Financial Risk Factors

Narrative listing of the key inputs the forecast rests on — growth-rate assumptions, churn assumptions, hiring plan, FX rates, expected timing of large bookings, planned price changes, capitalized-vs-expensed R&D treatment, etc. Without this field, the board cannot tell whether a forecast change reflects a real-world update or a quietly changed assumption. Common pitfall: assumptions are written once at planning and never updated when the underlying reality shifts — track explicitly which assumption changed each quarter and why. Best practice (per "Venture Deals" by Feld & Mendelson, and standard board-pack guidance): every material variance vs. forecast should be traceable to either an executed plan or a changed assumption.

Executive narrative on what the latest forecast says and how it has changed since prior reporting — which scenarios were considered, which was picked as "most likely" and why, what changed since last quarter, and what would push the forecast into a different scenario. Pairs with `finance.burn_rate_scenarios` (the numeric scenarios) to provide the qualitative "why" beside the quantitative "what". Common pitfall: this becomes a restatement of the numbers rather than commentary — every paragraph should add interpretation the numbers do not by themselves convey (drivers, decisions taken, decisions deferred).

Forecast burn-rate matrix across three scenarios — conservative (defensive cost plan, slow revenue), mostLikely (current best-estimate), bestCase (aggressive investment with strong revenue) — with gross + net burn for each. Bound to the ScenarioBurnRateMatrix widget alongside the historical `finance.burn_rate_actual` anchor. The board reads this to understand what range of cash trajectories the company is planning for and which one management has chosen as the base case. Common pitfall: the three scenarios cluster tightly (all within ±10% of each other) — that's not three scenarios, it's one scenario with rounding error. Real scenarios should reflect meaningfully different operating decisions and produce visibly different runways.

Named risks that could prevent the round from closing as targeted — market conditions (general venture sentiment, sector-specific freeze), investor-side risk (anchor investor wobble, partner-meeting drop-off), company-side risk (a metric trending wrong direction, customer concentration concern surfaced in diligence), and timing risk (runway versus close date). Common pitfall: optimistic CEOs under-report risk factors. Boards should expect at least 2–3 named risks even in a healthy round — "no risks" is itself a risk signal.