Investor update

Purpose

Assemble a concise, source-reconciled update that tells investors what changed during a defined period, why it changed, what management will do next, and where support or a decision is requested. Numerical claims remain tied to the approved reporting basis.

Scope

Cover revenue, bookings or pipeline, customers, retention, product delivery, team, cash, burn, runway, fundraising, milestones, risks, outlook, and investor asks only where the corpus supports them. Compare current period with the approved prior period and plan. Excluded: changing the ledger, approving forecasts, making securities disclosures, or presenting an estimate as audited or final.

Data basis

• Approved P&L, cash, bank, billing, pipeline, customer, product, and headcount tables.
• Prior investor update, board pack, budget, forecast, milestone tracker, and risk register.
• Finance definitions for ARR, MRR, bookings, gross margin, burn, runway, churn, and reporting period.
• Optional period and audience inputs.

Result

Deliver an investor-update document with period headline, metric table, operating narrative, milestone status, financial bridge, risks and mitigations, outlook, and specific asks. Attach an evidence sheet with metric name, current value, comparison value, formula, source row or page, owner, and status.

Quality criteria

• Every number has a period, unit, currency, definition, and source citation.
• Reported and forecast values are visually and verbally distinct; restatements are called out.
• Metric bridges reconcile from prior value to current value, including named drivers and rounding.
• Risk statements identify impact, likelihood or status according to the supplied taxonomy, and mitigation owner.
• The narrative contains no investor ask that lacks an amount, decision, deadline, or reason where those are required by the input.

Instructions

Use the finance definition in scope before familiar shorthand. Do not add metrics because they are common in investor letters. Reconcile totals before writing prose; if a source table is provisional, label the resulting figure provisional. Explain material movements with cited operating evidence, not causal speculation. Keep outlook as management expectation with its assumptions and do not imply certainty. Use the prior update to identify commitments that changed status and cite both periods.

Adapt before use

• Add the approved reporting definitions, prior update, board style, and finance sign-off boundaries.
• Define materiality, rounding, currency conversion, forecast labels, and comparison periods.
• Map the source tables, owners, risk taxonomy, and required investor asks.