Investment Committees are where VC firms make their most consequential decisions. Yet IC rules and dynamics often work against good judgment: voting structures can suppress conviction, hidden vetoes can distort debate, and internal status can crowd out the substance of the case.
As a result, firms become either too rigid or too consensus-driven — missing outlier outcomes or backing deals for reasons they do not fully understand.
In contrast, elite VC firms treat IC design as a performance lever. They define clear rules around sponsorship, voting, dissent, and review so that the committee improves judgment under uncertainty rather than simply managing internal politics.
I’ve participated in investment committees since 2008 across various firms and at different stages, and have spent years studying how firms make high-stakes decisions under uncertainty.
This work has produced a major insight: most IC failures are not failures of intelligence but failures of process. Cognitive psychology helps explain why committees drift toward confirmation bias, premature consensus, or excessive caution. Benchmarks and peer-reviewed research show how better rules can correct for that.
Your Instructor
Aram is the Founder of The VC Factory and creator of Mindset-Based Investing, a framework helping LPs and GPs improve Venture Capital returns by focusing on how Investors and Founders think. He is also an active LP and IC Advisor with a select group of funds whose GPs are receptive to his approach.
Earlier in his career, Aram spent 20 years in LBOs, Growth Equity, and Venture Capital, completing more than 50 transactions across three continents. More info
Workshop Objective
Learn how to design IC rules and meeting dynamics that improve judgment, surface dissent, and increase your odds of backing outliers:
- You will understand how voting structures, sponsorship models, and veto rights affect decision quality
- You will learn why elite VC firms favor championing rules and foster a culture of dissent to avoid missing potential outliers
- You will leave with a clear framework for building an IC process that is both rigorous and capable of capturing outliers
Who It Is For
This session is designed for senior IC voting members.
Format
2-hour in-person session with 3 to 5 participants, to encourage dialogue. The session is primarily based on exchanges between the participants, led by the instructor, and based on the material he provides.
Content
- Review the main IC decision models, from unanimity and majority voting to champion-based approaches
- Examine how formal rules interact with culture, status, politics, and hidden vetoes inside the room
- Learn practical ways to reduce confirmation bias, groupthink, and premature consensus
- Explore how pre-reads, structured dissent, and red-team roles can improve the quality of IC discussions
- Consider how IC design should vary by stage, strategy, and portfolio construction logic
- Work through the key design choices around sponsorship, voting thresholds, abstentions, vetoes, and post-decision review
Methodology
We analyze IC practices from leading Venture Capital firms and draw on best practices across the industry. We also build on peer-reviewed research in venture decision-making, group dynamics, and cognitive psychology.
Takeaways
You will leave with a practical framework for evaluating and improving your IC rules and dynamics. You will also have a clearer view of how to design an IC process that supports both rigor and outlier capture.
How To Prepare
You can read this article on IC Rules & Dynamics (optional).