Portfolio — How-Tos & Workflows

Add a company

1. Go to Portfolio.
2. Click Add Company.
3. Fill in the company's name, sector, stage, status, entry date and valuation, current valuation, and ownership %, and optionally HQ location, HQ country, website, and description. For HQ country, type a country name or code (Canada, CA, or CAN) or pick one from the list.
4. Enter the First investment: the amount, and its date if it differs from the entry date. It becomes the first entry in the company's investment ledger.
5. Under Funds, choose the funds that hold the company. If you're limited to certain funds, you must choose at least one of yours.
6. Save.

Adding companies needs the Edit portfolio permission (Admin, Partner, or Analyst).

Edit or delete a company

1. Open the company from the Portfolio list.
2. Use Edit to update any field, or Delete to remove the company. Invested and realized amounts aren't edited here: record investments and realizations in the company's Investments card.

Deleting a company also permanently removes all of its cap table data (shareholders, funding rounds, option grants), its valuation history, and its documents and financials. This can't be undone.

Record a valuation

Needs Edit portfolio (Admin, Partner, or Analyst).

1. Open the company and find Valuation History.
2. Click Add valuation.
3. Enter the date (any day up to today), the valuation, how it was arrived at (last round, comparables, DCF, cost, or other), and optional notes.
4. Click Add valuation.

If it's the most recent valuation, it becomes the company's current valuation. A valuation on a date that already has one replaces it. To remove one, click the bin icon on its row; deleting the latest makes the one before it current.

Editing the company's current valuation with Edit also adds a point for today, so the history fills in as you go.

Example: rebuilding a company's history. Northwind Analytics joined your portfolio in January 2024 at a $10M valuation, raised a Series A at $18M post-money in June 2025, and was marked up to $24M on comparables last quarter. Add two valuations: 30 June 2025, $18M, Last round, with the note "Series A at $18M post"; and 30 September 2026, $24M, Comparables. The chart now shows the climb from $10M to $24M, and $24M becomes the current valuation. With 14.5% ownership your stake is now worth $3.48M, so MOIC on the company page updates with it.

Record an investment or realization

Needs Edit portfolio (Admin, Partner, or Analyst).

1. Open the company and find Investments.
2. Click Record.
3. Choose Investment (a round or a follow-on) or Realization (a sale of shares, a dividend, or an exit).
4. Enter the date and the amount. Choose the fund if more than one holds the company, and add a note such as "Series B follow-on".
5. Click Record.

The invested and realized totals, MOIC, and IRR update straight away. To correct an entry, click the pencil on its row; to remove one, click the bin.

Example: a follow-on. You invested $1.8M in Lumen Health when it joined the portfolio in March 2024, at 12% ownership of a $20M company. In September 2025 you put in another $600K in its Series B. Record an Investment of $600,000 on 10 September 2025 with the note "Series B follow-on". Invested becomes $2.4M. With Lumen now valued at $31M, your 12% stake is worth $3.72M, so MOIC is 1.55x, and IRR is worked out from the two cheques and that value.

Add a date to a converted entry

Companies that had invested and realized totals before the investment ledger have them as entries. A realized total became a realization without a date, marked Date needed, and IRR waits until it has one.

1. Open the company and find Investments.
2. Click the pencil on the entry marked Date needed.
3. Enter the date it happened. If it was several payments, record each one separately and delete the converted entry.
4. Save. Once every entry has a date, IRR is calculated.

Create a tear sheet

Creating, editing, and deleting need Edit portfolio (Admin, Partner, or Analyst). Everyone can download tear sheets.

1. Open the company and find Tear sheets.
2. Click Create tear sheet.
3. Choose the As of date. It defaults to the end of the quarter that just ended.
4. Optionally add Commentary: what happened this quarter and what you're watching.
5. Click Create, then PDF to download it.

To change the commentary later, click the pencil icon; the figures stay as they were. To remove a tear sheet, click the bin icon.

Example: a board meeting pack. Northwind's Q3 board meeting is next week. On 3 October, the partner creates a tear sheet as of 30 September. It shows the $2M invested and 14.5% ownership, a valuation of $24M (up 33% from $18M at the start of the quarter after the Series A extension), September's revenue of C$412K with the 3-month trend, and a Watch health status because runway is 7.2 months. The partner adds a paragraph on the plan to reach 12 months of runway and downloads the PDF for the board pack. When October's figures are confirmed later, this tear sheet still shows what the board saw.

Manage a company's cap table

From the company detail page, open the Cap Table section:

• Ownership tab — see each shareholder's current ownership percentage, calculated automatically from funding rounds and option grants.
• Rounds tab — click Add Funding Round to record a new round, then Record Shares to add a shareholder's participation in that round. Deleting a round recalculates ownership percentages without it.
• Option Pools tab — see allocated, available, and total shares per pool. Click Grant to record a new option grant against an existing option pool shareholder.

Example: recording a Series B. Northwind Analytics raises a $30M Series B led by a new investor, and your fund takes part. On Northwind's Cap Table, open Rounds, click Add Funding Round, and enter Series B with its date and price per share. Then use Record Shares once for the lead investor and once for your fund's shareholder, which is marked Your fund. The Ownership tab recalculates everyone's percentage, so you can see your stake diluted from 18% to 14.5% without touching a formula.

Mark your fund on the cap table

Marking which shareholder is your fund lets Cairn check the company's ownership % against the cap table, whatever the shareholder is called. Needs Edit portfolio.

• A new shareholder: in New Shareholder, choose Investor, then under This is our fund pick the fund (only funds that hold the company are offered).
• An existing shareholder: on the Ownership tab, open the row's menu and click Mark as the fund. Not our fund removes the mark.

Marked shareholders show a Your fund badge.

Link a company to funds

Needs the Manage funds permission (Admin).

1. Open the company from the Portfolio list.
2. Under Company info, next to Funds, click Edit.
3. Tick or untick funds. Each change saves straight away.

Read figures from a board pack or P&L

Uploading needs Edit portfolio (Admin, Partner, or Analyst). Reading also needs Run Cairn Intelligence.

1. Open the company and scroll to Financials.
2. Click Upload and choose a PDF, Excel (.xlsx), or CSV file of up to 25MB.
3. Click Read figures next to the file. Cairn Intelligence reads the document's monthly figures and suggests a category for each line. This can take a minute.
4. The review page opens when it's done.

Review and confirm figures

Figures don't count anywhere until someone confirms them.

1. On the review page, check Currency and units. If the document is in thousands or millions and Cairn read it wrong, change Amounts in; every money amount is recalculated. Headcount and runway stay as written.
2. Read Before you confirm: items marked Must fix block confirming.
3. In Monthly figures, for each line:
   • Pick a Cairn category. The list is grouped into Profit and loss, KPIs, Balance sheet, and Cash flow. The badge next to it shows how sure Cairn was: High, Review, or None. Your choice is remembered for this company's next document.
   • Correct any amount by clicking it. You can type 1,250 or (1,250) for a negative number.
   • Tick Exclude for lines that shouldn't count, such as totals.
   • Hover a line's label to see the text it was read from.
4. Click Confirm figures.

The figures then appear in the company's Financials section and in the Command Center. To start over instead, click Discard: the reading is deleted and the document stays, so you can read it again.

Example: a balance sheet that doesn't balance. Northwind's pack includes a balance sheet. Before you confirm shows "The balance sheet doesn't balance: assets of 1,580,000 against liabilities and equity of 1,460,000". The difference is exactly the "Accrued expenses" line, which has no category. Pick Balance sheet › Other current liabilities for it and the check clears. With cash on the balance sheet and operating cash flow of −150,000, Northwind now shows cash, burn, and runway, even though its pack doesn't list them as KPIs.

Example: catching wrong units. A company's Excel P&L says "in thousands" on a hidden header row, and Cairn reads the amounts as shown. Before you confirm lists a Must fix: revenue of 412 is far from the company's usual 395,000. Change Amounts in to Thousands, every amount is recalculated, the check clears, and Confirm figures becomes available. Without the check, March revenue would have been recorded as $412 instead of $412K.

Example: lines that don't add up. The document's total operating expenses are 1,240, but the lines Cairn read add up to 1,150. The check points you to the gap: a "Contractors" line was excluded by mistake. Untick Exclude on it and the totals match.

Request figures from your companies

Needs Edit portfolio (Admin, Partner, or Analyst).

1. Go to Portfolio and click Data requests, or open a company and click Request figures in its Data requests card.
2. Check Period ending. It starts at the last quarter end, and Period name fills in from it (for example "Q3 2026"); you can rename it.
3. Set Due. It starts two weeks from today.
4. Add a Message if you want, for example "Please include the balance sheet and cash flow." The company sees it on its page.
5. From the Data requests page, tick the companies to ask, or click Select all. A company already asked for that period is shown as already requested and skipped.
6. Click Create request (or Create 3 requests).

Each company gets its own link. Cairn doesn't email it for you: send it yourself (see the next section).

Send a request's link

1. On Portfolio › Data requests, find the company's row.
2. Click the copy icon to copy its link, then paste it into an email or message to the company, or click the envelope icon to open your own email with the subject, due date, your message, and the link already filled in.

To remind a company, send the same link again. It keeps working until the request is closed, its link is replaced, or 60 days after the due date.

What the company sees

The company opens the link in a browser. It doesn't need a Cairn account. The page shows your firm's name and logo, the period, the due date, and your message. The person enters their name and email, then either:

• Upload files: one or more PDF, Excel (.xlsx), or CSV files, such as a board pack, P&L, or balance sheet; or
• Type in figures: a month and currency, then any of recurring revenue, other revenue, cash balance, monthly net burn, ARR, and headcount.

They can add a note, send more than once, and see everything they've sent so far.

Review what a company sent

1. On Portfolio › Data requests, rows marked Received have something in. Needs review means a reading is waiting for you.
2. Click the company's name to open the request. Under Received, each file or set of figures shows who sent it, when, and their note.
3. Click Review figures and review and confirm as usual (see Review and confirm figures).

Files are read automatically when they arrive, so you don't need to click Read figures. If a file couldn't be read, the request shows why; open the company and use Read figures on the document, or ask the company for a different file.

Example: Q3 figures from three companies. On 1 October you request "Q3 2026" figures from Lumen Health, Northwind Analytics, and Copperline Robotics, due 15 October, and email each link. Lumen uploads its board pack on 6 October: its row shows Received · Needs review, and you confirm the figures in two minutes. Northwind's founder doesn't have a pack ready and types in September's revenue, cash, and burn; the reading arrives with every line already categorized. On 16 October Copperline's row turns Overdue, so you click the envelope icon and send the same link again as a reminder.

Close a request or replace its link

Open the request from Portfolio › Data requests:

• New link creates a new link and stops the old one working at once. Use it if a link was sent to the wrong person.
• Close request stops the link working. Everything already received stays on the company's page. Closing also lets you request the same period from that company again.

Find companies that need attention

1. Go to Portfolio.
2. Click the Health column header to put the most urgent companies first (At risk, then Watch). Companies without confirmed figures go last. Or use the health filter (Any health by default) to show only one status.
3. Hover a company's Health badge for its reasons, or open the company to see them in the Financials section.

Health only reflects confirmed figures, so keep each company's documents up to date for it to stay meaningful.

You don't have to remember to check: the bell at the top of every page shows portfolio alerts when a company crosses your firm's thresholds for runway, revenue, burn, or missing figures. Admins set the thresholds under Settings › Notifications.

Example: an alert between reviews. On a Wednesday, an analyst confirms Northwind's August figures. Runway has dropped to 5.5 months. The next time anyone opens the bell, it shows "Northwind Analytics — Runway is 5.5 months." The partner opens the company, then dismisses the alert after scheduling a call with the CEO. If September's figures still show under 6 months, the alert comes back.

Example: the quarterly portfolio review. Before the review, a partner sorts the Command Center by Health. Two companies are At risk: hovering the first shows "Runway is 4.5 months.", and the second shows "Revenue is down 28% on the previous three months." One company is Not recent because its last confirmed pack is from May, so the partner asks its CFO for the latest numbers. The review starts with those three companies instead of going alphabetically.

See where your capital sits

1. Go to Portfolio and click Geography.
2. Narrow it down with the filters: fund, vintage, sector, stage, or status.
3. Choose what the colour shows (TVPI, DPI, or At risk) and what sizes the bubbles (NAV or Invested).
4. Click a country on the map, or a row in the table, to see its holdings. Each one links to the company.
5. Click Export CSV under the table to download the figures by country.

You only see the companies in the funds you can access.

Set a company's country

Companies without an HQ country appear in the Unassigned notice on the Geography page.

1. Next to the company, type or pick its country.
2. Click Set country. The company moves onto the map straight away.

Or open the company, click Edit, and fill in HQ country. Setting a country needs the Edit portfolio permission.

Spot concentration in one country

1. On the Geography page, look at the Concentration panel: the five countries with the largest share of NAV.
2. Change Flag above to the share your firm cares about. It's 25% unless you change it.
3. Countries above it are marked on the panel, outlined with a dashed line on the map, and labelled Concentration in the table. The CSV marks them in its Above concentration threshold column.

The threshold applies to this page only and resets when you leave.

Import companies in bulk

1. Go to Portfolio and click Import.
2. Upload a CSV or Excel file, or download the provided template first to see the expected columns.
3. Map your file's columns to the required fields: name, sector, stage, status, entry date, entry valuation, current valuation, invested capital, realized value, and ownership %. HQ location, website, and description are optional.
4. Preview the rows to be imported, then confirm.
5. Review the results screen for how many rows imported successfully and how many failed.

Export your portfolio

Go to Portfolio and use the Export menu to download your company list as a CSV or Excel file.