Due Diligence Checklists › E-Commerce › Pre-Seed
E-Commerce Startup Investment Checklist: Pre-Seed Stage (2026)
This checklist covers 23 due diligence items for E-Commerce startups at the Pre-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.
23 checklist items · 4 red flags automatically detected · See a sample DDR report
Pre-Seed Requirements
✓
Founding team quality and relevant domain expertise
✓
Problem evidence: clear pain, ideally lived experience
✓
Market size: TAM must justify a venture-scale outcome
✓
Early signal of demand: waitlist, LOIs, or first customers
✓
Founder-market fit: why this team for this problem
✓
Proprietary insight competitors don't have
E-Commerce Sector
✓
Unit economics by acquisition channel verified
✓
12-month cohort repurchase rates documented
✓
Gross margin by SKU reviewed and blended margin confirmed
✓
Supplier concentration: no single supplier >50% of COGS
✓
Trademark registered in US and key international markets
✓
Inventory analysis: no excess slow-moving inventory
Deep Dive
✓
Blended CAC vs. channel-specific CAC: ensure no single platform dependency
✓
Review 12-month cohort repurchase rates by acquisition channel
✓
Supplier agreements: review terms, exclusivity, pricing stability
✓
Inventory management and working capital cycles
✓
Brand protection: trademark status in key markets
Regulatory
✓
Verify: FTC truth-in-advertising requirements: health and performance claims require substantiation
✓
Verify: Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for physical goods
✓
Verify: Import duties and tariffs: significant exposure for China-manufactured goods
OSINT Signals
✓
Check: SimilarWeb: paid vs. organic traffic breakdown
✓
Check: Facebook Ad Library: active ad count and creative freshness (stale ads = declining performance)
✓
Check: Reddit and TikTok: organic brand mentions and sentiment
DDR AUTOMATES THIS CHECKLIST
Upload an E-Commerce startup pitch deck and DDR automatically completes 16+ of these 23 checklist items — sourcing data from 13 OSINT signals, benchmarking against 3 comparable companies, and detecting all 4 critical red flags.
GET YOUR FREE SCAN →