Our approach / The anti-portfolio

Learn from the deals
you passed.

A passed deal can teach you something. The useful question is whether the decision made sense given the evidence and mandate at the time—not whether the company eventually became a success.

Keep the original reasoning.

Record the reason for passing, the evidence available, the assumptions that mattered and what would have changed the decision. Distinguish “outside our mandate” from “we do not believe the business works.”

Revisit the assumption.

When new evidence arrives, compare it with the original case. Did the market change? Did the founders resolve a risk? Or did your team overlook a signal that was already available?

Improve the next question.

Turn the lesson into a specific diligence question or a change to your screening criteria. Avoid treating a successful outcome as proof that every early risk was misplaced.

This is an analytical method, not a claim that Butterfly automatically monitors passed deals or predicts investment outcomes.