By the end of this, you'll be able to:
- Name the deal-cycle jobs where Claude saves the most time, and the ones it should never own
- Set up a Claude project that holds your fund thesis, templates, and house style
- Apply the confidentiality rules for CIMs, data rooms, and portfolio data before pasting anything
- Describe what Anthropic has published for financial services work, and what still needs your judgment
Finance work is mostly reading and writing wrapped around a few hard judgments. A deal team reads teasers, CIMs, data rooms, models, and management decks, then writes screens, request lists, memos, and board commentary. Anthropic's Claude is very good at the reading and the first draft of the writing. It is not the one who decides whether to bid.
This course follows a deal from first look to portfolio company: screening a CIM, running diligence, reviewing models, drafting the IC memo, and reporting after close. One lesson is dedicated to the question that matters most in finance: when not to trust the output.
The split that makes it work
Every workflow in this course uses the same split:
Claude reads and structures. Summaries, extractions, tables, trackers, first drafts.
Claude cites. Every fact comes with a page, a document, or a cell reference so you can check it.
You judge. Thesis fit, valuation, risk appetite, and what goes in front of the committee.
You sign. Numbers that reach an IC memo, a lender, or an LP are tied out by a person.
If a workflow skips the citation step, the checking step gets slow, and slow checking is how errors reach the committee.
Set up a deal desk project
Retyping your thesis into every chat wastes time and produces inconsistent screens. Put the standing context in a Claude project instead:
Your fund thesis in plain sentences: stage, sectors, size, geography, and what makes you pass.
Your IC memo template and the section order partners expect.
A short house style note: tone, how you show numbers, words you never use.
A checklist of what every screen must report, such as customer concentration and margin history.
Then each deal gets its own conversation or project with the deal documents. The standing context travels with you; the deal material stays with the deal.
What Anthropic has published for finance
Anthropic has released financial services tooling you may see at your firm: connectors to data providers such as PitchBook, FactSet, S&P Global, and Daloopa; Agent Skills for comparable company analysis, DCF models, due diligence data packs, and company teasers; and agent templates including a pitch builder, model builder, and valuation reviewer. Whether you have them depends on what your firm has enabled. Every workflow in this course also works in a standard Claude chat with documents you are allowed to share.
Confidentiality comes first
CIMs arrive under NDA. Data rooms hold customer contracts and employee data. Portfolio company packs are confidential to the fund. Before pasting anything, know three things: which Claude workspace your firm has approved for deal data, what its retention and training terms are, and what your NDA allows. Anthropic states that its financial services offering does not use data for training by default, but your firm's policy is what governs you.
When you want to practice a prompt outside the approved workspace, anonymize: replace the company name, round or disguise the figures, and remove people's names.
Claude reads, structures, drafts, and cites. You judge and sign. Put your thesis, templates, and house style in a standing project so every screen and memo starts from the same context. Use only the workspace your firm approved for deal data, and anonymize when practicing elsewhere. Anthropic's finance connectors, skills, and agent templates reduce setup where your firm has enabled them, but the workflow and the judgment are yours either way.