If any gate fires, the investor-startup pair is eliminated from the match output entirely, regardless of what score they would have received. There are three gates.
| Gate | Trigger | Rationale & Implementation Note |
|---|---|---|
| 01 \u2014 Founder Opt-Out | Company has explicitly declined investor introductions (WIDMO flag) | Non-negotiable. Remove from all VC matching and reroute to customer facilitation. Violating a founder’s stated preference destroys trust with the founder and TBDC’s relationship capital with the investor simultaneously. This gate is set by the company, not the IR function. |
| 02 \u2014 Geographic Jurisdiction | Investor does not deploy in Canada at all | Eliminates investors whose geographic mandate categorically excludes Canada and all Canadian expansion markets. Note: regional preference within Canada (Ontario-focused, BC-focused, national) is NOT a hard gate — it carries into the scoring layer as a ranked dimension (Geographic Alignment, rank 05). Only country-level exclusions are handled here. |
| 03 \u2014 Fund Activity | Investor is not currently deploying capital | Eliminates investors who are inactive, between funds, or fully deployed. This is treated as a gate rather than a scored dimension because it is binary — an investor is either writing cheques or they are not. There is no partial credit for fund cycle timing. A perfectly thesis-matched investor who is not deploying produces zero outcomes regardless of every other dimension. |
Seven dimensions are scored after the hard gates clear. Dimensions are ranked by importance \u2014 higher-ranked dimensions carry greater weight. Maximum possible score: 14 points.
| Rank | Dimension | Max pts | Scoring Logic & Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Stage Fit | 3 pts | Exact stage match = 3 / Adjacent (one stage away) = 1 / Mismatch = 0. Stage determines whether a VC can legally and structurally deploy from their current fund into this company. One degree of adjacency is permitted because some investors operate across two adjacent stages. |
| 02 | Sector & Thesis Fit | 3 pts | Three-layer analysis — all three layers inform the final score: (1) Stated thesis: what the investor publicly says they focus on — baseline signal only. (2) Revealed preference: what their portfolio shows they have actually backed. Weighted higher than stated thesis because portfolios are evidence; stated thesis is marketing. (3) Portfolio gap: does this startup fill an identified gap in the investor’s existing portfolio, or does it create unwanted concentration? Full match across all three layers = 3 / Adjacency or partial = 1 / Outside thesis or creates portfolio duplication = 0. |
| 03 | Cheque Size Fit | 2 pts | Cheque range covers the ask = 2 / Partial coverage = 1 / No coverage = 0. A VC who writes $500K cheques cannot lead a $5M round. A fund with a $5M minimum cheque floor should not receive a $500K raise introduction. |
| 04 | Lead / Follow Fit | 2 pts | Scored against the startup’s current round structure — not treated as a hard filter or binary disqualifier. Context-dependent logic: if the startup already has a lead investor, a follow-only investor scores 2 (strong match). If there is no lead yet, a follow-only investor scores 0 (wrong intro). Flexible or lead-capable investor with no lead present = 2. Partial or undetermined = 1. |
| 05 | Geographic Alignment | 2 pts | Regional fit within Canada — scored, not filtered (country-level exclusion is handled at Gate 02). Primary region match = 2 / Will consider or has cross-regional history = 1 / Outside stated region with no cross-regional precedent = 0. |
| 06 | Founder–Investor Fit | 1 pt | Founder background maps to the investor’s demonstrated pattern of conviction = 1 / No signal = 0. Operator pedigree, academic credentials, domain expertise, or repeat-founder status that directly correlates with this investor’s historical attention and follow-on behaviour. |
| 07 | Strategic Value | 1 pt | Investor can open doors beyond capital — network overlap, domain expertise, relevant portfolio connections, or operational relevance to the startup’s specific growth stage = 1 / Capital only = 0. |
| Modifier | Warm Path | Activation modifier | Does not affect score — changes execution protocol only. Warm path available = curated one-paragraph brief + permission ask to the connector. Cold path = gap-framed outreach referencing recent portfolio moves and specific thesis alignment. |
Score tiers are calibrated against a maximum of 14 points. Each tier maps to a specific action protocol for the IR function. The tier determines not just whether to make the introduction, but how.
Why weighted scoring outperforms binary matching
A binary model awards one point per signal — sector, stage, geography, and so on — treating all signals as equal. But a stage mismatch is a near-structural kill; geographic mandate exclusion is a hard structural kill; and sector adjacency is merely a weaker intro. Equating these produces false positives and wastes relationship capital on introductions that cannot convert. The weights encode what actually matters. Stage and Sector are weighted at 3 because they are the two dimensions most predictive of whether a VC has conviction and can deploy. Cheque size and Lead/Follow are at 2 because they are structural constraints that are slightly more flexible. Founder fit and Strategic Value are at 1 because they differentiate between otherwise equal matches but do not determine fundamental eligibility.
Why Fund Activity is a gate, not a scored dimension
Fund activity was absent from the previous version of this methodology. It has been elevated to a hard gate — not a scored dimension — because the question is binary: the investor is either currently deploying capital or they are not. There is no meaningful partial score for being 60% through a fund cycle or exploring a new fund. A match that cannot result in a cheque is not a match.
Why geography does two different jobs
Geographic mandate at the jurisdiction level (an investor who does not deploy in Canada) is a structural kill — it belongs at the gate layer. Regional preference within Canada is softer: an investor who primarily backs Ontario companies may still look at a BC deal if the opportunity is strong. Treating intra-Canada regional preference as a hard filter would over-exclude. Treating it as a scored dimension preserves the signal without making it eliminative.
Why Lead/Follow Fit is scored, not filtered
A follow-only investor is either a strong match or the wrong introduction entirely — determined entirely by whether the startup already has a lead in the current round. Because the correct answer depends on the startup’s situation at the time of matching, not on the investor’s preference in isolation, it cannot be a hard filter. It is scored against the startup’s actual round structure.
Why Revenue / Traction Threshold was removed
Revenue threshold is structurally redundant with Stage Fit. If stage fit is correctly defined — matching investors to the startup’s current raise stage, not future stage — a pre-revenue company will never reach an investor with a hard revenue floor, because that investor operates at a stage that has already been filtered out. Redundant dimensions in a weighted scoring model do not add signal; they double-count existing signal and distort output scores.
Why Portfolio Gap is inside Sector & Thesis, not standalone
Portfolio gap analysis asks: does this startup fill an identified gap in the investor’s existing portfolio, or does it create unwanted concentration? This is not an independent variable — it is the third layer of thesis analysis, because an investor’s receptiveness to a new deal is directly shaped by what they already own. Separating it as a standalone 1-point dimension makes it visible but structurally disconnected from the analysis it belongs to. Folding it into Sector & Thesis Fit as the third layer of a three-layer analysis is more coherent.
Warm path availability is logged alongside the match score but does not contribute to it. It changes how the IR function executes a valid match — not whether the match is valid.
A warm path to a Tier 2 match is not preferable to a cold path to a Tier 1 match. The score determines priority. The warm path determines execution.
- Hard gates: 3 (Founder Opt-Out, Geographic Jurisdiction, Fund Activity)
- Scored dimensions: 7
- Maximum score: 14 points
- Tier 1 threshold: 11\u201314 pts
- Tier 2 threshold: 7\u201310 pts
- Tier 3 threshold: 3\u20136 pts
- Do Not Match: 0\u20132 pts or any gate triggered
- Activation modifier: Warm Path (no pts, changes execution only)