Tear Sheet
Definition
A tear sheet is a one-page summary of a company, fund or security that gives an investor the key facts at a glance: what it does, traction, team, terms and contact. Startups send one as a compressed pitch before a meeting; VC funds send one per portfolio company to their limited partners.
How it comes up in fundraising
A founder pastes the tear sheet into the intro email or makes it page one of the deck so an investor can decide in a minute whether to take the call. On the other side of the table, VC funds send a tear sheet on each portfolio company to their LPs every month or quarter.
Where the term comes from
The name is literal. Barron's Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms, as republished on AllBusiness, defines a tear sheet as a page from one of the loose-leaf books that made up Standard & Poor's Stock Reports, which brokers tore out and mailed to customers. Carta tells the same story: stockbrokers tore a sheet from their summary books and handed it to a prospective investor as a recommendation. Carta notes it is also called a "fact sheet".
Carta describes tear sheets as the one-page updates that private equity firms, venture funds and hedge funds send their limited partners every month or quarter, one per portfolio company. Founders borrowed the format for the other direction: a one-page summary a startup sends a VC before the first call.
The startup version, section by section
A startup tear sheet is the seed deck story with every slide cut to a line or two. Y Combinator's seed deck template by Aaron Harris covers ten topics in order: title and one-liner, problem, solution, traction, more metrics, what makes you special, business model, market, team, and the ask. A tear sheet keeps that order and drops the slides.
| Section | What to write | Budget |
|---|---|---|
| One-liner | Who the customer is and what they use you for | 1 sentence |
| Problem | The cost of the problem today, in the customer's terms | 2 to 3 sentences |
| Product | What you sell and the concrete result it produces | 2 to 3 sentences |
| Traction | Dated numbers: revenue, customers, growth, retention | 3 to 5 lines |
| Business model | Who pays, how much, how often | 1 to 2 sentences |
| Market | Who else has this problem and how you reach them | 1 to 2 sentences |
| Team | Founders only, why this problem | 1 line per founder |
| Round | Instrument, amount, cap or valuation, what the money buys | 2 to 4 lines |
| Contact | Name, email, Data Room link | 1 line |
Two rules from the investor side matter more than layout. Hustle Fund says to choose the three to five measures that actually test the thesis and to give every figure a period and an as-of date, because growth of 20 percent means little without the start value, end value and time window. And the YC template is blunt about the team section: it is about founders, nobody cares about your advisors.
Tear sheet vs pitch deck vs one-pager vs executive summary
Founders use these names loosely and investors mostly do not care which you send.
| Document | Format | Length | Job |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tear sheet | Dense, dated, numbers first, often a table | 1 page | Skimmed in a minute before a call, or compared side by side with other deals |
| One-pager | Designed, narrative, visual | 1 page | Cold outreach attachment or event handout |
| Pitch deck | Slides | Ten topics, 1 to 3 slides each in the YC template | Carry a live conversation or a follow-up read |
| Executive summary | Prose | Several paragraphs, sometimes a few pages | Introduce a longer plan or a Data Room |
The tear sheet and the one-pager are the same page with different priorities, numbers first versus story first. If you only make one, make the numbers-first version.
How investors actually use them
Hustle Fund names three kinds in circulation: the founder's tear sheet, a compressed pitch for prospective investors; the fund tear sheet, a snapshot of strategy and performance for LPs; and the investor's own company tear sheet, a dated record of thesis, terms, evidence, risks and next action for one deal.
The fund version is a reporting habit. Carta says LPs want enough basic information to model scenarios and see which deals are working, so the page should be concise, visual, standardized so deals can be compared, and updated regularly.
Picture the investor's private version while writing your own. An angel reading your page will rewrite it into their format: your one-liner, the SAFE terms, the three metrics that matter, the risks, and a decision date. Hustle Fund's Angel Squad team writes that a tear sheet containing only upside is marketing collateral. So name a risk yourself, date every number, and make the ask specific. A page that reads like a screening record gets taken seriously faster than one that reads like an ad.
How to write one in an hour
You already have every input. Budget sixty minutes.
- Ten minutes: pull the numbers. Current MRR or revenue, the same number three months ago, paying customers, cash in the bank, average monthly net burn, each with its as-of date. The runway calculator does the division.
- Fifteen minutes: one-liner, problem, product. Write the one-liner the way a customer would describe you. If it will not come, the elevator pitch generator gives you a draft to cut down.
- Fifteen minutes: traction and round. Pick the three to five numbers that prove the thesis. State the instrument, amount, valuation cap and what the money buys in one line each.
- Ten minutes: team and contact. One line per founder on why this problem. Email and a link to the deck or Data Room.
- Ten minutes: cut to one page and date it. Every quarter, update the numbers, not the story.
Send it as the body of the intro email or as page one of the deck, not as a third attachment. The curated list of active US investors is a starting shortlist, so the same page goes to a targeted twenty, not a blind two hundred.
A tear sheet that does not go stale
The weak point of a PDF tear sheet is the date at the top. Two months later the MRR line is wrong, and whoever forwards it internally is forwarding stale numbers.
A Round Funded Data Room works as a live version of the same page: the one-page summary, the deck and the current metrics sit on one URL that you update in place, and it can be password-protected for a shortlist. Send the link where you would have attached the PDF; the numbers an investor sees in week six are the week-six numbers.
Worked example
Example: Ledgerly, a hypothetical bookkeeping SaaS for restaurants, raising a pre-seed. The traction and round block of its tear sheet, dated September 30, 2026:
| Line | Value | Math |
|---|---|---|
| MRR, September 2026 | $33,600 | 84 locations x $400 |
| MRR, June 2026 | $24,000 | as reported |
| Three-month growth | 40% | (33,600 - 24,000) / 24,000 |
| ARR run-rate | $403,200 | 33,600 x 12 |
| Cash, September 30 | $410,000 | bank balance |
| Net burn | $45,000 / month | June to September average |
| Runway | 9.1 months | 410,000 / 45,000 |
| Raising | $1,500,000 post-money SAFE, $10M cap | |
| Ownership sold if all converts at cap | 15% | 1,500,000 / 10,000,000 |
Use of funds: three hires ($720,000 over eighteen months), paid acquisition ($180,000), the rest held as buffer. Burn rises from $45,000 to about $95,000 a month (45,000 + 40,000 for hires + 10,000 for marketing). Cash after the round is $1,910,000 (410,000 + 1,500,000), which buys about 20 months at the new burn (1,910,000 / 95,000 = 20.1).
The line an investor reads first is the 40 percent three-month growth. The line that gets the follow-up question is the 9.1-month runway, which is why the round line sits directly under it.
Frequently asked questions
what is a tear sheet
A tear sheet is a one-page summary of a company, fund or security built to be read in about a minute. The name comes from the pages brokers tore out of Standard & Poor's loose-leaf stock reports to mail to clients, per Barron's dictionary. Today VC funds send one per portfolio company to LPs, and founders send one to investors before a call.
what is the difference between a tear sheet and a pitch deck
Length and job. A tear sheet is one page of dated facts an investor skims before deciding whether to take a call. A pitch deck carries the full story: YC's seed deck template runs ten topics at one to three slides each. The tear sheet covers the same topics in a line or two apiece and links to the deck.
how long should a tear sheet be
One page, by definition. If it spills onto a second page, cut the market and product prose before you cut a number. Hustle Fund's guidance to investors is three to five metrics, each with a period and an as-of date; that discipline keeps the page short and makes it comparable with other deals on an investor's desk.
what should a startup tear sheet include
Nine things: a one-line description, the problem, the product, three to five dated traction numbers, the business model, the market, one line per founder, the round (instrument, amount, cap, use of funds) and contact details. Add the date at the top and a link to your deck or Data Room. Leave advisors off; YC's template says nobody cares.
what is a tear sheet in venture capital
In venture capital a tear sheet is the one-page update a fund sends its limited partners on each portfolio company, monthly or quarterly per Carta: overview, team, investment history, revenue, cash burn, balance sheet and commentary. Startups also use the name for the one-page summary they send to VCs, so check which direction is meant.
Round Funded resources
Sources
Cite this term
Round Funded. "Tear Sheet." Startup Fundraising Glossary, reviewed September 26, 2026.
Stable URL, it will not change: https://www.roundfunded.com/en/glossary/tear-sheet
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