The Financial Model
Cheat Sheet

Startups – Made in Berlin ● 2
What we want to understand
Scaling of revenues Main cost drivers
1 2 3
Unit economics
4 5
Financing strategy Methodology

Scaling of Revenues
Key Question
How does the top line scale?
What we want to understand
▪ Short-term perspective: are the revenues in the upcoming months underpinned by the
current sales pipeline?
▪ Big picture: Do you have growth ambitions that justify a VC investment?
▪ Through which channels are you planning to generate leads and what are the assumptions
regarding lead conversion?
▪ Are there any up- and cross-selling potentials considered?
▪ Have you made plausible assumptions regarding customer life cycles (up- and
downgrades, churn, retention)?
▪ In line w/ top down market assumptions
(e.g. realistic market share)?
Brett Sayles / Pexels

Main Cost Drivers
Key Question
Which are the main cost drivers?
What we want to understand
▪ Which cost factors correlate with your top line (e.g. CoGS, CACs) and are
they derived appropriately?
▪ Is the value creation chain properly modeled and how do margins evolve at
scale?
▪ Based on degree of vertical integration: are potential dependencies on third
parties modeled?
▪ As we often see personnel intensive business cases: how do you plan
headcount? Are the salaries consistent with market-standards?
Pixabay / Pexels

Unit Economics
Key Question
Are profitable unit economics at scale realistic?
What we want to understand
Based on the assumptions as stated before:
▪ What is the ratio of LTV to CACs. How long does it take to recover CACs?
▪ How do unit economics evolve at scale?
Leio McLaren / Unsplash

Financing Strategy
Key Question
What is your financing strategy?
What we want to understand
▪ How much funding will be needed in total?
▪ How do you plan to stage further cash injections?
▪ Do you raise enough cash in this round to achieve an appropriate KPI level for
further financing rounds/an exit?
▪ Can you outline a comprehensive equity story?
▪ Are typical working capital issues considered?
Jordan Benton / Pexels

Methodology
Key Question
Has the financial plan been created in a methodically meaningful way?
What we want to understand
▪ Does the model leave the impression that the founders understand their business
and are able to illlustrate its mechanisms?
▪ Are the assumptions clearly displayed?
▪ Ideally, the financial plan has been prepared in a way that allows us to perform
sensitivity analyses (at least with the major drivers) to understand how volatile
your assumptions are!
Kamila Maciejewska / Unsplash
Scott Webb / Unsplash

IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft GmbH
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+49 (0)30 2125 3201
www.ibbventures.de
info@ibbventures.de
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der Europäischen Union.
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