What is Deal Screening?
In private equity, firms receive a constant flow of potential investment opportunities — often dozens per week. These arrive as CIMs (Confidential Information Memorandums, typically 30-80 page marketing documents prepared by an investment bank) or teasers (1-2 page anonymous summaries). Deal screening is the process of quickly evaluating whether an opportunity fits your fund’s strategy and merits further investigation. Most PE firms pass on 95-99% of deals they see. Efficient screening — separating signal from noise in minutes rather than hours — is a critical competitive advantage. The best deal teams have clear, consistent criteria and a disciplined process for saying “no” quickly.Command
deal-screening skill and evaluates an inbound deal against your fund’s investment criteria. If a file path is provided, the command uses it. Otherwise, Claude will ask for the deal materials or description.
- With file
- Without file
What It Produces
- Extracted deal facts — company name, financials, deal type, asking price, seller motivation, management, and key risks
- Criteria scorecard — pass/fail against revenue, EBITDA, sector, geography, valuation, and customer concentration thresholds
- Quick assessment — verdict (Pass / Further Diligence / Hard Pass), bull case, bear case, and key questions for the first call
- One-page screening memo suitable for sharing with partners or IC quick screen
If this is the first deal you screen, Claude will ask for your fund’s investment criteria and save them for future deals.
How to Customize
Edit thedeal-screening skill file to adjust your fund’s screening criteria, add sector-specific filters, or change the output format to match your firm’s internal templates.