Investor reports: What should startups include when reporting to their investors

Throughout a startup business’s life, investors not only provide founders with capital. They also provide you with helpful advice, expertise, and networks to help you succeed. Now that you’ve secured those investors, you need to focus on keeping them happy, maintaining their faith in your product, and using their expertise to your business’s advantage.

Here’s where investor reports come in. The metrics and focus points in investor reports might vary depending on the growth stage of startups.

Early-stage Investor Report (Pre-seed and Seed)

At the early stage, investors tend to focus more on the verbal update… From a financial point, they are mostly concerned about how long your startup will stay alive with current funding.

• Frequency: Monthly

• Focus: Verbal update
• Metrics: Expenses, Burn Rate, Cash-in-hand, Runway and 1-3 key KPIs for your sector.
• Reports: Highlights, Lowlights, Product Development, Help Needed from Investors.

Later-stage Investor Report (A-Round and later)

Investors tend to focus more on the Metrics since the emphasis has shifted toward performance and hitting targets. At this stage, startups usually have active Board members and a CFO thus, reporting should be at least on a quarterly basis.

• Frequency: Quarterly
• Focus: Metrics
• Metrics: Revenue, Net Profit, Expenses, Runway, Burn Rate, Cash, Headcount and 4-8 key KPIs for your sector.
• Reports: Highlights, Lowlights, Product Development, Sales & Marketing update, Changes in the Team, Comments on the Metrics, Help Needed from Investors.

How to do it?

There are several ways to do investor reporting: send an email, Excel spreadsheets, WhatsApp, or reporting tools like Rundit. Founders can easily choose from Rundit’s extensive list of metrics and draft their investor reports. Learn about 15 key metrics for startup investor reports and start using Rundit for investor reporting today.