Every reference, tracked and documented
Reference checks are one of the highest-signal activities in due diligence, yet most funds track them with scattered notes, email threads, and memory. When it's time to present to the IC, you're reconstructing conversations from two weeks ago instead of presenting structured findings.
Start your free trialYou call a former co-worker of the founder during a walk between meetings. You jot down three bullet points in your phone's notes app. A week later, you have a back-channel call with a co-investor who shares a nuanced take on the founder's operating style — you type a few sentences into an email to yourself. Another week passes and you speak with a customer reference who raves about the product but mentions a concerning support experience.
By the time the IC meeting arrives, these conversations live in five different places. You spend 30 minutes before the meeting trying to reconstruct what each person said. The nuance is lost. The specific quotes that would have been compelling are paraphrased from memory. And the red flag from the customer reference? You forgot to mention it because it was buried in a text thread.
Reference checks are too important to treat as an informal afterthought. A structured process ensures every conversation is captured consistently, every signal is surfaced, and the IC gets the full picture — not your best recollection of it.
Maintain a searchable database of all reference contacts across every deal. Track who you've spoken to, their relationship to the founder, their role, and when the conversation happened. Reuse contacts across deals when the same person appears in multiple founder networks.
Send a scheduling link directly from Archstone to set up reference calls. The platform creates a reference record automatically when a call is booked, pre-populates the note template, and sends you a reminder with context about the deal and the reference's background before the call.
Pre-built templates guide you through the key questions for each reference type. Founder references cover leadership style, resilience, and coachability. Customer references focus on product quality, support experience, and willingness to recommend. Each response field supports tagging and sentiment marking.
Rate each reference conversation on a standardized scale and tag individual responses as positive, neutral, or concerning. Aggregate sentiment across all references gives you a quantified view of the founder's reputation and the company's standing with customers, investors, and former colleagues.
Mark any response or theme as a red flag and it surfaces prominently in the deal summary. If two references independently mention the same concern, Archstone highlights the pattern. Red flags don't kill deals automatically — they ensure the IC discusses them explicitly rather than overlooking them.
Generate a formatted reference check summary for your investment committee with one click. The summary includes total references completed, sentiment breakdown, key themes, standout quotes, and any flagged concerns. Export as a section for your IC deck or as a standalone document.
At seed stage, you're betting on the founder above all else. Structured reference checks with former co-workers, co-founders, and managers reveal patterns in leadership style, work ethic, and resilience that a 45-minute pitch meeting can't.
Series A and B diligence requires customer validation. Track every customer reference call with structured notes on product satisfaction, competitive alternatives considered, and willingness to expand. Aggregate findings reveal whether the company has real product-market fit or just a good sales team.
Off-the-record conversations with existing investors provide invaluable signal. Document these back-channel references with appropriate confidentiality flags so the insights inform your decision without creating attribution risk. Track what co-investors say about the founder, the board dynamics, and the real challenges.
Yes. Archstone includes curated question templates for founder references, customer references, co-investor back-channels, and former employee checks. Each template is tailored to the reference type and investment stage. You can customize templates, add your own questions, and save versions for different deal types. Templates guide consistency across your team without making every conversation feel scripted.
Reference check notes are stored with fund-level encryption and access controls. You can mark individual references as confidential, restricting visibility to specific team members. Back-channel conversations can be flagged as off-record, meaning they inform your internal assessment but are excluded from any shared documents or founder-facing summaries. All data is stored in SOC 2 compliant infrastructure.
Absolutely. Archstone generates a formatted reference check summary that slots directly into your IC presentation. The summary includes the number of references completed, overall sentiment score, key themes, notable quotes, and any red flags identified. You can export it as a standalone section or include it in the full deal package alongside your investment memo and financial model.
After each reference call, you rate the overall sentiment on a five-point scale and tag specific responses as positive, neutral, or concerning. Archstone aggregates these across all references for a deal to produce an overall sentiment score and highlights any patterns — for example, if multiple references mention the same concern about execution speed or management style.
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