For venture capital firms, successful exits aren’t just the end goal—they’re the foundation upon which the entire investment thesis should be built. Yet many GPs approach exit planning as an afterthought, scrambling to find liquidity paths only when their fund lifecycle demands it.

The GP Exit Canvas offers a systematic approach to embedding exit strategy thinking from day one of the investment process.

Why Exit Strategy Matters From The Start

Traditional VC wisdom focuses heavily on picking winners and adding value post-investment. While these remain crucial, the most successful funds think backward from the exit. They understand that even the most promising startup with exceptional growth means nothing to LPs if there’s no clear path to liquidity.

The GP Exit Canvas provides a structured visual framework for integrating exit planning throughout the investment lifecycle, from initial due diligence through successful transaction completion.

GP Exit Canvas. Chris Rangen, 2024

The GP Exit Canvas is built around nine key building blocks:

1.      Pre-deal assessment

2.      Key documents

3.      Exit Strategy Board of Directors day

4.      Mapped out exit paths

5.      Exit Committee

6.      GP exit team

7.      Exit advisors

8.      Exit network

9.      Exit dealmaking

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A Framework In Action: Kilimanjaro Ventures

To illustrate how the GP Exit Canvas works in practice, let’s follow Kilimanjaro Ventures, a fictional $50M early-stage VC fund based in Nairobi. Founded in 2023, the fund focuses on fintech, agritech, and healthtech startups across East Africa, with check sizes ranging from $500K to $2M.

Let’s walk through each of the nine elements of the canvas and see how Kilimanjaro Ventures applies these principles.

1. Pre-Deal Assessment: Building Exit Thinking Into Due Diligence

The GP Exit Canvas: Before writing a check, assess the realistic exit pathways and timeline for each potential investment.

Kilimanjaro’s Approach: When evaluating FlexiPay, a Kenyan mobile payments startup, Kilimanjaro’s team doesn’t just analyze the market opportunity and founding team. They specifically research the exit landscape. They identify that Safaricom has acquired three fintech companies in the past four years, that PayPal has established a $200M Africa M&A strategy, and that two similar startups achieved successful exits to regional banks within 18-24 months.

This analysis reveals multiple potential exit paths: strategic acquisition by telecom operators, acquisition by international payment companies expanding into Africa, or acquisition by regional financial institutions. The team also notes that the 4-6 year exit timeline aligns well with their fund’s seven-year lifecycle.

Most importantly, they identify potential red flags: regulatory uncertainty around mobile payments and the fact that most successful exits in this space required companies to achieve profitability first.

2. Key Documents: The Foundation Of Future Exits

The GP Exit Canvas: Structure legal documents, governance, and strategic partnerships to facilitate rather than hinder future exits.

Kilimanjaro’s Approach: Drawing from their pre-deal assessment, Kilimanjaro structures their FlexiPay investment with exit optimization in mind. They negotiate liquidation preferences that provide downside protection while ensuring founder alignment with exit goals. Their board composition includes industry connections who could facilitate strategic introductions.

Critically, they establish a tiered exit model in their investment documents. If FlexiPay achieves certain revenue milestones, Kilimanjaro commits to actively facilitate introductions to their network of potential acquirers. This creates alignment between growth goals and exit preparation.

They also ensure that their shareholder agreement includes tag-along rights and defines the process for board approval of exit opportunities, streamlining future transaction processes.

3. Exit Strategy BOD Day: Annual Strategic Planning

The GP Exit Canvas: Dedicate specific board meetings annually to exit strategy planning and preparation.

Kilimanjaro’s Approach: Every January, Kilimanjaro hosts “Exit Strategy Board Days” for each portfolio company. For FlexiPay, this means bringing together the founding team, board members, and invited industry experts to assess exit readiness.

During FlexiPay’s 2025 Exit Strategy BOD Day, they review the competitive landscape, assess which strategic buyers have been most active, and identify gaps in the company’s exit readiness. They discover that while FlexiPay has strong user growth, their compliance documentation isn’t ready for institutional buyer due diligence.

The session results in a concrete 90-day plan: hire a compliance officer, complete SOC 2 certification, and document all regulatory approvals. Kilimanjaro commits to introducing FlexiPay to their network contact at PwC for the compliance work.

4. Mapped Out Exit Paths: Multiple Scenarios, Multiple Timelines

The GP Exit Canvas: Identify and actively develop multiple potential exit pathways rather than betting on a single outcome.

Kilimanjaro’s Approach: For FlexiPay, they map out four distinct exit paths:

• Strategic Acquisition by Safaricom (18-month timeline): Leveraging their board member’s previous relationship with Safaricom’s corp dev team
• Acquisition by International Player (24-month timeline): PayPal, Mastercard, or Stripe expanding African operations
• Regional Bank Acquisition (12-18 month timeline): Equity Bank or KCB Bank seeking fintech capabilities
• Secondary Sale to Later-Stage Fund (30-month timeline): Selling to TLcom Capital or Partech for their Series B

Each path has different preparation requirements, timelines, and valuation expectations. By maintaining multiple paths, Kilimanjaro ensures they’re not dependent on a single buyer’s strategic priorities.

5. Exit Dealmaking: Execution Excellence

The GP Exit Canvas: Develop repeatable processes and expertise for managing exit transactions.

Kilimanjaro’s Approach: When FlexiPay begins attracting acquisition interest from Equity Bank, Kilimanjaro’s systematic approach pays dividends. They’ve already established relationships with three investment banks that specialize in African fintech transactions.

Their exit dealmaking process includes standardized data room preparation (they maintain updated investor materials quarterly), a clear communication protocol with founders about managing buyer relationships, and predetermined negotiation priorities.

Most importantly, because they mapped out multiple exit paths, when Equity Bank’s initial offer comes in below expectations, they can credibly reference their ongoing conversations with Visa’s Africa team to negotiate better terms.

6. Exit Advisors: Building The Right Support Network

The GP Exit Canvas: Cultivate relationships with investment bankers, lawyers, and other advisors before you need them.

Kilimanjaro’s Approach: Kilimanjaro maintains active relationships with three investment banks focused on African tech (including Afreximbank and Standard Investment Bank), two law firms specializing in M&A transactions, and accounting firms experienced in venture-backed company exits.

For FlexiPay, they engage Bowmans Law as transaction counsel early in the process. Because they’ve worked with Bowmans on two previous exits, the legal team already understands Kilimanjaro’s standard positions on key deal terms, accelerating the transaction timeline.

They also leverage their relationship with KPMG for buy-side financial due diligence support, helping Equity Bank move quickly through their analysis.

7. GP Exit Team: Internal Capabilities And Expertise

The GP Exit Canvas: Build internal team capabilities for managing exits, rather than outsourcing all exit expertise.

Kilimanjaro’s Approach: Kilimanjaro’s four-person team includes Sarah Mwangi, a partner who previously led corp dev at Safaricom. Sarah leads all exit processes and maintains relationships with strategic buyers across their target sectors.

The team also includes James Ochieng, who handles all legal and financial aspects of transactions. This internal expertise means they can move quickly when opportunities arise and provide sophisticated guidance to founders throughout the process.

For FlexiPay’s exit, Sarah leverages her network to arrange informal conversations with three potential buyers before launching a formal process, helping gauge market interest and refine their approach.

8. Exit Network: Ecosystem Relationships

The GP Exit Canvas: Systematically build relationships with potential acquirors, co-investors, and industry players.

Kilimanjaro’s Approach: Kilimanjaro treats network building as a core fund activity. They host quarterly “Africa Fintech Roundtables” bringing together portfolio companies, potential strategic buyers, and other investors.

These events serve multiple purposes: they provide value to portfolio companies through industry connections, they keep Kilimanjaro top-of-mind with potential acquirers, and they create deal flow for future investments.

When FlexiPay’s exit opportunity emerges, Kilimanjaro can quickly activate relationships with five potential buyers, creating competitive tension that drives valuation.

9. Exit Committee: Governance And Decision-Making

The GP Exit Canvas: Establish clear governance processes for making exit decisions and managing founder relationships.

Kilimanjaro’s Approach: Kilimanjaro’s exit committee includes both fund partners plus their LP advisory board representative from Development Bank of Southern Africa. This structure ensures alignment between the fund’s exit decisions and LP expectations.

For FlexiPay, when multiple exit opportunities emerge simultaneously, the exit committee provides a structured process for evaluating options. They use a weighted scoring matrix considering valuation, strategic fit, transaction certainty, and timeline.

The committee also manages the delicate founder relationship during the exit process, ensuring that FlexiPay’s founders remain focused on business operations while exit discussions proceed.

KV GP team celebrating the exit to Equity Bank

The Results: Strategic Success

Four years after investment, FlexiPay successfully exits to Equity Bank for $12M, representing a 6x return for Kilimanjaro Ventures. But the real success lies in the process: because they planned systematically from day one, they managed a competitive process that took only four months from initial interest to closing.

Key Lessons For GP Teams

The GP Exit Canvas reveals several critical insights for venture capital firms:

Exit planning isn’t separate from investment strategy—it is investment strategy. The most successful VCs think backward from liquidity events when making investment decisions.

Systematic beats sporadic. Funds that build repeatable processes for exit planning consistently outperform those that approach each exit as a unique event.

Relationships matter more than financial engineering. The most valuable exits come from authentic relationships with strategic buyers built over years, not months.

Multiple paths create optionality. Funds that develop multiple exit scenarios for each investment can optimize timing and valuation when opportunities arise.

Internal capabilities accelerate external opportunities. Building exit expertise within the fund team pays dividends across the entire portfolio.

Implementing The Canvas

For GPs looking to implement the Exit Canvas approach, start with your next investment decision. Before you commit capital, work through each element of the canvas. Identify potential exit paths, map out required relationships, and build exit considerations into your investment structure.

The goal isn’t to predict exactly how each investment will exit—it’s to ensure you’ve created the conditions for successful exits when opportunities arise.

The most successful venture capital firms don’t just pick winners; they systematically create the conditions for winning exits. The GP Exit Canvas provides the framework for building that systematic approach into every aspect of your fund’s operations.

In the rapidly evolving venture landscape, LPs increasingly evaluate GPs not just on their ability to identify promising startups, but on their track record of creating successful liquidity events. The GP Exit Canvas ensures that exit strategy thinking becomes a core competency, not an afterthought.

For emerging market funds like our fictional Kilimanjaro Ventures, this systematic approach becomes even more critical. With smaller pools of potential acquirers and less developed exit markets, the discipline of the GP Exit Canvas can mean the difference between a successful fund and one that struggles to return capital to LPs.

The canvas works because it transforms exit planning from a discrete event into an ongoing strategic capability. And in venture capital, capabilities compound over time into competitive advantages that drive superior returns for LPs and successful outcomes for entrepreneurs.

Read also Part II: How Fund Managers Can Use the GP Exit Canvas (part II)

A big thanks to Rosanne Whalley, AHL Ventures and Daniel Keiper-Knorr, Speedinvest for the conversations and webinars that led to the development of the GP Exit Canvas.