NGMI says no about twenty times for every yes. Because the holding isn't a fund and there's no investment committee to hide behind, the no is just me. The memo is the same every time, and it takes about four minutes to write.
Here it is, verbatim. Names changed.
Hi {{name}},
Thanks for sending over the memo for {{company}}. I read it today.
It's not a fit for us — not because it's a weak project, but because it's outside what NGMI can actually help with. We operate our own things in Luxembourg and the portfolio is close to capacity. If I come in, I want to be useful, and here I wouldn't be.
I'd rather pass cleanly than drag it out. If anything changes our side I'll reach out; don't wait on me.
Good luck — it reads well.
— {{ngmi}}
Why it's one paragraph
Because everything else is lying.
The longer version of "no" is almost always a founder-management exercise dressed up as feedback. "If you hit X milestone we'd love to revisit." "Come back in 6 months." "Let's stay in touch" is the worst four words a VC ever wrote, and it has cost more founders more weeks of wasted hope than bad term sheets ever have.
A short no respects the reader. It says: I read it, I'm out, move on. That's the whole message.
Why under a week
Because a slow no is a cruel no. Founders are running a finite-cash business; a two-week silence is a two-week hole in their runway where they can't start the next conversation without feeling like they're cheating on you.
The rule is: reply within 7 days or not at all. Usually within 48 hours. The memo takes four minutes to write and spares somebody a week of checking their inbox.
Why "not a fit"
Because it is almost always the truth. NGMI is a holding company, not a fund. I operate the things I own. When I pass it is rarely because the business is bad — it is because I can't meaningfully operate it, or because the sector isn't mine, or because the founder needs a VC and I'm not a VC. Those are all fit problems. They are not quality problems.
Pretending otherwise just teaches founders the wrong lesson about their own memo.
What I leave out
I do not offer feedback unless asked. I am one reader; my feedback on a memo I passed on is worth almost nothing and can actively mislead a founder who then rewrites around it. If they ask, I'll answer honestly in another four minutes. If they don't, my opinion of their Series A strategy is not the gift they think it is.
Do founders come back?
Sometimes, yes. Two or three times a year someone I passed on circles back with an acquisition question, an operations question, or — more often — a different project entirely. That is the only real reason to write a kind no: the no is the start of a longer conversation, not the end of a transaction.
The memo is the template. The template is the policy. The policy is: be fast, be kind, be honest about fit, and do not pretend to be useful when you aren't.