Due Diligence Checklists › Cybersecurity › Seed
Cybersecurity Startup Investment Checklist: Seed Stage (2026)
This checklist covers 24 due diligence items for Cybersecurity startups at the Seed stage. Each item has been validated against institutional investor practice. DDR automates the majority of these checks from a single pitch deck PDF upload.
24 checklist items · 3 red flags automatically detected · See a sample DDR report
Seed Requirements
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Product-market fit signals: retention, NPS, organic growth
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Early revenue: $10K–$100K MRR is the seed sweet spot
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Repeatable go-to-market: clear acquisition channels with data
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Team completeness: key hires made, gaps identified
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Path to Series A: clear $1M ARR milestone credibly achievable
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Unit economics: CAC and LTV directional even if not optimized
Cybersecurity Sector
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Third-party penetration test report reviewed (last 12 months)
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Bug bounty program active and history reviewed
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No undisclosed security incidents in company history
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MITRE ATT&CK benchmark results reviewed
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SOC 2 Type II certification for company's own infrastructure
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Encryption standards documentation reviewed
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Incident response plan documented and tested
Deep Dive
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Third-party penetration test reports from the last 12 months
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Efficacy benchmarks on industry-standard threat datasets
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Review any prior security incidents or breaches
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Verify team's security clearances if targeting government
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Assess false positive rate from customer deployments
Regulatory
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Verify: Export controls (EAR/ITAR): dual-use security technology may require export licenses
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Verify: FedRAMP: required for federal government contracts
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Verify: EU NIS2 Directive: new incident reporting and security requirements for EU customers
OSINT Signals
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Check: CVE database: any CVEs attributed to or affecting the product
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Check: Shodan: public-facing infrastructure security posture
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Check: GitHub security advisories for any open-source components
DDR AUTOMATES THIS CHECKLIST
Upload a Cybersecurity startup pitch deck and DDR automatically completes 17+ of these 24 checklist items — sourcing data from 13 OSINT signals, benchmarking against 3 comparable companies, and detecting all 3 critical red flags.
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