Pre-Diligence Memos

Shared decision-orientation, not decision-automation, for angel investors.

Early-stage risk is real, but its interpretation is inherently subjective. Two thoughtful investors can review the same company and reach different conclusions. STaRR Labs is a decision-support and routing mechanism for angels with different risk tolerances and investment theses, streamlining the process of whether a company warrants a next look, a next conversation, or no more time.

The goal isn’t to replace member-led screening or diligence, or to tell investors what to invest in. It’s to optimize the limited bandwidth angel investors have by surfacing and organizing the areas of uncertainty that might otherwise take multiple conversations, individual research efforts, or significant diligence time to uncover.

STaRR Labs creates increasingly intensive layers of evidence and interpretation, giving investors a structured starting point from which to apply their own lens, risk tolerance, and judgment—and focus their attention where it matters most at that moment. That might mean deciding:

• Whether to take an introductory meeting
• Whether to invite a founder to pitch
• Which questions to ask the founder first
• How to focus and moderate group discussion
• Whether a deal warrants additional investigation
• Where to invest deeper diligence time

The STaRR Labs Continuum

1. Signal Topography

What are we looking at?

The STaRR Platform uses AI to extract and organize signals from a pitch, revealing where evidence is strong, where uncertainty remains, which claims deserve attention, and where the investment story depends on assumptions rather than evidence.

2. Evidence Briefs

Why should we care?

When a company warrants another look, a concise Evidence Brief — prepared through our Practicum — maps the evidence behind the investment story. It examines:

• What claims are being made?
• Which matters most to the thesis?
• What evidence supports them?
• What is missing or contradictory?
• Which assumptions are doing the most work?
• What questions could materially change the decision?

Not: “Should you invest?” but Instead: “Here is where the evidence stands — you decide where your attention is most valuable.”

3. Risk Readings

What do investors see differently?

STaRR identifies the signals. Investors bring their interpretation. Risk Readings—the RR in STaRR—give individual investors a structured way to assess the company’s most consequential areas of uncertainty. Rather than forcing consensus, Risk Readings make differences in interpretation visible. Those differences become useful inputs for pod discussion, debate, and deeper diligence.

4. Grey Space

What would move the conversation?

Grey Space is the 50/50 track for deals that generate interest, but not enough conviction for a group to allocate bandwidth to deeper diligence. Rather than letting an unresolved deal disappear, STaRR Labs identifies the uncertainty most likely to change the conversation and deploys targeted research to investigate it.

Give our investor framework a try here: Risk Topography

Why Join

As an angel participant, you gain clearer early-stage signals while helping build durable judgment capacity across the ecosystem. The Lab respects your time, sharpens your decision process, and compounds impact beyond any single deal.