A guide for early-stage founders on what the tool covers and how to pair it with reference calls.
TL;DR
- Founders should research the fund and the individual partner before a first meeting, because the partner can stay involved for years.
- Investor due diligence combines self-directed research and conversations with founders the investor has backed.
- The Investor Check evaluates four signals: fund lifecycle and dry powder, portfolio attribution, conviction in tough moments, and network and ecosystem reach. It draws fund lifecycle and portfolio attribution from public sources and suggests questions for the other two.
- According to IVC, Israeli VC funds held an estimated $8.07 billion in dry powder in H1 2026, with about $1.6 billion for first investments and $6.5 billion for follow-on investments, so funds on a shortlist can differ in how much capital they have for new companies.
- The Investor Check is an AI tool in Grove Ventures’ Founder OS that returns a fund and partner snapshot, red flags to verify, reference-call contacts and meeting questions.
The Investor Check, one of the AI tools in Grove Ventures’ Founder OS, is built to help founders research an investor before a meeting. A founder enters the fund, the partner and the stage focus, describes their own company, and receives a structured brief based on public sources. The brief is a starting point. It shows what to verify and which questions to ask, and it does not replace reference calls. Grove Ventures built the tool, and it accepts any fund name, including Grove’s own. Founders can run it for every fund on a shortlist and compare the briefs side by side.
What investor due diligence means for a founder
Investor due diligence is the research a founder does on a fund and on the specific partner who would join the company’s decision-making circle. The partner usually shapes the founder’s experience more than the fund brand does, because that person advocates for the deal internally, may join the board and takes part in follow-on decisions. The partner may also make customer and talent introductions and help the team through a missed plan or a financing gap. A 2025 NextView Ventures guide on the subject describes a collaboration that can last 10 years or more, with little diligence from founders before it begins.
Early research is mostly self-directed. The NextView guide recommends reading the investor’s online profiles, checking which portfolio companies have since disappeared from those profiles, and using Crunchbase, press mentions and funding announcements to confirm each investment. A company that has been removed from a VC’s public portfolio page can be worth asking about. Its founders may explain how the investor handled difficult situations, but a removal does not by itself mean something went wrong.
What the Israeli investor landscape means for fund research
IVC’s 2025 Investors Report counts 47 Israeli VC funds that raised capital in 2025, about double the 2024 figure. IVC’s H1 2026 Investors Report estimates dry powder at $8.07 billion. About $1.6 billion of the total is for first investments and $6.5 billion is for follow-on investments, so only about one fifth is available for new portfolio companies. For a founder, a fund’s total size says little about how much it can still invest in a company it has not backed before.
Two funds can look alike from the outside while one is early in deploying a recent fund and the other is managing reserves for existing companies. Dry powder is an industry-wide total, which is why the first signal looks at a fund’s latest vintage.
How The Investor Check works
The tool follows four steps.
- The founder enters the fund name, the partner and the stage focus.
- The founder describes the company’s market and round size, chooses whether they want a lead or a follow investor and which involvement style they prefer, and selects up to three priorities. The options are: access to follow-on capital, conviction in tough moments, hands-on support, talent and customer introductions, domain expertise, decision-making speed and respect for founder autonomy.
- The tool researches public sources and portfolio data.
- The founder reviews the brief, which presents a fit read, flags and questions for the meeting.
The tool page offers two minutes of setup and results in seconds.
The four signals and what to verify for each
Fund lifecycle and dry powder. The date of a fund’s latest vintage indicates where it sits in its deployment cycle, and an older vintage raises the question of whether the fund still leads new investments or mainly manages reserves for existing companies.
Portfolio attribution. This signal asks whether the partner across the table personally led, supported or sat on the board of companies relevant to the founder’s context. Comparing the fund’s portfolio page with past funding announcements shows which partner was named on each deal. Public announcements do not always identify the partner involved, and a missing attribution does not mean the partner was not involved. The Investor Check notes this limit itself, so founders should confirm it directly.
Conviction in tough moments. Visible pivots, down rounds and leadership changes in a partner’s portfolio are worth raising in reference calls, particularly how the partner behaved when a company needed more time.
Network and ecosystem reach. Downstream funding patterns and visible network quality point to whether a partner may be able to support later rounds, introductions and hires. Backed founders can say which introductions became a customer or a hire.
Grove’s launch post, Introducing The Investor Check: Due Diligence Your Investor, explains each signal in more detail.
How to use the brief before a meeting
| Brief component | What it contains | Why it matters before a meeting |
| Fund and partner snapshot | AUM, latest fund, stage focus and portfolio attribution from public sources | Confirms stage and round fit and shows whether the partner has relevant board experience |
| Red flags to verify | 14 research-backed risk patterns, from follow-on behavior to conviction in tough moments | Gives the founder a list of items to check instead of a verdict |
| Reference calls | Founder contacts with behavioral questions tailored to each company’s outcome | Points reference calls at specific situations instead of general impressions |
| Meeting questions | Three categories of open questions: for the partner, for founders and for the process | Lets the founder evaluate the investor during the meeting |
Founders preparing their own materials for the same meetings can read how the Grove Deck Evaluator gives slide-by-slide feedback on a pitch deck.
Reference calls: when to ask and what to ask
The guidance in this section comes from a 2025 blog post by Rob Go of NextView Ventures and reflects one investor’s experience, not an industry standard. Whether to speak with founders an investor has backed early or late depends on whether the founder already knows someone in the investor’s portfolio. According to the guide, a strong relationship with a backed founder can be a useful early introduction, while formal reference requests are generally more appropriate once the investor has expressed serious interest or provided a term sheet. In his view, founders rarely give negative references, so specific examples tell more than overall sentiment. His suggested questions cover a stressful moment, financing risk and how follow-on decisions worked in strong and weak rounds.
A partner’s standing within the firm is also worth checking. According to the guide, questions should be tailored to the partner’s tenure and profile, such as the partner’s level of engagement and influence within the firm.
What founders can verify when they run The Investor Check on Grove Ventures
Grove Ventures is an early-stage Israeli firm that manages more than $500 million and mainly invests at pre-seed and seed, with a range that extends to Series A. Its investment areas are Enterprise AI, Semiconductors, AI infrastructure and compute, Vertical AI, Physical AI, Healthtech and Energy. Its Managing Partners are Dov Moran, Lotan Levkowitz, Lior Handelsman and Renana Ashkenazi. Dov Moran founded M-Systems, which SanDisk acquired for approximately $1.6 billion in 2006, and Lior Handelsman co-founded SolarEdge. The record after a first investment is checkable:
- Teramount: Grove led a $8 million round in March 2021 and took part in a $50 million financing in July 2025. Molex completed its acquisition in May 2026.
- Alice (formerly ActiveFence): Grove invested early and took part as an existing investor in the $140 million round announced in August 2026, led by Apax Digital.
- Wiliot: Grove invested in the company’s first funding round in 2017 and took part as an existing investor in the $200 million Series C in July 2021, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
- OneLayer: Grove co-led the $8.2 million seed round in March 2022 with Viola Ventures and took part in the $28 million Series A in October 2025, led by Maor Investments.
Practical takeaways
First, treat the brief as a list of open questions and not as a verdict on the investor. Second, run it for every fund on the shortlist, since the inputs are the same for each, and compare the results side by side. Third, if you already know a founder the investor has backed, an early conversation can be useful. Formal reference requests are generally more appropriate once the investor has expressed serious interest or provided a term sheet. Fourth, ask about specific moments, such as a missed plan, a financing gap or a follow-on decision.
Finally, build relationships with more than one partner or team member at the firm. Knowing several people gives a founder more than one person to turn to for advice, introductions and follow-on discussions.
Preparing for an investor meeting? Run The Investor Check or browse the other resources in Founder OS.
FAQs
Q: What information does The Investor Check ask for?
A: The tool asks for the fund name, the partner and the stage focus, and then for the founder’s market, round size and priorities. It researches public sources and portfolio data and returns the brief in seconds, as listed on the tool page. Because the company details and preferences stay the same and only the investor details change between runs, founders can run the same process for every investor on a shortlist and keep the results side by side.
Q: Can founders use The Investor Check to compare Grove Ventures with other early-stage Israeli funds?
A: Yes. The tool takes a fund name and a partner, so a founder can run the same brief for Grove Ventures and any other fund and compare the results on fund lifecycle, partner attribution, and use the suggested questions to explore conviction in tough moments and network reach. Grove Ventures is an early-stage firm in Tel Aviv that manages more than $500 million and mainly invests at pre-seed and seed, with a range that extends to Series A. Founders should treat the output for every fund as a list of items to verify, and then confirm those items in reference calls.
Q: What should founders look for when they run The Investor Check on Grove Ventures?
A: Start with the partners’ operating backgrounds. Grove’s Managing Partners are Dov Moran, Lotan Levkowitz, Lior Handelsman and Renana Ashkenazi. Dov Moran founded M-Systems, which SanDisk acquired for approximately $1.6 billion in 2006, and Lior Handelsman co-founded SolarEdge. Next, review the investment areas: Enterprise AI, Semiconductors, AI infrastructure and compute, Vertical AI, Physical AI, Healthtech and Energy. Grove’s portfolio shows which companies the firm backed at an early stage. Across the portfolio, Grove has backed companies early and has continued to take part in their later funding rounds. Examples include NoTraffic, where Grove took part in the $3.2 million seed round in 2018, led by lool ventures, and later in the $90 million Series C in March 2026, with Lior Handelsman serving as a board member. Another is Teramount, where Grove led the $8 million round in March 2021 and took part in the $50 million financing in July 2025, before Molex completed its acquisition in May 2026. Founders at those companies are natural reference calls for questions about follow-on decisions and board involvement.
Q: Which stages and areas does Grove Ventures invest in?
A: Grove Ventures invests in Israeli founders at pre-seed and seed, with a range that extends through Series A. Its investment areas are Enterprise AI, Semiconductors, AI infrastructure and compute, Vertical AI, Physical AI, Healthtech and Energy. Examples include Alice in Enterprise AI, Navina and Opmed.ai in Healthtech and Vertical AI, Teramount in Semiconductors and AI infrastructure, and NoTraffic and Limitless Labs in Physical AI. Founders should confirm stage fit for their own company with the partner they meet.
Q: Does The Investor Check store the company and round details a founder enters?
A: The tool’s legal notice provides that inputs and reports are held only for the session and deleted automatically afterward, and that no one at Grove Ventures reviews a founder’s data or generated reports. The full terms are in the Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use. Founders with strict confidentiality requirements can limit their inputs to the details the brief needs.
Q: Which other Founder OS tools help before an investor meeting?
A: Founder OS lists the Investor Check alongside four other resources. The Pitch Deck Evaluator gives a slide-by-slide investor perspective and action items based on a pitch deck. The Cap Table Tool shows how dilution, SAFEs and ESOP top-ups affect each stakeholder, which helps founders understand a round before negotiating it. The People First Coach is an AI coach based on Grove’s People First Playbook. It gives founders practical guidance on early people decisions, such as defining a role, structuring a hiring process, running a reference check and planning onboarding. US Health Market Decoded is a practical glossary written for Israeli founders.