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Screening Memo Desks
The screening memo is the first real artefact of a seed relationship. It is written before money moves and it is written with the founder, not about the founder. On the desk we work through the problem the company is solving, the evidence that the problem is real, the shape of the market, the competitive position and the honest risks that a partner will raise at the investment committee. Most memos run between four and eight pages, and every memo ends with a short section that names what would have to be true for the cheque to be a clear mistake. That section is not a formality. Founders tell us it is the most useful page they ever write about their own business.
The desk at Yunnan Drive keeps a template that has been refined across several batches, but it never becomes a rubber stamp. Companies selling computer systems design and integrated technical services tend to have long sales cycles and a small number of large contracts, which changes what evidence matters. We look for named buyers, written pilots and the discipline to price work honestly. The memo is signed off by the fund administrator and the founder, then filed with the term sheet so the reasoning behind the cheque survives the first difficult quarter.
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Milestone Tranche Planning
A seed cheque is rarely handed over all at once. JYT Growth Capital Pte. Ltd. usually splits an investment into two or three tranches tied to milestones that the founder helped to define. Tranche planning starts with a plain question: what would a reasonable person expect this company to have proved before the next instalment? The answer becomes a short schedule of milestones, each with a date, an owner, and a piece of evidence that counts as complete. The evidence has to be something a third party could check, which rules out milestones that depend on happy feelings.
The plan is reviewed at each check-in and is allowed to move. If a milestone turns out to be wrong, we revise it in writing rather than wait for a missed date. The aim is not strictness for its own sake. It is to keep the founder from living with a surprise, and to keep the fund from releasing capital into a plan nobody believes in. The schedule sits on the same desk that released the first tranche, so there is no gap between the people who agreed the milestones and the people who pay against them.
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Founder Check-in Rounds
Founder check-in rounds are the pulse of the practice. Every company in the batch gets a standing slot, usually once a month, with the same member of the Yunnan Drive desk. The conversation is deliberately not a pitch. It covers what moved, what stalled, who joined or left, how much cash is left and when the next hiring decision falls due. A written note of two or three paragraphs goes back to the founder within two working days, so both sides share the same memory of what was said.
The value of a fixed rhythm is that it makes the difficult conversations possible earlier. A founder who has spoken to the same person every month for a year does not need to draft a careful email to admit that a key engineer is leaving. The check-in round also gives the fund an honest view of how each company is actually doing, which makes the portfolio report cycle calmer and the next tranche decision less speculative. When a founder needs a second opinion on a contract, a hire or a pricing decision, the check-in is usually the first place it surfaces.
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Portfolio Report Cycles
Portfolio reporting at JYT Growth Capital Pte. Ltd. runs on a fixed quarterly calendar, with a short monthly note in between. The template stays the same from quarter to quarter, because the whole point of a report is comparison over time. Each cycle asks for a brief operating summary, the cash position and runway, the sales pipeline in plain language, and a short list of the decisions the board will need to make before the next cycle. Founders who keep their books tidy can complete it in under two hours.
The desk assembles the founder reports into a single pack for the partners, adds a short cover note, and flags any company whose runway has dropped below the threshold agreed at investment. That flag is not a warning in itself; it is a prompt to start a conversation early. We would rather raise a cash question six months before it becomes urgent than discover it at the bridge round. Every pack is stored alongside the screening memo and the tranche schedule, so the record of a company reads as one continuous story rather than a set of disconnected updates.
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Cap Table Reviews
The cap table is the quiet document that decides how much a founder actually owns after three rounds. JYT Growth Capital Pte. Ltd. reviews the register whenever something changes: an option grant, a note conversion, a transfer between shareholders, a new safe or a small secondary. The review checks the spreadsheet against the signed paperwork, recalculates fully diluted ownership, and confirms that the same numbers are used by the company, the fund and the lawyers.
Most seed companies discover a cap table problem during diligence for the next round, when it is expensive to fix. We would rather find it during the first year, when the fix is a short email. Each review produces a one page reconciliation that the founder can keep, and any open question is added to a short list that is closed at the following review. In a sector where founders often sell to a handful of large clients and bring in engineering partners on flexible terms, the register can change quickly, which is exactly why the review is a standing service rather than an occasional favour.
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Follow-on Readiness Checks
A follow-on readiness check is the last service in the season and the most forward looking. When a company begins to show the signs of a next round, the desk runs a structured review against the things a new lead investor will ask for. Is the cap table clean. Is there a data room that a stranger can navigate. Is the financial model consistent with the bank statements. Can the founder tell the story in ten minutes without notes. Does the team have a credible plan for the money it hopes to raise.
We go through each of those questions with the founder, write down the gaps and agree a short sequence of fixes. The check does not guarantee a round, and it is not a substitute for the fundraising effort of the company itself, but it removes the avoidable reasons a good company gets passed over. It also gives the fund a clear view of which batch companies are ready to be introduced to new investors, which matters because every introduction spends a little of the practice reputation. The readiness check is where the six services come together, and it is usually the point at which a founder realises how much of the groundwork was laid months earlier.