Back the one fundable founder who fits your mandate — not the ninety-nine who don’t.

The private capital market has always had a matching problem it never names. Investors read decks outside their mandate. Founders pitch into inboxes that never reply. Both sides lose thousands of hours to poor signal, not poor opportunity.

Verdict™ solves the matching problem. Investors see three signals per company: Mandate Match™ scores fit, the ODDS Score™ scores odds, PathProven MRR™ scores trust — verified from the payment processor, not typed into a deck. Founders see three diagnostics: PitchScore™ scores your story across 12 investor dimensions, PathProven™ places your stage on The $100M Path™, VerdictStar™ reads your team through DRIVE™ assessment and LinkedIn track record.

Score 75 on PitchScore™ and you enter the match database, visible to every investor whose mandate you fit. The warm introduction is no longer the price of access. The score is.

Your network surfaces what it has already seen. The best deals go to whoever had the relationship — not the better fit, ODDS Score™, or PathProven MRR™. Verdict™ scores every founder who applies directly on merit alone, matches them against your mandate automatically, and delivers the shortlist you would never have been introduced to. The question is not whether your network is good. The question is how many of the right deals it has already missed — and how many more it will miss next quarter.

That is exactly what warm introductions already do — route you the founders who look like the last exit, from the same schools, sectors, and networks. The filter they trust is called social proof, and it is the most expensive filter in venture capital. Verdict™ scores falsifiable signal: revenue trajectory, retention, velocity. The non-consensus deal that returns the fund hides among the founders nobody thought to introduce. It surfaces on evidence, not on who vouched for them.

It does not — and it should not. What it does is end the screening process that costs your team hundreds of hours a year reading decks that do not fit. PitchScore™ evaluates the pitch across 12 falsifiable dimensions. PathProven MRR™ verifies the revenue figure against the payment processor, not the founder’s spreadsheet. Your judgment is for the shortlist. Not for the inbox.

Most deal databases are 30 to 90 days stale. You reach out, the round is already closed, and you have spent the relationship capital for nothing. Verdict™ reads live, founder-submitted data cross-referenced at source. PathProven MRR™ pulls revenue directly from the payment processor — what you see is what the processor reported last month, not what the founder typed last quarter. The shortlist is current enough to act on. The round is still open.

Volume is the problem, not the product. Every other source optimises for more — more decks, more inbound, more noise — because volume is what they can charge for. Verdict™ optimises for match precision: Scout Rules™ filter against up to 25 mandate criteria before a founder appears in your digest. You see fewer companies. Every one of them fits. If none fit, it is because none have cleared your mandate — which is the point.

PitchScore™ is a 0–100 investment-readiness score built on the 12 dimensions investors actually evaluate before saying yes: Elevator Pitch, Problem, Solution, Demo, Founder’s Mindset™, Market, Business Model, Traction, Moat, Team, Financials, and Cap Table. Each is scored by Verdict™’s Scoring Engine, stage-weighted so a pre-revenue founder is not compared against a Series A company. Founders see their score by dimension with the specific fix for each gap — not a black box, an action list. Investors see a 0–100 number that maps to the exact question they would have asked in the first meeting. Score 75 and the company enters the match database.

The $100M Path™ is Verdict™’s eight-stage growth framework: SPARK · START · SELL · SCALE · STRUCTURE · SYSTEMISE · STREAMLINE · SEGMENT. Each stage defines your ARR band, the investors who fund at that stage, and the milestones required before approaching them. Most founders raise too early, from the wrong investors, at the wrong valuation — because they do not know what stage they are actually at. The $100M Path™ ends that. Every founder on Verdict™ is placed by stage. That position is visible to matched investors as a verified signal, not a self-reported claim.

VerdictStar™ is Verdict™’s founder quality read — what the business plan cannot show: whether the founder can actually execute The $100M Path™. It runs on two inputs: a DRIVE™ assessment scoring five dimensions of entrepreneurial potential, and a LinkedIn profile upload mapping five-year track record against that potential. Together they produce the VerdictStar™ read: can this founder go the distance? The read is provisional on DRIVE™ alone and verified once the LinkedIn profile is added. Institutional investors receive VerdictStar™ data on every ODDS Memo™. Most early-stage decisions come down to conviction in the founder — VerdictStar™ gives you a structured basis for that conviction before the first call.

DRIVE™ is the five-dimension founder quality model: Discipline (do they follow through), Radar (do they see the market before everyone else), Iron (do they hold when it gets hard), Velocity (do they move and close), Esprit (can they attract and keep a team). Each dimension is scored 0–100 by Verdict™’s Scoring Engine and displayed as a radar chart on every founder profile. The five dimensions exist because a great idea with the wrong founder does not return a fund. DRIVE™ tells you whether the person holding the idea has the capacity to execute it across a five-year path without breaking.

An ODDS Memo™ is the investment memo Verdict™’s Scoring Engine produces for every company on the platform — 1,200 words covering company overview, traction analysis, competitive positioning, VerdictStar™ team assessment, Mandate Match™ score, comparable exits, and deal risk factors. A junior analyst takes two days to produce this from scratch. You get it on every company in Tuesday’s digest. ODDS stands for Opportunity, Differentiation, Deal Risk, and Scale potential. Scout tier (free) shows company name, sector, stage, and a one-line summary. Full memo on Analyst and Institutional plans.

PathProven MRR™ is the verified revenue signal that ends self-reported ARR. It connects directly to a founder’s payment processor via read-only API and reads live monthly recurring revenue. No spreadsheet. No deck. If the connection lapses, the verified badge disappears automatically — no founder action required to remove it. Founders with PathProven MRR™ active cannot inflate their ARR figure. Investors filter by verified ARR, not claimed ARR. That is the difference between a shortlist and a guessing game.

Mandate Match™ is a 0–100 score for how precisely a company fits your specific mandate — not the company’s absolute quality. A strong company in the wrong sector, wrong stage, or wrong geography scores low regardless of PitchScore™. A company that hits all three of your criteria scores high even if it is not the best company in its cohort — because it is the right company for you. Mandate Match™ is calculated from your Scout Rules™ and applied before any company enters your digest. You never see a company that does not fit. If you do, your rules need updating.

Scout Rules™ are the mandate filters you configure once: stage, sector, geography, minimum ARR, check size. Every founder is screened against them before they appear in your digest. Scout tier (free) has no Scout Rules™ — you see everything. Analyst plans include 3 rules. Institutional plans include 25. At 25 rules, you never read a deck outside mandate — every company has cleared all 25 criteria before you open line one. That is the difference between a curated digest and a database you have to search yourself.

VerdictCredits™ are the transaction currency investors use to unlock full ODDS Memo™ reports, request founder introductions, and access deep-dive diagnostics. Each action costs a defined number of credits. That cost is deliberate: it filters out low-conviction browsing so founders only receive contact from investors who have committed credits — meaning they have read the memo, cleared the mandate filter, and chosen to spend to reach out. Founders do not get unsolicited contact. Investors do not waste credits on founders who do not fit. The credit cost is the quality gate.

Verdict Advise™ is Verdict™’s founder resource library — templates, frameworks, and coaching modules mapped to each stage of The $100M Path™. Every resource is built to close a specific PitchScore™ gap: pitch deck templates structured to the 12 dimensions, cap table models built for institutional due diligence, investor update templates, sales playbook frameworks. Content unlocks as you advance from SPARK through SEGMENT. The purpose is one number: get your PitchScore™ to 75 so you enter the match database and get found by the investors whose mandate you fit.

Traditional VCs, angel networks, venture studios, and accelerators gate access behind warm introductions and pattern-matching. They extract equity, board seats, or programme fees before a founder has proved the model — then tell you it is for your benefit. Verdict™ does not ask for equity, a seat, or a programme fee. It scores every founder on the same 12 dimensions, verifies every revenue claim against the payment processor, and filters every investor match through mandate and stage. Founders who would never have got the introduction get found on merit. They keep their equity until capital lands. Verdict™ earns only when they do.

Verdict™ is for founders from first revenue to $10M ARR — where the right tool is precision matching and AGI-powered automation, not a named human carrying professional liability. VALLARIS™ is for founders above $10M ARR, where institutional buyers, board governance, and due diligence frameworks require a credentialled M&A adviser who signs the engagement letter and is personally accountable for the advice. The $10M line is not a marketing boundary — it is where governance frameworks start requiring a named professional. Verdict™ Scaler plans include a structured warm handoff to VALLARIS™, not a cold referral.

The $10M ARR line is structural, not arbitrary. Below $10M ARR, your challenges are thematic — finding PMF, closing a first institutional round — and automation handles matching without anyone carrying personal professional liability for the advice. Above $10M ARR, institutional buyers and governance frameworks require a credentialled M&A adviser who signs off and is personally liable. Going into an institutional process above $10M without that coverage is the equivalent of signing a shareholder agreement without a lawyer. Verdict™ Scaler includes a structured handoff to VALLARIS™ for founders approaching the line.

The Contrarian ODDS Score™ is a separate deal-flow channel for Institutional investors. The standard digest optimises for mandate fit — the founder most likely to close from your shortlist. The Contrarian channel surfaces founders the standard filter deprioritised: structural signals like prior exits, deep industry tenure, and cross-domain expertise that a deck score alone would underweight. The founder who does not look like a category winner on first read is sometimes the one who becomes one. Both channels draw from the same scored dataset. The filter applied before the digest compiles is what changes.

The 4% success fee applies only when capital lands. It is calculated on the total equity raised in that round, capped at $500,000, and collected after funds are confirmed in the founder’s account — not when the term sheet is signed, not when due diligence starts, only when the money is in. If the round does not close, no fee applies. The fee is paid by the founder, not the investor. Verdict™ earns nothing until founders raise. That alignment is not an accident — it is the model.

When a round closes through a Verdict™ introduction, the investor’s capital enters a segregated escrow account held by our payment processing partner — separate from the founder’s operating account and from Verdict™’s accounts. Funds are verified, the transaction is confirmed, and capital is released to the founder’s nominated account. The 4% success fee (capped at $500,000) is collected at release — never before. If the transaction falls through before release, funds return to the investor in full and no fee applies. The founder never carries Verdict™’s success fee risk until their capital has confirmed and landed.

Yes. Funds held in escrow by our payment processing partner are legally segregated — inaccessible to Verdict™ and not mixed with Verdict™’s operating accounts. During the escrow period, the capital belongs to neither Verdict™ nor the founder: it is held in trust, pending confirmation. No Verdict™ fee applies until release is confirmed and complete. If the transaction falls through at any point before release, the investor receives a full return — no partial refund, no deduction, no Verdict™ fee.

Investors configure Scout Rules™ — stage, sector, geography, minimum ARR, check size — once. Every founder who registers is pre-screened against those rules before they appear anywhere in the investor’s results. The Mandate Match™ score (0–100) quantifies exactly how well each company fits. Matched companies appear in the Tuesday digest with the full ODDS Memo™. Institutional investors also receive the Contrarian ODDS Score™ separately. The investor reads fewer companies per week than under any other process. Every company they read has cleared the mandate filter before they opened the page.

Yes. All Verdict™ subscriptions are month-to-month with no lock-in contracts. Upgrades take effect immediately. Downgrades take effect at the next billing cycle. Cancellations are made from account settings — no support ticket, no call required. Institutional pricing includes a structured pilot option for funds evaluating at scale; contact Verdict™ directly. A plan change does not affect VerdictCredits™ you already hold — each keeps its own 12-month term.

Verdict™ does not offer a time-limited trial. The free tier — Scout for investors, Pathfinder for founders — is permanently free with no countdown and no expiry. Founders on Pathfinder get their PitchScore™ free: the 12-dimension score, dimension-by-dimension breakdown, and their position on The $100M Path™. Investors on Scout see every company in the digest with name, sector, stage, and a one-line summary. Paid tiers unlock the full ODDS Memo™, Scout Rules™ filters, VerdictCredits™ for introductions, and the complete Verdict Insight™ coaching suite. Upgrade when the free tier shows you what you are missing — not when a timer forces your hand.