Primus Ventures
Venture capital intern, Florianópolis, June to July 2025
My first internship. Primus is a VC fund in Florianópolis, and that summer I helped evaluate startups for a R$100M fund.
- Startups evaluated
- 37
- Fund size
- R$100M
- Scoring criteria
- 10
What I did
I sat in pitch meetings with the partners, took notes on every deck and asked questions where information was missing. After each meeting we agreed on what to dig into, and I researched the segment: market size, business model, revenue, team and competitors.
For every startup I delivered two things. A memo covering the company, its market, its competitors and how it fit the fund's thesis. And a scoring grid with 10 criteria, each with two or three subcriteria, so we could rank startups against each other. 37 founders, 37 memos.
The feedback that stuck
My first memos had too much in them. I was told that a memo isn't a research dump. It's a thesis you defend. Learning to choose what matters and cut the rest is something I still use in everything I write, including this page.
Why it mattered
Seeing 37 founders pitch, from the investor's side of the table, taught me what makes a startup convincing: a real problem, a market you can actually reach, and a team that knows why it will win. Those are the same lessons ApplyIn taught me the hard way.