Use when financial-services work requires generate a polished one-page PowerPoint slide summarizing key takeaways from recent funding rounds and notable capital markets activity across a user's watched sectors or companies. Use this skill when the user asks for a deal flow summary, weekly recap, funding digest, transaction roundup, or capital markets briefing. Triggers on: 'deal flow digest', 'weekly funding recap', 'deal roundup', 'transaction summary this week', 'what happened in [sector] this week', 'capital markets update', or any request to compile recent funding activity into a briefing slide. Produces a professional single-slide PPTX with key takeaways, valuation data, and Capital IQ deal links..
Use when financial-services work requires generate a polished one-page PowerPoint slide summarizing key takeaways from recent funding rounds and notable capital markets activity across a user's watched sectors or companies. Use this skill when the user asks for a deal flow summary, weekly recap, funding digest, transaction roundup, or capital markets briefing. Triggers on: 'deal flow digest', 'weekly funding recap', 'deal roundup', 'transaction summary this week', 'what happened in [sector] this week', 'capital markets update', or any request to compile recent funding activity into a briefing slide. Produces a professional single-slide PPTX with key takeaways, valuation data, and Capital IQ deal links..
AI DISCLAIMER (MANDATORY):
You MUST include the following disclaimer text in the powerpoint footer. This is not optional — the report is incomplete without it:
"Analysis is AI-generated — please confirm all outputs"
Footer — At the bottom of the generated slide, as a prominent yellow banner: "Analysis is AI-generated — please confirm all outputs"
Weekly Deal Flow Digest
Generate an analyst-quality single-slide PowerPoint that summarizes key takeaways from recent funding rounds across watched sectors or companies, using S&P Global Capital IQ data. Each deal links back to its Capital IQ profile for quick drill-down.
When to Use
Trigger on any of these patterns:
"Give me a deal flow digest for this week"
"Weekly funding recap for [sector]"
"What deals closed in [sector/companies] recently?"
"Transaction roundup" or "deal roundup"
"Capital markets update for my coverage universe"
"Summarize recent funding activity"
Any periodic briefing request about deals, raises, or rounds
Nested Skills
This skill produces a one-slide PPTX briefing:
Read/mnt/skills/public/pptx/SKILL.md before generating the PowerPoint (and its sub-reference pptxgenjs.md for creating from scratch)
Entity Resolution & Tool Robustness
S&P Global's identifier system resolves company names to legal entities. This works well for most companies but has known failure modes that cause empty results. Apply these rules throughout the workflow to avoid silent data loss.
Rule 0: Pre-validate ALL identifiers before querying funding
Before calling any funding tools, run every identifier through get_info_from_identifiers. This is the cheapest and most reliable way to catch problems early. Check two things in the response:
Did it resolve at all? If the identifier returns empty/error, the name doesn't exist in S&P Global. Try the alias from references/sector-seeds.md, the legal entity name, or the company_id directly.
What is the status field?
"Operating" → Safe to query for funding rounds.
"Operating Subsidiary" → The company exists but is owned by a parent. It will return . Note this in the digest as context (e.g., "acquired by [Parent]") but do not query for funding.
zero funding rounds
Any other status (e.g., closed, inactive) → The company is no longer operating. Historical data may exist but no new activity.
This single pre-validation step prevents the majority of empty-result issues. Batch all candidates into a single get_info_from_identifiers call (it handles large batches well) and triage before proceeding.
Rule 1: Never trust empty results without a fallback
If get_rounds_of_funding_from_identifiers returns empty for a company you expect to have data:
Try the legal entity name or company_id. Brand names usually work, but some don't. See the alias table in references/sector-seeds.md for known mismatches. Common pattern: "[Brand] AI" → "[Legal Name], Inc." (e.g., Together AI → "Together Computer, Inc.", Character.ai → "Character Technologies, Inc.", Runway ML → "Runway AI, Inc.").
Verify the company exists in S&P. If you skipped Rule 0, call get_info_from_identifiers(identifiers=["Company"]) now — if this also returns empty, the company may be too early-stage or not yet indexed.
Rule 2: Subsidiaries have no funding rounds
Companies that are divisions or wholly-owned subsidiaries of larger companies (e.g., DeepMind under Alphabet, GitHub under Microsoft, BeReal under Voodoo) will return zero funding rounds. Their capital events are tracked at the parent level.
How to detect: The status field from get_info_from_identifiers will show "Operating Subsidiary". The references/sector-seeds.md file also flags known subsidiaries with ⚠️ warnings. Skip these for funding queries.
Rule 3: Use get_rounds_of_funding_from_identifiers as the primary tool, not get_funding_summary_from_identifiers
The summary tool is faster but less reliable — it can return errors or incomplete data even when detailed rounds exist. Always use the detailed rounds tool as the primary data source. The summary tool is acceptable only for quick aggregate checks (total raised, round count) and should be verified against the rounds tool if results seem low.
Rule 4: Batch carefully and validate
When processing large company universes (50+ companies), batch in groups of 15–20. After each batch, check for companies that returned empty results and run them through the fallback steps in Rule 1 before moving on.
Rule 5: The role parameter is critical
company_raising_funds → "What rounds did X raise?" (company perspective)
company_investing_in_round_of_funding → "What did investor Y invest in?" (investor perspective)
Using the wrong role returns empty results silently. For deal flow digests, you almost always want company_raising_funds. Only use the investor role when specifically analyzing an investor's portfolio activity.
Rule 6: Identifier resolution is case-insensitive but spelling-sensitive
S&P Global handles case variations ("openai" = "OpenAI") but is strict on spelling and punctuation. "Character AI" may fail where "Character.ai" succeeds. When in doubt, use the company_id (e.g., C_1829047235) which is guaranteed to resolve.
Workflow
Step 1: Establish Coverage & Period
Determine what the digest should cover. There are two setups:
Returning user (has a watchlist):
If the user has previously defined sectors or companies to track, use that list. Check conversation history for prior watchlists.
New user:
Ask for:
Parameter
Default
Notes
Sectors
(at least one)
e.g., "AI, Fintech, Biotech"
Specific companies
Optional
Supplement sector-level coverage
Time period
Last 7 days
"This week", "last 2 weeks", "this month"
Calculate the exact start_date and end_date from the time period.
Step 2: Build the Company Universe
For each sector specified, build a company universe using a validated bootstrapping approach:
Seed companies from domain knowledge (see references/sector-seeds.md)
Pay attention to the ⚠️ warnings and alias notes in the seeds file — some well-known companies are subsidiaries, have been acquired, or require a specific legal name to resolve.
The seeds file includes company_id values for known alias mismatches. Use these directly if the brand name fails.
Apply the same triage. Filter by simple_industry matching the target sector. Drop any unresolved names or subsidiaries.
If the user provides specific companies, add those directly but still run them through the pre-validation triage. Never skip validation — even well-known brand names can fail silently.
Keep the universe manageable — aim for 15–40 resolved, operating companies per sector. For a multi-sector digest, this might total 50–100+ companies.
Pass ALL transaction IDs in a single call (or small number of calls) rather than one per transaction — the tool handles batches efficiently.
Extract the following from each round (critical for the slide):
transaction_id — needed for the Capital IQ deal link
Announcement date — when the round was publicly announced
Close date — when the round officially closed
Amount raised
Pre-money valuation (if disclosed)
Post-money valuation (if disclosed)
Lead investors
Round type (Series A, B, C, etc.)
Security terms
Advisors
Pricing trend (up-round / down-round / flat)
Dates are required. The announcement and close dates must always appear in the final slide's deal table. If only one date is available, show it and mark the other as "—".
Step 4: Pull Company Context for Notable Deals
For any company involved in a significant deal (large round, notable valuation shift), get a brief description:
This adds context to the narrative (e.g., "The company, an AI infrastructure startup founded in 2021, is expanding into...").
Step 5: Identify Highlights & Trends
Before designing the slide, analyze the data to surface the story:
Flag as "Notable":
Rounds ≥ $100M
Down rounds (pricing trend = down)
New unicorns (post-money valuation crossing $1B)
Significant valuation jumps (post-money ≥ 2x the last known valuation)
Repeat raisers (same company raising again within 6 months)
Unusually large investor syndicates
Identify Trends:
Total capital deployed this period vs. typical (if historical data available)
Which sub-sectors are hottest (most rounds, most capital)
Round stage distribution (is early-stage or late-stage dominating?)
Most active investors across the digest
Geographic concentration
Valuation trends (are pre-money valuations compressing or expanding?)
Select Key Takeaways (3–5):
Distill the most important signals into 3–5 concise bullet-style takeaways. These are the centerpiece of the slide. Each takeaway should be one sentence, punchy, and data-backed.
Examples:
"AI sector raised $2.4B across 8 rounds — 3x the prior week, led by a $800M mega-round from [Company] at a $12B post-money valuation."
"[Company] closed a $200M Series D at $3.5B pre-money, up from $1.8B in its Series C — signaling strong demand for AI developer tools."
For each company featured in the key takeaways or notable deals, generate a logo using a two-tier local pipeline. Do not use Clearbit (logo.clearbit.com) — it is deprecated and consistently fails. External logo CDNs (Brandfetch, logo.dev, Google Favicons) require API keys or are blocked by network restrictions. Instead, use the following approach:
The simple-icons package bundles high-quality SVG icons for thousands of well-known brands. It works entirely offline — no API keys, no network calls. Install it alongside sharp for SVG → PNG conversion:
npm install simple-icons sharp
Lookup strategy:
const si = require('simple-icons');
const sharp = require('sharp');
// Find an icon by exact title match (case-insensitive)functionfindSimpleIcon(companyName) {
// Try exact match firstfor (const [key, val] ofObject.entries(si)) {
if (!key.startsWith('si') || !val || !val.title) continue;
if (val.title.toLowerCase() === companyName.toLowerCase()) return val;
}
// Try without common suffixes (AI, Inc., Corp.)const stripped = companyName.replace(/\s*(AI|Inc\.?|Corp\.?|Ltd\.?)$/i, '').trim();
if (stripped !== companyName) {
for (const [key, val] ofObject.entries(si)) {
if (!key.startsWith('si') || !val || !val.title) continue;
if (val.title.toLowerCase() === stripped.toLowerCase()) return val;
}
}
returnnull;
}
// Convert SVG to PNG with the brand's official colorasyncfunctionsimpleIconToPng(icon, outputPath) {
const coloredSvg = icon.svg.replace('<svg', `<svg fill="#${icon.hex}"`);
awaitsharp(Buffer.from(coloredSvg))
.resize(128, 128, { fit: 'contain', background: { r: 255, g: 255, b: 255, alpha: 0 } })
.png()
.toFile(outputPath);
}
Coverage: ~43% of typical deal flow companies (strong for major tech brands like Stripe, Anthropic, Databricks, Snowflake, Discord, Shopify, SpaceX, Mistral AI, Hugging Face; weaker for niche fintech, biotech, or early-stage companies).
Tier 2: Initial-Based Fallback via sharp (100% Coverage)
For companies not found in simple-icons, generate a clean initial-based logo as a PNG:
Save all logos to /home/claude/logos/[company-name].png
All logos are 128×128 PNG with transparent backgrounds
On the slide, display logos at 0.35"–0.5" tall — they're accents, not focal points
Initial-fallback circles use gray (BDBDBD) fill with white text — consistent with the monochrome palette
Never mix logo styles randomly — if most companies resolve to brand icons, the few fallbacks should blend in naturally
Step 7: Generate the One-Page PPTX
Read /mnt/skills/public/pptx/SKILL.md and /mnt/skills/public/pptx/pptxgenjs.md before creating the slide.
Create a single-slide PowerPoint using pptxgenjs. The slide should be information-dense but visually clean — think "executive dashboard" not "wall of text."
Color philosophy: Minimal, monochrome-first. The slide should feel like a high-end financial brief — black, white, and gray dominate. Color is used only where it carries meaning (e.g., a red indicator for a down round, a green indicator for a standout metric) or where the reader would naturally expect it (company logos). Never use color for purely decorative purposes like background fills, accent bars, or gradient effects.
Color palette — Monochrome Executive:
Primary background: FFFFFF (white) — clean, open slide background
Header bar: 1A1A1A (near-black) — strong contrast for the title region
Primary text: 1A1A1A (near-black) — all body text, stat numbers, takeaways
Card backgrounds: F5F5F5 (off-white / very light gray) — stat card fills, alternating table rows
Link text: 2B5797 (muted blue) — Capital IQ deal links in the table (the only blue on the slide)
Semantic color (sparingly):
Down rounds or negative signals: C0392B (muted red) — use only as a small dot, tag, or single-word highlight, never as a fill or background
Standout positive metrics (new unicorn, outsized round): 2E7D32 (muted green) — same minimal usage: a dot, a small tag, or a single highlighted number
If no data points warrant a color indicator, use no color at all. A fully monochrome slide is perfectly correct.
Typography:
Title: 28–32pt, bold, white on near-black header bar
Stat numbers: 36–44pt, bold, near-black
Stat labels: 10–12pt, medium gray (6B6B6B)
Takeaway text: 12–14pt, near-black, left-aligned
Table text: 9–11pt, near-black with gray (6B6B6B) for secondary columns
Link text: 9–10pt, muted blue (2B5797)
Footer: 8pt, medium gray
Stat Cards (top row):
4 key metrics as large-number callouts: Total Raised, # Rounds, Avg Pre-Money Valuation, Largest Round
Each in a card with F5F5F5 fill and a thin D0D0D0 border — no shadow, no color fills
If a stat is surprising or extreme (e.g., 3x normal volume, a record deal), a small colored dot or underline may be placed next to that single number — otherwise keep fully monochrome
If pre-money valuations are mostly undisclosed, substitute with a different metric (e.g., Median Round Size, # New Unicorns)
Key Takeaways (middle section):
3–5 one-line takeaways, each prefixed with the relevant company logo (small, ~0.35" tall)
If no logo available, use a gray circle with the company initial in white — not a colored circle
Left-aligned, with enough spacing to breathe
Down-round or negative takeaways may use a small red dot prefix; otherwise no color
Include valuation context where available (e.g., "at a $5B post-money valuation")
Top Deals Table (bottom section):
Compact table showing the 4–6 most notable deals
Columns: Company, Type (Series X), Announced (date), Closed (date), Amount ($M), Pre-Money ($M), Post-Money ($M), Lead Investor, Deal Link
Announced and Closed columns show dates in MMM DD format (e.g., "Jan 15"). These columns are required and must always be present. If a date is not available, show "—".
The Deal Link column contains a clickable "View →" text linking to Capital IQ:
where <transaction_id> is the transaction_id from get_rounds_of_funding_from_identifiers.
If pre-money or post-money valuation is not disclosed, show "—" in that cell
Header row with near-black (1A1A1A) fill and white text; alternating rows in F5F5F5 and FFFFFF
Center the table horizontally on the slide. Calculate the table's total width, then set x so it is centered within the slide width: x = (slideWidth - tableWidth) / 2. For a 16:9 layout (13.33" wide), if the table is 12" wide, use x = 0.67. Never left-align the table to the slide edge.
Keep it tight — this is a reference, not the focal point
No colored fills in table cells. If a deal is a down round, a small red text tag "(↓ down)" may appear next to the amount — that is the only permitted color in the table.
Deal Link Implementation (pptxgenjs):
In pptxgenjs, hyperlinks are added to table cells using the options.hyperlink property on the cell object:
// Table cell with Capital IQ deal link
{
text: "View →",
options: {
hyperlink: {
url: `https://www.capitaliq.spglobal.com/web/client?#offering/capitalOfferingProfile?id=${transactionId}`
},
color: "2B5797",
fontSize: 9,
fontFace: "Arial"
}
}
Table Centering (pptxgenjs):
Always center the deal table on the slide. Calculate the x position dynamically:
Check for overlapping elements, text overflow, alignment issues, low-contrast text, logo sizing problems, and that deal link text is visible.
Link QA: Verify that the Capital IQ URLs in the table are correctly formatted with the right transaction IDs.
Fix and re-verify — at least one fix-and-verify cycle before declaring done.
Step 9: Present Results
Copy the final .pptx to /mnt/user-data/outputs/
Use present_files to share the slide
Provide a 2–3 sentence verbal summary:
"Your digest covers X rounds totaling $Y raised across [sectors]."
Call out the single most notable deal and its valuation
Flag any concerning trends (down rounds, valuation compression, etc.)
Error Handling
Entity Resolution Failures
Empty results for a known company: First check get_info_from_identifiers — if that fails, try the alias from references/sector-seeds.md or the company_id directly. Common brand→legal mismatches: Together AI → "Together Computer, Inc.", Character.ai → "Character Technologies, Inc.", Runway ML → "Runway AI, Inc.".
Subsidiary companies: DeepMind, GitHub, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, BeReal, etc. are subsidiaries — they have zero independent funding rounds. Note these as "acquired/subsidiary" in context but do not report them as "no activity."
Defunct companies: Companies like Convoy (shut down Oct 2023) still resolve in S&P Global but will never have new activity. The references/sector-seeds.md file flags these — check it before including a company.
get_funding_summary_from_identifiers errors or returns zeros: Fall back to get_rounds_of_funding_from_identifiers — the summary tool is less reliable. Never rely on the summary tool as the sole data source.
Wrong role parameter: If investor-perspective queries return empty, verify you're using company_investing_in_round_of_funding, not company_raising_funds (and vice versa).
Data Quality Issues
No activity in period: If a sector had zero funding rounds, note this explicitly on the slide ("No transactions recorded in [Sector] during the period") — absence of activity is itself informative.
Sparse valuation data: If pre-money and post-money valuations are undisclosed for most transactions, note the data limitation in a footer annotation and use "—" in the table. Adjust the stat card to show a different metric (e.g., Median Round Size) instead of Avg Pre-Money.
Logo retrieval failures: The simple-icons npm package provides ~43% coverage for typical deal flow companies. For the remainder, use the sharp-generated initial-based fallback. Keep a consistent icon style — don't mix random approaches. If simple-icons or sharp fail to install, fall back to pptxgenjs shape-based initials (gray ellipse + white text overlay) which require no external dependencies.
Too many deals for one slide: If there are more than 6 notable deals, show the top 6 in the table and add a footnote: "+N additional deals not shown." Prioritize by deal size.
Large universes: For multi-sector digests with 100+ companies, batch all API calls in groups of 15–20. Prioritize depth on notable deals over completeness on minor ones.
Stale seeds: If competitor expansion returns very few results for a sector, the seed companies may be too niche. Broaden by adding 2–3 more well-known names and re-expanding.
Invalid transaction IDs for links: If a transaction_id from the funding tool doesn't produce a valid Capital IQ URL, omit the link cell for that row rather than including a broken link.
Example Prompts
"Give me a weekly deal flow digest for AI and fintech"
"Summarize this week's funding in biotech"
"Deal roundup for my coverage — cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and dev tools — last 2 weeks"
"What happened in venture this week across all sectors I follow?"
"Quick deal flow slide for climate tech this month"
Hermes Profile Notes
This skill was packaged from pi-financial-services source path plugins/partner-built/spglobal/skills/funding-digest for the Hermes financial-services profile. Use institutional data connectors first when available, cite sources, and stage outputs for qualified human review.
Common Pitfalls
Do not present drafts as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice.
Do not use web search as the primary source when an institutional MCP/data connector is available.
Do not execute transactions, contact clients, post to a ledger, or approve onboarding. Stage outputs for review.
Verification Checklist
Inputs, assumptions, dates, and currencies are explicit.
Numbers tie across tables, models, decks, and memos.
Sources are cited and institutional data is preferred where available.
Output is labeled draft / for human review where appropriate.
