Build a pitch claim-and-evidence map
Separate facts, calculations, assumptions, and forecasts before qualified reviewers inspect the pitch.
- Preparation
- Until the evidence owners, authorised decision owners, independent counsel, and relevant jurisdiction advisers complete their reviews
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Task
- Trace every investor pitch claim
Before you start
Get what you need before you start
- Confirm the company body and people authorised to own this decision.
- This Practice provides an internal evidence workflow. It does not provide legal, financial, tax, investment, or valuation advice.
- Obtain named pre-upload approval for the workspace, plan, account settings, retention settings, and each approved document category.
- Treat privileged, personal, customer, employee, security, and third-party information as prohibited. Keep it out of this workspace and use a separately approved system.
- Verify plan-dependent data controls and retention before use. Test access with a non-owner account before sharing.
- Keep unsupported facts, missing documents, conflicts, and disagreement visible.
- Treat Tool output as an internal draft that a person checks against every cited source.
- Independent counsel and the qualified advisers for each applicable jurisdiction must review every external communication and transaction decision before use.
Steps
Work through the method
Use the listed inputs and tools. Check the evidence when you need to verify a step.
Inventory every pitch claim
List every material statement. Label it fact, calculation, forecast, opinion, or unknown, then add its dated source, owner, formula, assumptions, and approval state.
Why it matters: The labels stop persuasive copy from hiding unsupported or forecast content.
- Input
- The full pitch, source records, calculations, and forecasts.
- Output
- A claim table with one row for every material statement.
Tools in this stepChatGPT evidence workspaceEvidence for this step
Buffer’s founder says company traction became central to its investor pitches and links the deck used for its seed round.
Buffer: “How we did it with Buffer”, lines 101–115 in the checked research captureThe SEC says federal anti-fraud provisions apply to exempt offerings and cover oral and written statements made by or for the company.
US Securities and Exchange Commission: “Do anti-fraud provisions apply?”; page last reviewed 17 March 2026OpenAI says file availability and limits depend on the plan and account settings, retention varies by use and plan, and deletion can take up to 30 days subject to stated exceptions.
OpenAI: “Availability”, “How do I delete files I upload?”, “How are files vs chats retained?”, and “Will OpenAI use files uploaded to train its models?”; version checked 26 September 2026
Reconcile figures and repeated claims
Finance checks formulas, actuals, forecasts, and repeated figures across the deck, model, cap table, and diligence records. Owners correct or exclude unsupported claims.
Why it matters: One checked value and source must support every repeated use.
- Input
- The claim table and authoritative financial and operating records.
- Output
- A reconciled claim map with approved, revise, remove, and unresolved statuses.
Tools in this stepChatGPT evidence workspaceEvidence for this step
The SEC says federal anti-fraud provisions apply to exempt offerings and cover oral and written statements made by or for the company.
US Securities and Exchange Commission: “Do anti-fraud provisions apply?”; page last reviewed 17 March 2026
Approve the pitch for a defined use
Independent counsel reviews offering statements, omissions, risk language, audience, route, and jurisdictions. Authorised owners approve only the reviewed version.
Why it matters: Approval must bind a specific version, audience, and financing process.
- Input
- The reconciled map, pitch version, disclosure questions, and audience.
- Output
- An approved pitch version with a traceable evidence pack or a hold record.
Tools in this stepChatGPT evidence workspaceEvidence for this step
The SEC says federal anti-fraud provisions apply to exempt offerings and cover oral and written statements made by or for the company.
US Securities and Exchange Commission: “Do anti-fraud provisions apply?”; page last reviewed 17 March 2026
Success checks
Check the result before you finish
- Every material statement is labelled and linked to a dated source, owner, formula, and assumptions.
- Repeated figures reconcile across the pitch, model, cap table, and diligence records.
- Counsel and authorised owners approved the exact version, audience, route, and jurisdictions.
Failure modes
Watch for these problems
- A persuasive sentence hides an unknown, forecast, assumption, or unsupported claim. Remove it from the pitch until its owner supplies checked evidence.
- A repeated figure differs across the pitch, model, cap table, or diligence record. Hold the pitch and ask Finance to reconcile the source and calculation.
- Someone uses the pitch with an unapproved audience, route, jurisdiction, or version. Stop external use and return the exact version to counsel and authorised owners.
Tools
Choose the tools you need
Tool
ChatGPT evidence workspace
A restricted workspace for organising supplied company records into internal tables that authorised people and independent advisers check.
Check fit, limits and pricingSources
Read the sources behind this practice
Check what each source supports and where the advice has limits.
- Buffer: Raising Funding as a First-Time FounderFirst-hand founder retrospective · Publication date unavailable
- US Securities and Exchange Commission: Frequently Asked Questions About Exempt OfferingsOfficial US regulator guidance · Publication date unavailable
- OpenAI: File Uploads FAQOfficial product help · Publication date unavailable