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Sections
A good update keeps the company legible between board meetings and fundraising rounds. It gives investors specific chances to help with customers, hires, capital or introductions. For climate and deep-tech companies, deployment, regulatory and technical milestones often matter as much as conventional growth metrics. Write it so an investor can act on it.
A monthly structure
- State of the company
One line on the most important thing that changed this month.
- Three wins
Material progress only. A technical, customer, hiring, regulatory or financing milestone, or another change in the company’s position.
- Three numbers
Metrics that reflect the current business. That may be revenue or, for an earlier technical company, validation, deployment, pipeline or runway.
- Setbacks
The issue, what you learned and what is changing. Investors help more when they see a problem before it becomes a crisis.
- Current priorities
The two or three things the team is optimising for next month.
- Specific asks
The introduction, candidate, customer, technical expert or financing connection you need. “Any help appreciated” is hard to act on.
- Runway and financing
Where appropriate, cash, runway and any change to fundraising assumptions. Check this against finance and governance requirements.
Separate actual, forecast and target
Climate companies with long sales and deployment cycles need this most. Label every figure as one of five kinds and keep each kind separate.
- Actualhappened and recorded.
- Contractedsigned, possibly still awaiting delivery or recognition.
- Forecastmanagement expectation.
- Targetdesired outcome.
- Pipelinepossible opportunity at a stated stage.
An illustrative template
- SubjectCompany | September 2026 update
- HeadlinePilot 2 completed. Customer decision moves into procurement.
- Winsvalidation milestone completed, two enterprise evaluations opened, Head of Engineering hired.
- Numbers7 months runway, 3 paid pilots live, £420k qualified pipeline.
- Challengesupplier lead time moved the next deployment by four weeks. The team is adding a second supplier route.
- Next 30 daysconvert pilot A, complete the long-duration test, close two senior hires.
- Asksintroductions to procurement leaders at X-type organisations, a candidate for the Y role, a recommendation for project-finance counsel.
The figures are invented for illustration.
Habits that weaken an update
- Writing 2,000 words that take too long to scan.
- Changing the metrics every month to make progress look better.
- Using investor updates as broad marketing emails.
- Sharing sensitive customer or employee information before getting permission.
The record builds trust
Over twelve months, consistent updates show how the company learned, where assumptions changed and what management did when things went wrong.
Who should own it
The CEO or fundraising lead owns the substance, and finance and functional leaders check their numbers. Communications can sharpen the writing. The operational truth stays with the people running the operation.
When monthly is the wrong cadence
Some companies and investor groups need a different rhythm. Follow governance obligations and investor expectations, and keep the updates regular and useful for decisions.
The sample numbers above are illustrative.
Tell us what needs to move.
Bring the brief if it is clear. If it is unclear, tell us where the work is stuck.
Bring us the problem
