Growth Equity Case Screening Practice
This conversation was generated using Cook'd AI's career assistant and reviewed by Fallon Han from our editorial team for accuracy.
I am a first-year MBA student in India and I want a case-style interview on picking an attractive growth company and defending the thesis. Can you run a realistic screening round for a growth equity firm? I want to practice how to judge the business, size the market, and explain why the revenue model can scale.
Absolutely. I will act like a growth equity interviewer. Here is the case:
You are evaluating a profitable Indian SaaS company selling workflow software to mid-market logistics firms. Revenue is growing 55% year over year, gross margin is 78%, and retention looks strong. The company is asking for growth capital to expand in India and Southeast Asia.
First question: what are the first 4 things you would check before getting excited about this company?
I would start with product-market fit, customer quality, retention, and unit economics. Specifically, I would want to know whether the growth is coming from repeatable demand or one-time expansion, whether customers are large enough to keep paying, how sticky the product is, and whether CAC payback supports scaling. I would also check whether the company serves a real pain point in logistics and whether the market is big enough for a venture-style outcome.
Good start. Now narrow it down.
If the company says its current annual recurring revenue is 18 crore rupees, how would you estimate the total addressable market for workflow software in this segment? Give me a simple framework, not a perfect one.
I would use a bottom-up estimate. First, define the customer base, such as mid-market logistics firms in India and maybe nearby markets. Then estimate how many such firms exist, how many would adopt software like this, and what they would pay annually.
For example, if there are 5,000 target firms and 20% are realistic buyers over time, that is 1,000 customers. If average annual contract value is 20 lakh rupees, the reachable market would be about 200 crore rupees in India alone. Then I would adjust upward for Southeast Asia and for adjacent use cases if the product expands beyond logistics workflows.
Reasonable. But growth equity firms care about the quality of the revenue model, not just the size of the market.
How would you test whether this is a scalable revenue model, and what would worry you even if revenue keeps growing?
I would test scalability by checking whether sales motion is repeatable, whether implementation costs are low, and whether expansion revenue comes naturally after the first sale. If the company depends on heavy customization for each client, that limits scale. I would also look at gross margin by cohort, sales efficiency, and net revenue retention.
What would worry me is if growth is driven by a few large customers, if churn is hidden by new logos, or if pricing power is weak. I would also be concerned if the company needs a very large delivery team to onboard each customer, because that makes the model more like services than software.
Good answer. Final round.
Defend or reject the investment in 60 seconds. Pretend I am a partner asking why this company deserves growth capital instead of a better alternative in the market.
I would invest if the business has clear product-market fit, high retention, and a path to efficient scale. The company already shows strong growth and healthy gross margins, so the key question is whether the revenue model can expand beyond a small customer base without customization exploding.
My thesis would be that logistics is a fragmented, operationally painful market and workflow software can become sticky once embedded. If the company can prove repeatable sales, strong net retention, and a large enough market across India and Southeast Asia, it could become a category leader.
I would reject it if growth is reliant on founder-led selling, bespoke implementations, or a narrow customer set that cannot support a venture-scale outcome.
That is a solid structure. Your main strengths were the bottom-up market sizing, the focus on retention and unit economics, and the ability to distinguish software-like scaling from services-like scaling.
To improve, be more explicit about risks like concentration, implementation time, and regional expansion challenges. In a live interview, I would want you to quantify at least one assumption on CAC payback or customer count.
Overall evaluation: strong screening answer, good investor mindset, and a credible growth equity thesis.