- On how many boards do you sit?
- Do you really have enough time to impact the outcome of this investment through your involvement and engagement?
- Is there a culture of providing bridge capital to a series of objective milestones to get to a better point to raise our next round of financing?
- Do you have the necessary external relationships to help us build the syndicate for our next round of financing?
- What are your return expectations?
- Don’t ask for a reference call with a CEO of one of the companies they had to shut down;just cold call them without telling the VC.
- How do you feel about truly independent outside board members i.e. those with no affiliation with the firm?
- May I talk to one of the CEOs that you had to remove or delegate from their position?
- Questions on fund solvency are a must.
- what is the size of the fund you would be investing from?
- What is the average size of your first round investments?
- Don’t ask for a reference call with a portfolio CEO: just cold call them without telling the VC.
- Don’t assume that changes in founding CEOs are a bad thing. What you want to find out is how the investor behaved in managing these kinds of transitions.
- What was the toughest portfolio company experience you went through? How do you work through these tough situations?
- How many times have you been through CEO changes in your companies, and how did you arrive to that change?
- Would you consider this as an investment if the right opportunity and team were to present it? Why or why not?
- How close does a product need to be to finished before you will consider an investment?
