meta-investment-committee-red-team

Investment Committee Red-Team

Test whether a complete funding case survives audience-specific challenge. A simulation produces decision evidence and repair priorities; it never certifies approval or predicts a real committee.

Use When

A complete plan, financial model, funding ask and evidence pack need an adversarial pre-submission review.
The team must rehearse lender, DFI, VC, grant-panel or owner-board questions and decision conditions.

Do Not Use When

Use meta-bankability-scoring when only a lender-readiness score and fix list are required.
Use meta-due-diligence when verifying records and claims rather than simulating a decision forum.
Use meta-valuation when the controlling task is to calculate enterprise or equity value.
Do not run a decision round on an early concept with no reconciled model or funding ask.

Required Inputs

Artefact	Source/provider	Required?	Behaviour when missing
Versioned plan and funding ask	Plan owner	Yes	Stop the decision verdict; return intake questions only.
Formula-audited model and assumptions	Finance owner	Yes	Mark model integrity `not assessed` and block approval.
Evidence and exception register	Research lead	Yes	Treat unsupported load-bearing claims as blockers, not neutral items.
Audience and decision mandate	Sponsor or funder brief	Yes	Do not substitute another audience's criteria.
Sector regulatory gate results	Regulatory gate owner	Conditional	Block affected launch, cash-flow or timing conclusions.

Workflow

Freeze input versions, audience, requested decision, authority and conflicts; remain read-only.
Validate the pack manifest and stop if the plan, ask, model, evidence register or audience is absent.
Assign audience roles from the committee framework; record each role's thesis, concern and evidence request.
Run independent challenge rounds for commercial logic, execution, finance, evidence, regulation and downside.
Apply audience-specific conditions and blockers before calculating a score; no aggregate score overrides a blocker.
Issue one result: decline, defer, conditional-progress, or progress-for-real-review, with dissent and repairs.
Recover only after the owner supplies versioned evidence, then re-run and retain the prior exception trail.

Quality Standards

Every challenge cites an input location or records a precise missing artefact.
The result separates evidence, assumptions, inferences, disagreements and matters not assessed.
Audience criteria affect the questions and conditions; lender, DFI, VC and grant rounds are not interchangeable.
Formula, balance, scenario, tax, regulatory and evidence failures remain visible and cannot be averaged away.
Progress-for-real-review means the pack may enter human review, never that funding is approved.

Anti-Patterns

Inventing a committee personality or objection. Fix: derive each challenge from the mandate and supplied evidence.
Letting a high weighted score erase a blocker. Fix: apply blockers before recommendation bands.
Using lender DSCR questions as a VC decision model. Fix: load the matching audience round.
Calling an absent workbook check a pass. Fix: mark model integrity not assessed and defer.
Rewriting the plan during an audit. Fix: stay read-only and issue owner-assigned repair actions.
Claiming that a simulation predicts approval. Fix: state its bounded rehearsal purpose and human-review requirement.

Outputs

Artefact	Consumer	Acceptance condition
Committee decision memorandum	Sponsor and plan owner	States decision, vote, blockers, conditions, dissent and next gate.
Challenge and response register	Section/model owners	Every question has evidence, an owner, a due state and acceptance condition.
Repair sequence	Delivery lead	Orders only decision-changing repairs and identifies re-review triggers.

Evidence Produced

Evidence	Format	Acceptance condition
Input version manifest	JSON or table	Identifies every reviewed artefact and formula/evidence gate state.
Audience scorecard	Structured record	Shows criterion score, rationale, evidence pointer and blocker status.
Dissent and exception log	Decision record	Preserves minority view, unavailable checks and unresolved conditions.

Capability Contract

The permission boundary requires only read access to the supplied plan, model audit, evidence register and gate results, plus local execution for deterministic scoring when available. The skill defaults to read-only. It may not edit source artefacts, contact funders, submit a pack, spend funds, certify compliance, or represent a real committee decision without explicit authority from the owning role.

Degraded Mode

Without execution, apply the scorecard manually and label arithmetic unverified. Without a model, source, sector review or document, return the questions supported by available inputs and mark the affected criterion not assessed; recommendation cannot exceed defer. Never infer a pass from silence, inaccessible files or a polished narrative.

Decision Rules

Condition	Action	Failure or risk avoided
Any mandatory input or audience blocker fails	`Decline` for fatal incompatibility or `defer` for remediable evidence	Attractive averages conceal an unfinanceable condition
No blocker, but material conditions remain	`Conditional-progress` with owners and dated acceptance tests	Vague approval leaves execution risk unowned
Evidence, model, gates and audience conditions pass	`Progress-for-real-review`, retaining dissent	Simulation is misrepresented as funding approval
Two roles disagree on a load-bearing assumption	Preserve both cases and request the deciding evidence	Consensus language hides unresolved risk

Worked Example

A DFI debt pack shows positive cash flow but its formula audit has not tested debt-service coverage under delay. The finance role marks model integrity unassessed, the environmental role retains the site-screen condition, and the committee returns defer with two acceptance tests. A high market score does not change that result.

References

Five-minute reader test (Abrams, R. M. (1993) The Successful Business Plan, The Oasis Press): before role rounds, have one reviewer read only the executive summary, financials, management and exit or repayment sections for five minutes and answer: is the idea sound, is the market sufficient, are projections realistic, is management capable, and how does the funder get its money back? Any unclear answer, and the weakest-looking section, becomes the first line of challenge.
Committee review framework - load roles, rounds and audience-specific questions.
Committee scorecard - load criteria, blocker precedence and recommendation bands.
Worked simulations - use to calibrate evidence-linked challenges, not copy conclusions.
Use ../../../tools/investment-committee/simulate_committee.py for deterministic manifest validation and scoring.

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