Frequently Asked Questions

PitchVault is an institutional-grade deck analysis and investor network platform. Every deck uploaded is run through a structured, stage-calibrated scoring framework — the same criteria and weightings sophisticated investors apply when evaluating a deal — and scored across four dimensions: pitch quality (VaultScore™), defensibility (VaultMoat™), downside exposure (VaultRisk™), and operational execution capacity (VaultOps™).

The platform serves three audiences. Founders preparing to raise who want objective, investor-grade analysis before outreach. Approved investors who want curated, pre-scored deal flow without unscreened inbound. And accelerator programs and venture studios that want to embed institutional analysis across their founder portfolio.

This is not a feedback generator. It is an investment readiness framework built on how institutional investors actually evaluate deals.

Three audiences.

Founders raising capital: early-stage founders preparing for angel or institutional rounds who want to know exactly where their deck stands before outreach — not a narrative summary, but a scored, rubric-based assessment against stage-specific benchmarks. Founders who clear all four scoring thresholds can opt into the investor network and receive inbound interest from approved investors.

Approved investors: angel investors and early-stage fund managers who want pre-scored, pre-analysed deal flow filtered by stage, sector, and score — without reviewing unscreened inbound. Investors apply, are reviewed manually, and access a curated feed where every founder has been evaluated against the same institutional rubric.

Accelerator and program partners: accelerators, incubators, and venture studios that want to embed investor-grade analysis across their cohort — with a shared workspace, portfolio-level scoring visibility, coaching tools, and a structured program lifecycle from intake to investor deal flow.

Most pitch deck feedback tools produce a narrative summary — qualitative observations that change every time you run them and are optimised to sound encouraging rather than accurate. PitchVault produces a score.

Every deck is run through a structured rubric calibrated to the founder's funding stage. A Seed deck is held to different standards than a Series A. The output is a VaultScore™ out of 100, a section-by-section breakdown, slide-by-slide analysis, and red flags written the way an investor would surface them in a first meeting — not suggestions, signals.

Beyond the analysis, the platform operates a curated investor network. Approved investors are manually reviewed before access is granted. Founders who reach Investor Visibility can opt into discovery and receive inbound interest from matched investors — without cold outreach. Priority Visibility and Raise Ready improve the strength of that signal. The network is deliberately small and selective: the goal is signal quality, not volume.

This is an institutional framework, not a deck review tool.

Generalist AI models produce feedback optimised to sound useful — they will identify strengths, offer suggestions, and tell you your deck is compelling. That is not how investors evaluate deals.

PitchVault applies the criteria institutional investors actually use to make funding decisions: market sizing logic, traction credibility relative to stage, team–problem fit, financial model coherence, and narrative integrity. Every deck is scored on the same rubric, against stage-specific benchmarks, so the result is comparable and consistent — a Seed deck is not evaluated as though it were a Series A.

The output is a VaultScore™ out of 100, a section-by-section breakdown, red flags phrased the way an investor would surface them in the first 15 minutes of a meeting, a prioritised action list, and — in the full analysis — VaultMoat™, VaultRisk™, and VaultOps™ scores covering the dimensions of the business that go beyond what the deck says.

Generalist AI cannot connect you to real investors, score you against a stage-calibrated rubric, or tell you whether your risk profile is CRITICAL before you walk into a room. PitchVault does all three.

Yes. The Free Deck Scorer at /tools/deck-analyzer lets you upload your pitch deck and receive your VaultScore™ across all 8 dimensions — no account required. You will see exactly where your deck is strong and where it falls short against your stage-specific rubric.

The free tool does not include the written analysis, red flags, slide-by-slide breakdown, or the deeper Vault modules (VaultRisk™, VaultMoat™, VaultOps™, VaultRank™). Those features require the full investor-grade analysis — they are not included in the free score.

The full analysis is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. It unlocks your complete report: slide-by-slide investor-perspective analysis, all four Vault modules, the investor leaderboard, and permanent shareable links.

Access codes (partner grants, program partner access, promotional codes) are redeemed inside your PitchVault account — not on the Stripe payment page.

While signed in, go to Settings → Plan & Billing. You will see a "Have an access code?" option below the plan options. Enter your code and access is applied immediately — no payment required.

Stripe promotion codes (percentage discounts at checkout) are different and must be entered on the Stripe payment page. Access codes bypass Stripe entirely and grant plan access directly for the duration specified in the grant.

The Free Deck Scorer at /tools/deck-analyzer gives you your VaultScore™ across all 8 dimensions — no account required. You see your overall score out of 100, every dimension score, and exactly where your deck is strong and weak against your stage-specific rubric. That is the extent of the free tool.

Pro is the full institutional analysis — a one-time purchase that unlocks your complete report: slide-by-slide investor-perspective analysis, VaultRisk™ (12 stage-calibrated risk dimensions), VaultMoat™ (defensibility assessment across 5 dimensions), VaultOps™ (operational execution score across 7 Theory of Constraints dimensions), VaultRank™ (percentile ranking and comparable raise benchmarks), permanent shareable links, full scoring history, the action roadmap, red flags, written section analysis, and investor visibility controls. Your report shows whether you are Not Visible, Investor Visible, Priority Visibility, or Raise Ready.

There is no ongoing subscription. The free tool gives you the scores; Pro gives you everything else.

These are the discovery states included in the Investor-Grade Analysis. Investor Visibility is the first discovery threshold: VaultScore™ 65+ with no deal-breaker red flags. Priority Visibility starts at 75+ and improves ranked placement. Raise Ready means all four investor lenses clear: Pitch Quality, Investor Defensibility, Risk Exposure, and Execution Readiness.

Once eligible and opted in, your profile can appear in curated investor browsing filtered by stage, sector, and VaultScore™. You receive notifications when matched investors engage. The Investor Ready band (85+) is the top quality tier.

No. The founder Pro analysis is a one-time purchase. There is no monthly plan to cancel. If your report does not deliver value, email support@pitchvault.ai within 7 days for a resolution.

If your report does not deliver value, email support@pitchvault.ai within 7 days of purchase. We review refund and resolution requests individually because founder Pro is a one-time purchase, not a subscription.

Analysis quality is directly tied to deck content quality — decks with detailed, specific content (real metrics, named customers, explicit assumptions) receive the most precise feedback. Sparse decks with under 150 words of extractable text will trigger a low-confidence warning.

If you believe your report contains a material error — a dimension scored against the wrong stage, a red flag based on a misread claim, or a structural issue with the analysis — email support@pitchvault.ai with your report and the specific section in question. We will review it personally.

If your report does not deliver value, email support@pitchvault.ai within 7 days of purchase for a resolution.

A rubric-based scoring system is used, calibrated to your selected funding stage (Pre-seed, Seed, Series A, Series B+) and sector. Each stage has different weighted criteria — for example, team and problem weigh more at Pre-seed, while traction and unit economics dominate at Series A. When you select a sector (e.g. SaaS, Biotech, Consumer), scoring and feedback are further calibrated to what investors in that sector prioritize. Your deck is scored across 8 sections; the final VaultScore™ is out of 100.

The full analysis includes four scores: VaultScore™, VaultMoat™, VaultRisk™, and VaultOps™. The three deeper modules are available immediately with no VaultScore™ gate. Investor Visibility is a separate discovery status based on your stage-calibrated lens status and deal-breaker blockers. That lens structure is separate from the funding stage you select for calibration. See "What are the four investor lenses on my report?" below.

The full analysis is structured around four investor lenses, each one mapping to a question investors ask when they evaluate a deal. This is separate from the funding stage you select for rubric calibration (Pre-seed, Seed, Series A, etc.).

Lens 1 — Pitch Quality: VaultScore™ and slide-by-slide analysis. Your overall score is previewable via the Free Deck Scorer. The full slide-by-slide analysis requires the full analysis.

Lens 2 — Investor Defensibility: VaultMoat™. Available immediately on Pro — no score gate.

Lens 3 — Risk Exposure: VaultRisk™. Available immediately on Pro — no score gate.

Lens 4 — Execution Readiness: VaultOps™. Available immediately on Pro — no score gate.

Investor Visibility is a separate discovery status, not a fifth lens. It reflects whether your deck has cleared the current visibility requirements and whether any deal-breaker blocker remains. Priority Visibility is the stronger discovery tier. Raise Ready means all four investor lenses clear.

VaultScore™ bands (0–39 / 40–54 / 55–69 / 70–84 / 85–100) describe deck quality and are separate from lens access. "Raise Ready" (75+) and "Investor Ready" (85+) are score-quality bands referenced in dashboard messaging — they are not lens gates.

Vault Badges are milestone markers you earn as you clear each investor lens and the Raise Ready milestone. There are four lens badges plus one milestone badge:

🎯 Pitch Quality — earned when your VaultScore™ clears the stage threshold (e.g. 70+ at Seed).

🏰 Investor Defensibility — earned when your VaultMoat™ clears the stage threshold.

🔬 Risk Exposure — earned when your VaultRisk™ clears the stage threshold (lower is better for risk).

⚙️ Execution Readiness — earned when your VaultOps™ clears the stage threshold.

🏆 Raise Ready — earned when all four lens scores are cleared simultaneously.

Badges are visible in three places: your account settings (Vault Badges tab), the investor lens progression tracker on your report, and in the investor deal flow view where cleared score boxes turn green. Badges update automatically when you re-run an analysis and your score crosses a threshold. You can track which lenses you have cleared and what score is needed for the remaining ones in the Vault Badges tab under Settings → Vault Badges.

Yes. When you run an analysis, you select your sector (e.g. SaaS / Enterprise Software, AI / Machine Learning, HealthTech, Consumer). Sector-specific calibration is applied so that scoring and red flags reflect what investors in your sector actually look for — for example, NRR and land-and-expand in SaaS, clinical milestones and IP in Biotech, retention and LTV/CAC in Consumer. The VaultRank™ tab also shows comparable raises and benchmarks for your stage and sector. If you choose "Other" or a sector without a dedicated calibration, scoring uses stage-only criteria.

The scoring framework is grounded in how institutional investors evaluate deals at each stage — not a generic summary or sentiment analysis. Dimension weights shift by funding stage, so a Pre-seed deck is not scored on Series A traction standards. That structural calibration is the foundation of accuracy.

Analysis precision is also a function of deck quality. Decks with specific metrics, named assumptions, and clearly labelled slides produce the most precise findings. Sparse decks — under approximately 150 words of extractable content — will trigger a low-confidence warning, because the AI cannot score what is not on the page. Investors face the same constraint.

The analysis is a decision-support framework, not a guarantee of investor interest. A high VaultScore™ reflects strong deck quality against a rigorous rubric — it does not substitute for a compelling business or the right investor relationship.

A stage mismatch warning means the AI detected that your deck's actual content — traction, revenue, team maturity, product stage — does not match the funding stage you selected.

There are two directions a mismatch can go:

Upward mismatch (more common): you selected an earlier stage (e.g. Pre-seed) but your deck reads as a later stage (e.g. Seed). This is treated as a serious signal. When detected, your VaultScore™ is capped at 80 with a prominent banner naming the detected stage and a "Re-analyze as [Stage]" CTA. A 95 scored against the wrong rubric is not a credible 95 — the cap reflects that and gives you an accurate score to work from.

Downward mismatch: you selected a later stage but your deck reads as an earlier one — your scoring expectations are higher than your current evidence supports.

In both cases, re-running the analysis with the correct stage selected is always the right first step. Investors evaluate decks against stage-specific benchmarks, so a mismatch is one of the most common reasons decks get passed on in the first meeting.

PDF and PowerPoint files (.pptx, .ppt) up to 20MB are supported. PDF gives the most reliable text extraction and fastest processing. PowerPoint files are automatically converted to PDF via a cloud conversion service before analysis — this usually takes a few seconds and happens in the background. If your PowerPoint has unusual formatting or embedded media that does not convert cleanly, exporting as PDF directly from PowerPoint or Keynote will give the best results.

Yes. Pitch decks written in English, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, and Arabic are supported. When you upload your deck, select the language it is written in from the deck language selector — this tells the AI to score your deck with the right market and language context.

The analysis output (scores, written feedback, and report) is always delivered in English, which is the standard language for international investor communications. This is intentional: founders raising capital from English-speaking investors benefit most from feedback written in the same language their investors think in.

Clicking the invitation link logs you in automatically (or creates your account if you don't have one yet) and takes you to a dedicated page explaining who sent the invitation and what they're asking.

If the investor attached your pitch deck, it will be pre-loaded in the analyzer — you just click "Run the analysis" and the deck is already there. If no deck was attached, you upload your own.

Once the analysis is complete, you'll see a prompt on your report to share the results with the investor. Sharing is one click and notifies the investor by email with a link to your report. You are always in control — sharing is optional and your report belongs to you.

The Fundability Gap is a callout on your report Summary tab that names the single most important thing between your current deck and a term sheet from the right investor. It is not a category to improve — it is the specific missing piece of evidence, milestone, or narrative element that, if added, would most materially change an investor's decision.

Examples: a verified free-to-Pro conversion rate, a signed letter of intent from a named pilot customer, or a stated churn assumption behind an LTV/CAC claim. The gap is derived directly from the claim analysis in your report, so it changes with each deck version as you close the gaps.

Every report includes two questions on the Summary tab under "Prepare for your investor meeting." These are derived from the specific gaps and unverified claims identified in your deck — not generic questions that apply to every startup at your stage.

They represent the questions a real investor would ask in the first 15 minutes of a meeting based on what is missing or asserted-without-evidence in your specific deck. Use them to prepare your answers before outreach. If you cannot answer them confidently today, that is the gap to close first.

VaultRisk™, VaultMoat™, and VaultOps™ each include additional targeted questions specific to the risks and gaps found in those analyses.

Yes. Many founders use it on early drafts to identify gaps before they start investor outreach. You can run a new analysis anytime on an updated version of your deck — each re-upload adds a data point to your scoring trend chart in your dashboard.

VaultScore™ credits real changes, not repeat submissions. Three rules govern how a re-run behaves:

New verifiable evidence is credited. When you add a real metric, named source, customer logo, pricing example, or any other concrete proof on a slide, the section it belongs to moves up. Items you close from your action roadmap are recognised explicitly — the engine cross-checks your latest deck against the prior roadmap and credits the work.

Sections you didn't touch hold steady. If you only edit Market and Traction, your Team and Ask scores carry their previous values. The re-score is anti-regression by design — re-running does not create random downward movement on areas you left alone.

Re-uploading the same deck won't move the number. Without new on-slide evidence, the score is designed to stay stable. If the number didn't change, the deck didn't change in the way the engine measures.

The practical implication: put the evidence on the slides. The engine reads what investors will read. Metrics, sources, and proof kept only in your head, in your founder note, or in a side document will not score.

Yes. Your pitch deck content is treated as strictly confidential. We do not share, sell, or disclose your content to any third party. There are two sub-processors who handle your content to deliver the service:

1. Anthropic — our AI provider processes your deck content to generate your analysis. They do not use your content to train their models under our API agreement.

2. CloudConvert — if you upload a PowerPoint file, it is converted to PDF via CloudConvert before analysis. The file is processed transiently and not stored by CloudConvert beyond the conversion.

Your original deck file is stored in private, encrypted cloud storage and is never made public. Your report is private by default. There are two ways it can become visible to others:

• Share link: if you enable the share link on your report, anyone with the link can view the full report. You can disable this at any time.

• Investor platform access: approved investors can only view your report if you have explicitly opted into the leaderboard or enabled investor contact. If neither is turned on, investors cannot access your report.

You are always in control. You can request deletion of your data at any time by emailing support@pitchvault.ai.

Your founder dashboard — we call it VaultRank™ — is the central hub for tracking your fundraising progress. It shows your current VaultScore™ and where it sits relative to all other founders on the platform (your percentile rank), a visual scoring trend chart across every analysis you've run, your single #1 priority to improve before your next investor conversation, how many approved investors have viewed your deck, any intro requests you've received, and platform-wide stats like what the average score looks like at your stage.

Your full analysis is organized around four investor lenses: VaultScore™, VaultMoat™, VaultRisk™, and VaultOps™. The deeper lenses are available immediately on Pro. Investor Visibility is shown separately as your discovery status. See "What are the four investor lenses on my report?" for the full breakdown.

Your dashboard tracks your fundraising progress in one place. It shows your current VaultScore™ and your percentile rank vs other founders on the platform, a visual scoring trend chart across every analysis you've run, your single #1 priority to improve before your next investor conversation, how many approved investors have viewed your deck, and any intro requests received.

The full dashboard is included with Pro ($199 one-time). The Free Deck Scorer at /tools/deck-analyzer shows your scores only — no account or dashboard.

The score trend chart plots your VaultScore™ across every deck version you've uploaded, in chronological order. Each re-upload adds a new point. The chart helps you see whether the changes you're making are moving the score in the right direction — and how fast. Founders who apply their top priority actions typically see a 20–35 point improvement within 2–3 iterations.

When an approved investor on PitchVault browses the leaderboard and views your deck entry, that view is counted in your dashboard. You'll see the total number of investor views your deck has received. This is a signal that your deck is attracting attention — and a nudge to make sure your score and contact opt-in are ready before that attention converts to an intro request.

The founder leaderboard is a ranked list of opted-in founders, sorted by VaultScore™. Approved investors on PitchVault browse it to find deals that match their thesis — filtering by stage, sector, and score. Every entry shows the founder's VaultScore™, stage, sector, red flag count, and investor archetype match. It's the core of how investors discover founders on the platform.

The Leaderboard toggle is available at any score. Find it on your dashboard history (latest analysis row) and flip it on — your entry appears immediately, no page reload required.

When your report reaches Investor Visibility, the same toggle appears alongside investor discovery controls.

Your deck content is never shared on the leaderboard. Investors see your score, stage, sector, and red flag summary — not your slides. You can turn it off at any time.

An intro request is how investors express interest in connecting with you through PitchVault. When an approved investor sees your deck on the leaderboard and wants to learn more, they send you an intro request — optionally with a short message.

You'll see the request in My Vault → Investors with the investor's name, fund, their Active Investor or Lead Investor badge if they have one, and a link to their full profile (thesis, stage focus, sector focus, cheque size, track record). You also get an email notification. From there you Accept or Decline directly in PitchVault. Accepted intros open an in-app messaging thread — the rest of the conversation happens inside the platform, with email notifications on each new message. There is no obligation to respond. If you'd rather not receive intro requests at all, disable the "Allow investors to contact me" toggle from Settings → Visibility (or from your report).

Investor contact (allowing approved investors to send you intro requests) becomes available once your deck has cleared the current visibility requirements and any deal-breaker blockers have been resolved. The thresholds are stage-calibrated — your report and dashboard show exactly where each lens stands and what score is needed.

Once eligible, the canonical place to manage the toggle is Settings → Visibility, where it sits alongside your other visibility settings (investor discovery, company page publish status, public pipeline showcase). The same toggle also appears on your dashboard and on the report itself for convenience.

Your settings carry forward automatically on every new analysis run — you set it once and it sticks.

No. Investors on the leaderboard see your VaultScore™, stage, sector, red flag count, and archetype match — not your slides. An intro request opens a direct line in PitchVault: once you accept, you and the investor exchange messages in an in-app thread (no email back-and-forth). It's up to you whether to share your deck with them after that — the share link is still under your control.

No minimum score is required for the leaderboard. The list is sorted by VaultScore™, so higher scores get more attention — but any score can opt in.

Two separate controls:

Leaderboard — any score. Toggle on from your dashboard history at any time.

Investor contact (intro requests) — requires Investor Visibility, which depends on the current visibility requirements and deal-breaker blockers. Your report shows exactly which lens or blocker is standing in the way.

Once contact is unlocked it stays unlocked permanently — even if a later re-run scores lower.

The Investor Network is a curated, closed matching layer that connects founders with approved investors who are actively sourcing deal flow.

Access on both sides is restricted. Investors apply and are reviewed manually before they see any deal flow. Founders become discoverable after reaching Investor Visibility, then move into stronger placement through Priority Visibility and Raise Ready as their signals improve.

Investors do not browse unsolicited decks. They browse ranked, pre-analysed deal flow filtered by their mandate — stage, sector, and minimum score — where every entry includes VaultScore™, VaultRisk™, VaultMoat™, and VaultOps™ before they decide to reach out. Founders with strong scores receive inbound interest without cold outreach.

The network is intentionally selective. Signal quality, not volume, is the design principle on both sides.

Investor discovery has three states:

1. Investor Visible: VaultScore™ 65+ and no deal-breaker red flags. This is the first discovery threshold.

2. Priority Visibility: VaultScore™ 75+ with no deal-breaker red flags. This gives stronger placement in investor browsing.

3. Raise Ready: all four investor lenses clear. VaultScore™, VaultMoat™, VaultRisk™, and VaultOps™ must each meet their stage-calibrated target.

Leaderboard opt-in is separate and can be toggled at any score. Investor contact must be enabled before approved investors can send intro requests directly.

Note: The 85+ VaultScore™ band (Investor Ready) is the top quality tier. Investors can set their own minimum score filter — scoring as high as possible always improves ranking.

A Company Page is your investor-facing profile on PitchVault — a dedicated page at /company/[your-slug] that goes beyond the pitch deck score.

The editor is a 5-step wizard: Basics (URL, tagline, logo, cover image), Your pitch (founding thesis, product, business model), The raise (stage, amount, use of funds), and two optional steps — Team and Traction — you can skip and come back to.

Required before you can publish: founding thesis, product description, business model, raise stage, raise amount, and a cover image. The cover image is the hero on every surface where investors discover you (match feed, deal-flow watchlist, the public Company Page itself); without one your card falls back to a generic sector-coloured gradient — the same placeholder every other founder in that sector gets.

Investors who view your score without a Company Page have nowhere to go — they move on. A well-constructed Company Page gives an investor everything they need to make a contact decision in under two minutes.

Company Pages are available on Pro. Set yours up at /dashboard/company-page. Pages stay in Draft until you click Publish — the publish status is also surfaced on Settings → Visibility.

The thresholds protect the quality of the investor experience and the value of being discoverable.

Investor Visibility starts at VaultScore™ 65+ with no deal-breaker flags. Priority Visibility starts at 75+. Raise Ready is the full all-lens milestone: your pitch quality, defensibility, risk profile, and operational readiness have all cleared stage-specific benchmarks.

Your dashboard shows exactly where each lens stands, what score is needed to clear it, and whether a deal-breaker flag is still blocking visibility.

The Investor Ready band (85+ VaultScore™) is the top quality tier. Investors can set their own minimum score filter, so every point above the threshold improves your ranking and visibility.

Investors set their mandate parameters when they apply: funding stage, sector focus, cheque size, and investor type (Angel, Pre-seed fund, Institutional seed, Growth). These filters are applied to deal flow browsing — investors see only founders whose stage and sector match their stated mandate.

Within matching deal flow, founders are ranked by visibility tier and VaultScore™. Investors can apply an additional minimum score filter, which is why scoring as high as possible matters beyond simply clearing the first threshold.

There is no algorithmic black box. Founders who reach Investor Visibility, opt into discovery, and publish a Company Page get the most visibility. Everything is transparent and traceable.

No. Through investor discovery and the leaderboard, investors see your score profile (VaultScore™, VaultRisk™ band, VaultMoat™ score, VaultOps™ score), stage, sector, red flag summary, and your published Company Page. Your slides are never shared automatically.

If you enable a share link on your report, investors with the link can view the full report including all scoring tabs. That link must come from you — investors on the platform cannot access your slides without it. You remain in control of what is shared and when.

The VaultMoat™ is a proprietary score (0–100) that measures how defensible your business model is against well-funded competitors — higher is better on the 0–100 scale. It is separate from your VaultScore™, which scores pitch deck quality. The VaultMoat™ scores the underlying business — specifically, whether you have a structural moat that makes it hard for a $50M+ competitor to replicate your position.

It scores five dimensions: moat type and mechanism, evidence of the moat in action, compounding rate and trajectory, competitive stress test, and stage calibration and honesty. The score is generated automatically whenever you run an analysis on Pro.

0–35 (No moat): Investors pass before deep diligence. The product may be good, but there is no structural reason customers cannot switch to a well-funded competitor.

36–55 (Unproven): Investors push hard in the room. If the founder cannot explain the structural mechanism clearly, the deal stalls or gets repriced.

56–74 (Forming): Term sheet possible, but investors add milestones tied to moat evidence. Valuation gets argued down without proof of compounding.

75–89 (Strong): Conviction investment territory. Investors ask whether the gap is widening each quarter — a yes gets strong terms.

90–100 (Exceptional): Preemptive term sheets. Questions shift from "do you have a moat" to "what could break it in 10 years."

A moat is a structural competitive advantage that makes it hard — expensive, slow, or technically difficult — for a competitor to reach parity with you, even with significant capital and engineering resources.

Seven moat types are evaluated:

Data Flywheel: Your product improves as more data is collected, and competitors cannot access that data. The advantage compounds with scale.

Network Effects: The product becomes more valuable as more users join. Each new user increases value for all existing users — Metcalfe's Law applied to business.

Switching Costs: Customers face high friction (financial, operational, or workflow) to leave for a competitor. ERP systems, deeply integrated tools, and data-heavy platforms create this.

Unique Distribution: You have an exclusive, proprietary, or structurally privileged channel to customers that competitors cannot easily replicate — regulatory relationships, exclusive partnerships, or owned channels.

Regulatory Barrier: Licences, accreditations, FDA approvals, or government relationships create a structural barrier to entry that capital alone cannot overcome quickly.

Economies of Scale: Your unit economics improve structurally as you grow, making it harder for smaller competitors to match your cost structure.

Brand Trust: Deep customer trust — typically in high-stakes domains like healthcare, legal, or finance — that takes years to build and functions as a real switching cost.

"Moat strength" reflects whether the moat exists in evidence or only in the founder's narrative.

Strong: The moat is structurally present and evidenced in the deck — metrics, customer behaviour, or market position confirm it is working.

Emerging: The moat mechanism is plausible and the foundation is being built, but there is limited evidence it is creating durable advantage yet.

Weak: The moat mechanism is generic or undifferentiated. Competitors could replicate it with 6–12 months of focused engineering.

Asserted Only: The founder claims a moat exists but provides no structural mechanism or evidence to support the claim. This is the most common pattern — and the most dangerous one in investor meetings, because investors will stress-test it and the founder will not have answers.

Moat compounding describes the direction your competitive advantage is moving over time.

Accreting: The moat strengthens as the business grows. A data flywheel with more users, a network effect with more nodes, or switching costs that deepen with integration — these get harder to attack over time. This is what investors mean when they ask "does the gap widen?"

Static: The moat is real but does not meaningfully strengthen with scale. A regulatory licence, for example, does not compound — it blocks entry but does not widen the advantage over time.

Eroding: The moat is under pressure — from technology shifts, open-source alternatives, platform policy changes, or data portability mandates. An eroding moat often kills a deal at the term sheet stage.

The most common investor stress-test questions by score range:

0–35: "What happens when a well-funded competitor replicates this in 12 months?" and "Why can't your customers just switch?"

36–55: "What specifically prevents a $50M entrant from reaching feature parity?" and "Walk me through the structural mechanism — not the roadmap, the mechanism that exists today."

56–74: "Show me the evidence the moat is forming — what metric proves the gap is widening?" and "What is the single thing that could undo this advantage in 3 years?"

75–89: "Is the gap widening each quarter? By how much?" and "What could a regulatory change or technology shift do to this position?"

90–100: "What breaks this in 10 years — not what threatens it, what actually breaks it?" and "Who is the most dangerous potential entrant and why have they not moved?"

Your VaultMoat™ report includes the specific investor stress-test questions most likely to come up in your next meeting, based on your actual moat type and evidence.

The score is computed across five dimensions, each evaluated against your specific deck content — not generic criteria:

1. Moat Type & Mechanism (0–25 pts): How structurally durable is the moat category, and is the causal mechanism clearly explained? 2. Evidence of Moat in Action (0–30 pts): Is the moat evidenced with real data, or just asserted? Stage-calibrated — at Series A and beyond, quantified evidence is required. 3. Compounding Rate & Trajectory (0–20 pts): Does the moat get stronger over time, or is it static or eroding? 4. Competitive Stress Test (0–15 pts): How well does the deck address "what prevents a $50M+ entrant from reaching parity?" 5. Stage Calibration & Honesty (0–10 pts): Does the founder accurately represent the moat's maturity for the current stage — neither over-claiming nor under-articulating?

The five dimension scores sum to the final VaultMoat™ (0–100). The score is generated alongside your VaultScore™ on every Pro analysis.

VaultRisk™ is a 0–100 downside exposure score that measures the risk investors see in your startup — separate from VaultScore™, which measures the quality of your pitch deck. Where VaultScore™ answers "is this a compelling opportunity?", VaultRisk™ answers "what could make this investment fail?" On this scale, a higher VaultRisk™ number means more exposure (worse); lower is better — the opposite direction from VaultScore™, VaultMoat™, and VaultOps™.

A high VaultScore™ with a HIGH or CRITICAL VaultRisk™ band is a common pattern — and a dangerous one: the deck looks good but the underlying business has material exposure that sophisticated investors will surface in diligence. Knowing both scores before you pitch means you walk in prepared.

VaultRisk™ scores your startup across 12 stage-weighted risk dimensions (names match the live rubric):

1. Market Timing: Is the market ready now, or is this a timing bet? 2. Market Size: Is the addressable market large enough to return a fund? 3. Competitive Moat: What prevents a well-funded competitor from replicating this in 18 months? 4. Team Execution: Can this team execute the plan they have presented? 5. Business Model: Is the revenue model clear, credible, and scalable? 6. Traction Validation: Is there evidence the market wants this at the price being asked? 7. Capital Efficiency: How much capital is required to reach the next fundable milestone? 8. Product–Market Fit: Is there strong evidence users find the product indispensable? 9. Concentration: Is the business dangerously dependent on one customer, channel, or partner? 10. Regulatory & Legal: Are there regulatory or IP risks that could impair the business? 11. Go-to-Market: Is the GTM motion scalable and credible for the stage? 12. Exit Risk (Series B+ only): Is there a credible path to liquidity for investors — M&A, IPO, or secondary? This dimension has 0% weight before Series B+.

Stage-calibration means the same risk matters differently at different points in a company's life.

At Pre-seed, Team Execution carries 20% of the score — because with no traction, the team is the only real signal. Traction Validation carries just 5%.

At Series B+, Traction Validation carries 22% — because by then, the market has had time to speak. Team Execution drops to 6%. Go-to-Market is 15% because investors need a proven, repeatable sales motion. Exit Risk carries 4% (0% at earlier stages).

VaultRisk™ applies the correct weights for your selected stage automatically, so a Seed deck is not penalised for lacking Series A-level traction evidence.

LOW (0–39): Strong evidence across all material dimensions for your stage. Investors see a well-controlled risk profile — risk is not a gating concern. Investor attention shifts to upside: market size, timing, and team.

MEDIUM (40–59): Normal risk for your stage. Investors see nothing surprising — the focus becomes which dimension to de-risk first with capital. Risk discussion becomes a capital allocation conversation, not a veto decision.

HIGH (60–79): Material exposure in multiple dimensions. Investors can still get to yes — but they spend diligence confirming the risks are understood and managed. Term sheets may include protective clauses and tranched funding.

CRITICAL (80–100): One or more dimensions carry existential risk. Investors will surface these in the first meeting — often as the reason they pass.

Certain risk patterns are so severe they trigger an Instant Pass Signal — a flag that means most investors will decline the deal before completing diligence. Common triggers include: founder team with zero relevant domain experience, no discernible revenue model, regulatory prohibition in the primary market, active IP litigation, or product that has not launched after 18+ months of development.

If your VaultRisk™ report shows an Instant Pass Signal triggered, address those issues before pitching. A great deck cannot overcome a fundamental structural issue that investors will catch in the first meeting.

If your deck does not provide enough information to score a dimension, VaultRisk™ flags it as INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE rather than scoring it at a mid-range default. Missing information is treated as a risk signal in itself — investors facing an unanswerable question about market size, regulatory exposure, or team capability will price that uncertainty into their terms or pass entirely.

For each dimension flagged as insufficient, VaultRisk™ provides the specific evidence your deck should include to allow scoring.

VaultRisk™ is generated automatically on every Pro analysis alongside your VaultScore™. No additional upload is needed — the same deck content is analysed for risk signals across all 12 dimensions (Exit Risk is weighted from Series B+ onward). The result is cached: returning to a report shows the same risk score instantly, with no re-run required. For analyses generated before VaultRisk™ was introduced, you can run a fresh analysis to get your score.

VaultOps™ is a 0–100 operational execution score (higher is better) that answers the question investors ask three weeks into diligence: "Can this team actually execute the plan they're pitching?"

Where VaultScore™ measures the quality of your pitch and VaultRisk™ measures downside exposure (where higher is worse), VaultOps™ measures whether the operational infrastructure is in place to deploy capital effectively. A compelling pitch with an operational gap often gets killed in diligence — VaultOps™ surfaces those gaps before the first meeting.

VaultOps™ scores your startup across 7 dimensions, each weighted by funding stage using a Theory of Constraints framework:

1. Primary Constraint Clarity: Can you name the single operational factor limiting your throughput right now — not a list, the one constraint? 2. Scaling Stress Readiness: If demand triples in 90 days, what fails first and by what mechanism? 3. Dependency Concentration: Are critical external dependencies named, understood, and managed? 4. Key-Person Risk: Is irreplaceable knowledge concentrated in one person with no transfer plan? 5. Capital-to-Throughput: Does the capital ask map to specific operational output — or is it a headcount budget without a throughput model? 6. Management Depth: Is there a management layer, or are founders still in every decision? 7. Operational Repeatability: Are critical processes documented in a form a new hire could execute independently?

Each dimension returns a specific finding based on your deck — not a generic observation that could apply to any company.

VaultOps™ returns one of four verdicts:

Execution-Ready (high score): Operations are not a gating concern. Investor attention moves to upside — market size, moat strength, and timing. Diligence is faster because the execution story holds under questioning.

Building Foundations: Core operational elements are present but gaps exist in one or more areas. Investors engage on substance but probe the specific gap — GTM missing, incomplete management layer, or key-person concentration.

Pre-Operational: Significant gaps in constraint awareness, scaling readiness, or management depth make the current raise premature relative to operational readiness. Most institutional investors will wait for specific milestones.

Execution-Risk (low score): Material execution risk across multiple dimensions. Investors who engage will price the risk heavily or require milestone-gated tranches. The most effective use of this score is identifying which gaps to close before the next raise.

VaultRisk™ measures downside exposure — the likelihood that external or structural factors cause the company to fail. It covers market timing, competitive threats, regulatory risk, capital efficiency, and investor-facing signals.

VaultOps™ measures internal execution capacity — whether the team and operational infrastructure can actually deploy capital and execute the plan. A company can have LOW VaultRisk™ (good market, strong moat, clean cap table) and still fail because the founders are doing everything themselves with no management layer and an unidentified binding constraint.

Both scores appear on every full analysis. The combination gives investors — and you — the full picture.

VaultOps™ is generated automatically on every Pro analysis alongside VaultScore™. No extra upload or step is required — it reads the same deck content. The result is generated on demand when you open the VaultOps™ tab on your report, so it never slows down your core score. Once generated, it is cached — every return visit is instant.