Investment memorandums.

The Investment Memorandum is the complete written case for an investment: what the business does, what it is asking for, what the money is for, what the investor receives, and what could go wrong.

It is not a pitch deck with more slides. A deck opens a conversation; an IM is what a serious investor reads alone, at length, before deciding — and what their adviser reads afterwards looking for what is missing.

• Executive summary — the case in a page.
• The business: model, product, stage, traction.
• Market opportunity, with evidence rather than assertion.
• Management team, and why this team can do this.
• Financial information — historic where it exists, projected where it does not, clearly distinguished.
• The offer: structure, amount sought, minimum subscription, instrument, dilution.
• Use of funds, itemised against milestones.
• Tax treatment, where SEIS or EIS applies, and the conditions attached.
• Risk factors, specific to this business rather than generic.
• Supporting documentation and how it can be examined.

We build the IM from the underlying business — accounts, contracts, the feasibility work, conversations with management — rather than reformatting material you already have.

That matters because existing materials frequently disagree with each other. A deck says one revenue figure, the accounts say another, the business plan assumes a third. We resolve those before an investor finds them, because an investor who finds a contradiction stops reading.

• It must not guarantee or imply guaranteed returns.
• It must not present projections as outcomes — forecasts are labelled as forecasts, with assumptions stated.
• It must not omit a material risk because it is inconvenient.
• It must not constitute advice or a personal recommendation to any recipient.

An IM is a financial promotion. It is released only to investors who have completed the qualification and certification process, and only where the applicable requirements under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 are satisfied.

That constrains how an IM circulates, and it is not negotiable. Practically it means the IM sits behind the investor gate and is issued as the final stage of the investor journey, after the pitch, mini offer and business fundamentals.

Preparation of the Investment Memorandum is provided as part of a fundraising mandate rather than as a standalone product. It follows the feasibility work, because an IM written without that groundwork is assertion rather than evidence.