Investment Memo Drafting

The investment memo is where everything you have learned about a target gets argued in one place. Drafting it from a blank page is slow, and the slow part is rarely the thinking: it is assembling the structure, pulling the evidence together, and getting a clean first version on the page. Claude is built for exactly that. It produces a strong first draft from the material you have gathered, so your time goes into sharpening the thesis rather than fighting the formatting.

When to use this

Use this once diligence has given you enough to form a view, when you need to turn a pile of findings into a coherent memo for the investment committee. Claude is most useful on the first draft and on the section-by-section build. The argument, the conviction, and the recommendation are yours; Claude assembles the scaffolding and the supporting prose around them.

The workflow

1. Gather the source material into the deal Project

   Make sure the CIM, your diligence notes, the financial summary, and any market work are in the deal Project. The memo is only as good as the material Claude is drafting from, so give it the real inputs rather than working from memory.

2. Agree the structure first

   Ask Claude for the memo structure before any prose. Confirm the headings match your firm’s IC format, then draft section by section against that agreed skeleton. This keeps the whole memo coherent instead of drifting.

3. Draft one section at a time

   Work through the memo in focused passes: business overview, then market, then financials, then thesis, then risks. A tight prompt per section beats one sweeping request, and it lets you steer each part properly.

4. Feed it your view, not just the documents

   The thesis section needs your angle. Give Claude your actual investment logic in a sentence or two and ask it to structure and evidence the argument. Do not ask it to invent a thesis; ask it to articulate yours.

5. Run a devil's advocate pass

   Before the memo is final, ask Claude to challenge it: where is the argument thin, what would a skeptical IC member press on, what risk is underweighted. Better to find the soft spots yourself than have the committee find them for you.

Drafting a memo section

This prompt drafts a single section properly, grounded in your uploaded material and honest about gaps. Reuse it section by section, changing only the section name and focus.

You are assisting a private equity associate drafting an investment committee memo on Project Atlas, a mid-market B2B field-service software target. I have attached the CIM, the diligence financial summary, and my notes.
Task: draft the “Financial performance and quality of earnings” section of the memo.
Constraints: use only the attached material. Cite the source for every figure (document and page). Where a figure is not in the sources, write “to be confirmed” rather than estimating. Keep the tone neutral and partner-ready: concise, no superlatives, US English.
Format: open with a two-sentence summary of financial health, then cover revenue trajectory, margin profile, cash generation, and earnings quality (one-offs, adjustments, working-capital movements). Use short paragraphs with a supporting figure in each. Close with a short bullet list of the financial points the IC should weigh.
When unsure: flag, do not fill. List anything the sources leave unresolved at the end as open items.

Stress-testing the draft

A memo that has only been written is half-finished. Have Claude attack it before the committee does.

You are now playing a skeptical investment committee member reviewing the attached draft memo on Project Atlas. Your job is to find the weak points, not to be reassured.
Task: produce a structured critique.
Format: three sections.

Where the argument is thin: claims that are asserted rather than evidenced, and what evidence is missing.
Underweighted risks: risks the memo mentions lightly or omits, and why each could matter.
The five hardest questions the IC is likely to ask, with a note on whether the memo currently answers each.
Be specific and tie each point to a part of the memo. Do not soften the critique to be polite.

Drafting versus deciding

Where to go next

Done well, this frees your time for the part only you can do: the argument and the recommendation, with Claude carrying the structure and the evidencing around it. To watch the memo take shape from real diligence findings, see how the Project Atlas example builds its IC case. To make the drafts come back in your firm’s house tone every time, set it up in Writing Effective Instructions.