Investment Case Study Portfolio

Select a sector whose relevance, scope, and public-data availability support a credible portfolio study.

Define transparent inclusion criteria for selecting 12–15 companies in a sector landscape.

Design a structured company-data schema covering business model, ownership, funding, investors, competitors, transactions, and disclosed financials.

Extract a source-linked company profile from public filings, company materials, databases, and reputable reporting.

Normalize inconsistent company descriptions, currencies, dates, funding stages, and financial fields for comparison.

Classify companies by business-model and competitive-positioning archetypes.

Create Python validation checks that flag missing values, duplicate records, invalid categories, and unsupported claims.

Assign confidence levels to private-company data without converting estimates into apparent facts.

Derive evidence-based sector trends from the structured company dataset and test them against disconfirming evidence.

Construct a competitive landscape that distinguishes direct competitors, substitutes, and adjacent players.

Identify strategically relevant funding patterns, ownership changes, partnerships, and acquisitions in the sector.

Build an Excel dashboard with decision-relevant filters, charts, summary metrics, and source references.

Write an executive summary that clearly separates findings, interpretations, recommendations, and uncertainties.

Draft a source-linked four-page sector research note organized around thesis, market, competition, business models, traction, opportunities, risks, and conclusion.

Package the dataset, dashboard, research note, methodology, and limitations as a cross-company synthesis linked to the relevant company-study folders.

Write a defensible resume bullet and a two-minute interview explanation based only on the completed work.

Apply professional Excel modeling conventions and use XLOOKUP or INDEX-MATCH, SUMIFS, IF, IFERROR, and anchored references in a sourced company model.

Use PivotTables and PivotCharts to summarize company and transaction datasets and reconcile the results to source totals.

Import and standardize raw annual-report disclosures into source-linked historical financial schedules in Excel.

Explain how revenue, expenses, assets, liabilities, working capital, capital expenditure, and cash flow connect in a company's financial model.

Build a linked historical three-statement model in Excel with balance-sheet and cash-flow reconciliation checks.

Normalize reported financials for material non-recurring or non-operating items.

Build a KPI tree linking operating drivers to revenue, margins, cash flow, and enterprise value.

Complete a timed blank-sheet Excel assessment using raw company disclosures and explain every material formula used.

Map how a company creates, delivers, and captures value using a business-model framework.

Calculate and interpret sector-appropriate unit-economics metrics from available company data.

Decompose historical growth into volume, price, mix, acquisition, and market-share drivers where disclosures permit.

Formulate a thesis, counter-thesis, and priority diligence questions from a company's operating and financial evidence.

Translate a business narrative into explicit revenue, margin, reinvestment, and cash-flow assumptions.

Construct a driver-based operating forecast covering revenue, operating profit, taxes, depreciation, capital expenditure, and working capital.

Calculate unlevered free cash flow from forecast financial statements.

Estimate a defensible discount rate using cost of equity, cost of debt, capital structure, and country-risk inputs.

Calculate terminal value using both perpetuity-growth and exit-multiple methods.

Bridge enterprise value to equity value while accounting for debt, cash, investments, and other relevant claims.

Build base, upside, and downside valuation scenarios in Excel using centralized assumption switches.

Build two-way sensitivity tables for key DCF assumptions.

Construct a comparable-company valuation table by selecting defensible peers, normalizing key metrics, calculating consistent trading multiples, and deriving an indicative valuation range.

Diagnose a DCF model using accounting checks, economic plausibility tests, and comparison with market values.

Reconstruct the public M&A process, transaction timeline, key approvals, and principal deal terms from sufficiently detailed disclosures.

Evaluate an acquisition's strategic rationale against market structure and the buyer's stated priorities.

Analyze the buyer's and target's standalone performance using only sufficiently disclosed figures.

Calculate transaction valuation multiples only when numerator and denominator definitions are compatible.

Develop a bottom-up estimate of revenue, cost, and capital synergies with explicit timing assumptions.

Build a reusable simplified accretion-or-dilution calculator under alternative cash, debt, and equity financing assumptions.

Assess integration, execution, regulatory, competitive, and valuation risks using scenario analysis.

Create a sourced six-slide transaction presentation and one-page executive summary with a clear conclusion.

Convert an ambiguous business situation into a precise problem statement and decision criterion.

Build a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive issue tree for a growth or profitability question.

Estimate market size using both top-down and bottom-up methods and reconcile the results.

Benchmark a company's performance and strategic position against relevant peers.

Generate distinct growth options across core expansion, adjacency, market entry, partnership, and acquisition.

Prioritize strategic options using quantified impact, feasibility, risk, and implementation timing.

Create a consulting-style recommendation deck with supporting evidence, implementation steps, milestones, risks, and contingencies.

Frame a private-equity investment thesis around value-creation levers and disconfirming evidence.

Estimate normalized EBITDA and cash conversion from public company information.

Select a defensible entry valuation using trading, transaction, and fundamental valuation evidence.

Construct a simplified debt schedule with interest, mandatory repayment, and optional cash sweeps.

Model operating cash flow, debt paydown, and exit equity value over the holding period.

Calculate MOIC and IRR across entry, operating, leverage, and exit assumptions.

Identify the assumptions that create downside loss or prevent achievement of a target return.

Write a concise investment-committee memo that distinguishes thesis, evidence, risks, diligence needs, and recommendation.

Evaluate a startup market using customer need, market structure, adoption drivers, and competitive intensity.

Map a startup's revenue model to acquisition, retention, monetization, and gross-margin drivers.

Calculate CAC, LTV, payback period, burn multiple, runway, and related unit-economics metrics when data permits.

Build a reusable pre-money and post-money cap-table model for a priced funding round.

Model founder and investor dilution across multiple funding rounds and an option-pool increase.

Translate ownership and exit assumptions into investor proceeds and fund-return implications.

Write a VC-style investment memo that clearly labels verified facts, estimates, assumptions, and unanswered diligence questions.

Implement a transparent DCF calculation engine in Python.

Write tests for discounting, terminal value, enterprise-to-equity bridges, and invalid input handling.

Reconcile Python valuation outputs with an independently constructed spreadsheet model.

Build and document a Streamlit valuation interface with scenario controls, sensitivity visualizations, and downloadable results.

Audit a completed case's material claims, charts, model inputs, and outputs for citation quality and reproducibility using a repeatable checklist.

Publish a recruiter-facing GitHub Pages site that summarizes each company study and links directly to its reports, presentations, models, and interactive tools.

Complete a timed unfamiliar-company research exercise and deliver and defend a five-minute evidence-based recommendation.

Run a targeted networking and application feedback loop that uses completed projects to obtain role-specific critique and improve subsequent work.