Published Paper Details:

The pre-investment due diligence is a comprehensive systematic investigation, verification and evaluation of the prospective project before funds are committed. The paper aims to develop a comprehensive due diligence and audit framework to facilitate consistent evaluation of investment proposals. A brief literature review concerning the pre-investment assessment activities has been presented. In order to develop a pragmatic comprehensive framework, which requires a great deal of information and documents to be perused, the Focus group interview method has been adopted. The resultant discussions had been summarized under various heads - Business proposal screening, Term sheet, Current Valuation and Capital structure, amount of funds needed, structuring the deal, the antecedents of the core management team including the promoters, details of the product/service, nature of completion, industry/sector attractiveness etc. The paper as part of due diligence and audit process suggests the list of documents. The framework suggested would enable venture capital firms to adopt consistent and robust practices resulting in risk mitigation of its investments in new business ventures.