Define an Actionable Thesis
A sharp, falsifiable thesis is the filter that turns noise into signal.
Defining an actionable thesis is the work that comes before everything else. You may have done a version of it already — the deck you raised on, the cold-open at the AGM, the line on the website. Those documents usually sell your proximity: the access, the network, the value add. That is the LP facing thesis. The sourcing thesis is a different artifact. It exists to tell the team exactly what to put in the pipeline tomorrow morning.
The LP thesis vs. the sourcing thesis
Your fund thesis probably revolves around why you win — the unfair advantage you bring once a company is on your cap table. The sourcing thesis answers a narrower, more operational question: what is the exact type of company we invest in? What stage. What subsectors. What geographies. What qualities. Both documents can be true at the same time, but only the second one controls what enters the universe in the next module.
Break it down until it is actionable
“Deep tech” is not a thesis — it is a category label. To make it actionable, keep decomposing until every word forces a yes/no decision on a real company:
- Sector & subsector — not “AI” but “inference infrastructure for regulated industries.”
- Stage — pre-seed, seed, Series A, Series C. Pick.
- Geography — US only? Do you write checks in Europe? Emerging markets?
- Check size & ownership target — what does a typical entry look like?
- Qualities of the company — technical founder, deployed pilot, revenue threshold, IP posture.
Good thesis vs. bad thesis
Good thesis
- “We invest in quantum computing startups at Series C in the United States.”
- “We lead seed rounds in vertical SaaS for US dental practices, $1–3M checks.”
- “We back pre-seed climate hardware founders in the EU with a deployed prototype.”
Bad thesis
- “We invest in deep tech.”
- “We back exceptional founders building the future.”
- “We do AI, fintech, climate, and consumer — stage agnostic, geo agnostic.”
From broad to actionable
Why this matters before anything else
A sharp thesis keeps the firm true to its mandate and puts horse blinders on the team. It has cascading effects through every module that follows — the universe you pull, the signal you enrich for, the weights in your scoring model, the saved views each partner lives in. Get this wrong and you will spend the next six months building machinery that surfaces companies you were never going to invest in.