Monthly Investor Update Builder: send the numbers investors check, with the bad news handled

For: Founders who send a monthly update to their investors.

Inputs: monthly revenue, cash, net burn and money raised, plus customers, headcount and one KPI; your asks, highlights, lowlights and plan

Output: a paste-ready update, runway, default alive and the growth you need, burn multiple, and flags to fix before you send

Time: 2 min for the numbers, 10 for the words

18 months of runway and still default dead. Your investors will do this math. Do it first.

v1.0 · updated Oct 2026

Open (view only)Make a copy Download .xlsx

The original is view only. Make a copy saves your own editable version to your Drive.

Read the issue behind this model

Board & reporting · Founders · Seed · 2 min for the numbers, 10 for the words · Last verified Oct 26, 2026

Log revenue, cash and burn each month, type a few lines of words, and the sheet drafts the update in the order investors read it: TL;DR, numbers, asks, highlights, lowlights with the fix, next month. Before you send, it ties out your cash, tells you whether you are default alive and what growth you need if not, and puts anything red at the top next to your plan.

How to use

Make a copy, open 01 Inputs.
Add this month's row to the log: revenue, cash at month end, net burn, any money raised, and customers, headcount and one KPI if you track them.
Type this month's words: asks, highlights, lowlights with what you are changing, next month.
Read the gray status. If it says do not send, open 98 Checks and fix the row it names.
Open 03 Outputs, copy the draft, paste it as plain text into your email, edit, send.

Common mistakes

Runway from one cheap month. The sheet averages the last three months of net burn.
Cash that does not tie out. Last month's cash minus burn plus money raised should equal this month's cash; if not, a number in the update is wrong.
A metric that quietly disappears the month it got worse. Keep reporting it, or say why you stopped.
Bad news buried under highlights. Anything red goes in the TL;DR with the plan next to it.
No ask, or an ask too vague to act on. Name the person, the role or the intro you want.
Quoting month over month growth alone. One good month hides a slow quarter; the sheet also shows the three month compounded rate.

Worked example

Example numbers, not a real company

Example numbers, not a real company. A seed company with $68,000 of MRR in September 2026, up 3.8% on the month and 3.7% a month compounded over three months. Cash is $3,515,000 and net burn averaged $195,000 over the last three months, so runway is 18.0 months. Holding spending flat at $260,500 a month and growing 3.7% a month, cash runs out in September 2028, 14 months before revenue covers spending in November 2029: default dead. It needs 4.5% a month to be default alive. Burn multiple is 7.0x. Runway is long enough that the sheet flags default dead amber, not red, and the draft puts the founder's plan line right after the numbers.

Not modeled

Sending or tracking the email, accrual vs cash timing beyond the three month burn average, annual prepayments, debt facilities, hiring plans, charts.

Sources

The sheet runs on your own numbers. The only outside benchmark is the 2020 burn multiple scale, which is dated and not split by AI vs non-AI companies.

For educational purposes; not legal or financial advice.