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What is a Funding Digest?

A funding digest is a periodic summary of recent investment rounds, acquisitions, and capital markets activity within a specific sector or set of companies. It distills a week’s (or month’s) worth of deal flow into a single, scannable format — typically a one-page PowerPoint slide — that helps investors and corporate strategy teams stay current on market activity without tracking every individual deal announcement. Funding digests are widely used in venture capital, growth equity, and corporate development. A VC firm tracking the data infrastructure space, for example, needs to know who raised money, at what valuation, led by which investors, and what trends are emerging. A corporate development team might track the same space to identify potential acquisition targets or competitive threats.

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Why It Matters

In fast-moving sectors, deal flow is a leading indicator of market dynamics. A surge in funding rounds signals investor confidence and potential future competition. Down rounds (funding at a lower valuation than the previous round) signal headwinds. New unicorns indicate emerging leaders. Understanding these patterns is essential for making informed investment and strategic decisions. The funding digest also solves a practical problem: there is too much deal flow for any person to track manually. By automating the data collection, filtering, and formatting, this skill produces an analyst-quality summary in minutes rather than hours.

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Key Concepts

TermDefinition
Funding RoundAn investment event where a company raises capital from investors, classified by stage (Seed, Series A, B, C, etc.)
Pre-Money ValuationThe company’s valuation before the new investment is added
Post-Money ValuationPre-money valuation plus the amount raised in the current round
Down RoundA funding round at a lower valuation than the previous round — signals the company is worth less than previously thought
UnicornA private company valued at $1 billion or more
Lead InvestorThe investor who leads the round, typically contributing the largest share and setting the terms
Deal FlowThe aggregate stream of investment opportunities in a given sector or market
Transaction IDThe unique identifier in S&P Capital IQ for each funding transaction, used to generate deal links

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How It Works

1

Establish Coverage

Determine sectors, specific companies, and time period (default: last 7 days).
2

Build Company Universe

Seed companies from domain knowledge, validate identifiers via S&P Global MCP, expand via competitor identification. Target 15-40 resolved companies per sector.
3

Pull Funding Rounds

Query S&P Global for funding rounds in batches. Extract transaction IDs, dates, amounts, valuations, lead investors, and round types.
4

Identify Highlights and Trends

Flag notable deals (rounds >= $100M, down rounds, new unicorns, valuation jumps). Distill 3-5 key takeaways.
5

Generate PPTX

Create a single-slide PowerPoint with summary statistics (total raised, round count, average/largest deal), key takeaways with company logos, and a top deals table with links to Capital IQ.
6

QA

Content QA via markdown conversion, visual QA via PDF rendering, link validation for Capital IQ URLs.

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Worked Example: AI Sector Funding Digest

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Weekly Digest: AI & Machine Learning (March 10-16, 2026)

Summary Statistics:
MetricThis WeekPrior WeekChange
Total Raised$3.8B$1.2B+217%
Number of Rounds128+50%
Average Round Size$317M$150M+111%
Largest Round$1.5B (Series E)$400M—
Median Pre-Money Valuation$2.1B$850M+147%
Key Takeaways:
  1. Mega-round dominance: NeuralScale AI closed a 1.5BSeriesEata1.5B Series E at a 18B post-money valuation, led by Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global. This is the largest AI infrastructure round in 2026 to date, reflecting continued appetite for foundation model infrastructure.
  2. Enterprise AI adoption accelerating: 4 of 12 rounds were for companies building AI tools for enterprise workflows (legal, finance, healthcare). Combined capital: 680M.Averagevaluation:680M. Average valuation: 1.2B pre-money. The enterprise AI category is maturing from pilot to production.
  3. Down round watch: DataMesh AI raised a 120MSeriesCat120M Series C at 900M pre-money — a 25% discount to its $1.2B Series B valuation 18 months ago. Management cited slower-than-expected enterprise adoption and competitive pressure from larger platforms.
  4. Geographic shift: 3 of 12 rounds were for European-headquartered companies (up from 1 of 8 last week). European AI companies are attracting increasing US investor interest, particularly in regulated industries (finance, healthcare).
Top Deals Table:
CompanyTypeAnnouncedClosedAmountPre-MoneyPost-MoneyLead InvestorLink
NeuralScale AISeries EMar 12Mar 14$1,500M$16.5B$18.0BSequoia Capital[View]
LegalAI CorpSeries CMar 11Mar 13$280M$1.8B$2.1Ba16z[View]
HealthBrainSeries BMar 10Mar 12$200M$950M$1.15BKhosla Ventures[View]
FinanceGPTSeries BMar 13—$180M$1.1B$1.28BLightspeed[View]
DataMesh AISeries CMar 14Mar 15$120M$900M$1.02BGV (↓ down)[View]
CodeAssistSeries AMar 11Mar 12$45M$180M$225MIndex Ventures[View]

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Slide Design Specifications

The funding digest slide uses a monochrome executive design:
  • Header bar: Near-black (#1A1A1A) with white text: “DEAL FLOW DIGEST | March 10-16, 2026 | AI & Machine Learning”
  • Stat cards (top row): 4 large-number callouts on light gray (#F5F5F5) cards with thin borders
  • Key takeaways (middle): 3-5 one-line bullets with company logos
  • Deals table (bottom): Compact table with near-black header row, alternating white/gray body rows
  • Footer: “Deal Flow Digest | Sources: S&P Global Capital IQ | AI-generated — please confirm all outputs”

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Entity Resolution Best Practices

S&P Global’s identifier system requires careful handling:
  1. Always pre-validate identifiers before querying funding data. Call get_info_from_identifiers first and check the status field.
  2. Operating Subsidiary status means zero independent funding rounds — the company is owned by a parent.
  3. Use get_rounds_of_funding_from_identifiers as the primary tool, not get_funding_summary_from_identifiers (the summary tool is less reliable).
  4. Batch carefully (15-20 companies at a time) and validate after each batch.
  5. Brand names vs. legal names: Common mismatches include “Together AI” vs. “Together Computer, Inc.” and “Character.ai” vs. “Character Technologies, Inc.” When a brand name fails, try the legal entity name.

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Daily Workflow for Funding Digests

Monday Morning: Run the weekly digest for each watched sector. Pull all funding rounds from the prior week. Identify highlights and trends. Generate the PPTX. Within 1 Hour: QA the slide. Check content via markitdown conversion. Check visual layout via PDF rendering. Verify all Capital IQ deal links. Distribution: Share the slide with the team via email or Slack. Include a 2-3 sentence verbal summary highlighting the single most notable deal and any concerning trends. Monthly: Aggregate weekly digests into a monthly summary. Track trends: total capital deployed, round stage distribution, valuation trends, most active investors.

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Practice Exercise

Generate a funding digest for the Cybersecurity sector for the period March 1-14, 2026. Create a fictional but realistic set of deals: Tasks:
  1. Design 8 fictional funding rounds with realistic company names, round types, amounts, valuations, and lead investors. Include at least 1 down round and 1 new unicorn.
  2. Calculate the summary statistics (total raised, number of rounds, average size, largest, median pre-money).
  3. Write 3-4 key takeaways in the punchy, one-sentence format used in the worked example.
  4. Design the deals table with all required columns (Company, Type, Announced, Closed, Amount, Pre-Money, Post-Money, Lead, Link).
  5. Identify which companies in your fictional set would likely fail S&P Global entity resolution (subsidiaries, recently acquired companies) and explain how you would handle them.

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Common Mistakes

S&P Global’s identifier system has known failure modes. Always pre-validate ALL identifiers before querying funding data. Subsidiaries (e.g., DeepMind, GitHub) have no independent funding rounds.
  1. Not pre-validating identifiers. Querying funding data for an unresolved or subsidiary company returns zero results — silently. Always call get_info_from_identifiers first and check the status field.
  2. Using the wrong role parameter. company_raising_funds vs. company_investing_in_round_of_funding produce completely different results. For deal flow digests, use company_raising_funds.
  3. Treating subsidiary companies as having deal flow. Companies like DeepMind (Alphabet), GitHub (Microsoft), and BeReal (Voodoo) are subsidiaries with zero independent funding rounds. Their capital events are tracked at the parent level.
  4. Including too many deals on one slide. The slide should show the top 4-6 deals. If there are 20 deals, show the top 6 and add a footnote: “+14 additional deals not shown.”
  5. Not including both announcement and close dates. Deal timing matters — a deal announced 3 weeks ago but just closed has different market implications than a freshly announced deal.
  6. Forgetting the AI disclaimer. “Analysis is AI-generated — please confirm all outputs” must appear in the slide footer.
  7. Using Clearbit for logos. Clearbit’s logo API is deprecated. Use the simple-icons npm package for brand SVGs or generate initial-based fallback logos with sharp.
  8. Not including Capital IQ deal links. Every deal in the table should have a clickable “View” link to the Capital IQ transaction profile using the transaction_id.
  9. Reporting down rounds without context. A down round is significant — always note the prior valuation and the percentage decline. “DataMesh AI raised at 900Mpre−money,down25900M pre-money, down 25% from its 1.2B Series B” is informative. “$120M Series C” alone is not.
  10. Not tracking deal flow trends over time. A single week’s digest is a snapshot. Monthly and quarterly aggregation reveals trends: is capital flowing into or out of the sector? Are valuations compressing or expanding? Are round sizes growing or shrinking?

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How to Add to Your Local Context

claude plugin install spglobal@financial-services-plugins
Customize by editing the skill to define your watched sectors and companies, minimum deal size thresholds, preferred slide layout and branding, and distribution cadence (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly).

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Best Practices

  • The slide should be readable printed in black and white — company logos are the only full-color elements
  • Include Capital IQ deal links for every transaction so readers can drill into details
  • AI disclaimer is mandatory: “Analysis is AI-generated — please confirm all outputs”
  • Batch identifier queries carefully (15-20 at a time) to avoid API issues
  • Down rounds should be highlighted with a small red indicator; standout positive events with a small green indicator
  • Keep takeaways to 1 sentence each — punchy and data-backed
  • Always include pre-money AND post-money valuations when disclosed
  • Track the same sectors consistently over time to enable trend analysis
  • Note when valuation data is not disclosed — absence of data is itself informative
  • Quality control: always run content QA (markitdown) and visual QA (PDF rendering) before distribution