes, or regulatory matters?

Q45. Are there any related-party transactions, conflicts of interest, or affiliate agreements to disclose?

Q46. Does the business operate in a regulated industry, and if so, what licenses/registrations does it hold?

e.g., fintech, health tech.

Q47. Are all key employees and contractors under proper IP assignment, confidentiality, and non-compete agreements?

10. Growth Strategy, Risks & Exit

Q48. What are the primary risks to the business and how are they mitigated?

Market, execution, competitive, technical, regulatory, key-person, platform/vendor dependency.

Q49. What is the go-to-market / growth strategy for the next 1-2 years?

e.g., PLG, sales-led, channel/partnerships.

Q50. What is the long-term vision, and what are plausible exit paths and comparable precedent transactions?

11. Supporting Documents Checklist

Please indicate which of the following are available. You can send the actual files or a data room link to your Black Pagoda contact after submitting this form.

Data room link (if one already exists)

Completed by *

Date