DFPI Survey in Founder Reachouts: Two Interpretations and a Practical Path

If your team is preparing founder outreach under California's Fair Investment Practices by Venture Capital Companies law, one question comes up immediately:

Do you have to use the exact DFPI PDF, or is it enough to use a digital flow that contains the same DFPI survey questions and response options?

This guide explains the two common interpretations and why FIPVCC supports both.

What California requires

Under Corp. Code section 27501(c), covered entities must:

• Provide each founding team member an opportunity to participate in a survey.
• Provide that survey pursuant to a standardized form specified by the DFPI.
• Include a "decline to state" option for each survey question.
• Provide written disclosure that participation is voluntary, no adverse action will be taken for declining, and only aggregate demographic data is reported.
• Deliver the survey and disclosure only after the investment agreement is executed and the first transfer of funds is made.
• Avoid encouraging, incentivizing, or influencing participation decisions.

The law is explicit on required content and process. The practical debate is usually about format.

Two interpretations firms use in practice

Interpretation 1: "Must contain the questions"

On this reading, your outreach can use a web form or product workflow as long as it faithfully reproduces the DFPI standardized survey content, response options, and required disclosure language.

Why teams choose this:

• Better completion UX than attachments.
• Cleaner operational workflow.
• Easier privacy controls and aggregate reporting.

Risk to consider:

• A stricter reviewer may prefer use of the official DFPI document itself.

Interpretation 2: "Must use the DFPI PDF"

On this reading, compliance means sending the official DFPI survey PDF as the survey instrument in outreach.

Why teams choose this:

• Most conservative interpretation of "standardized form specified by the department."
• Lower ambiguity in audit conversations.

Tradeoff to consider:

• More manual process and lower founder completion rates.
• Heavier operational burden if not paired with controlled aggregation workflows.

The DFPI survey questions your outreach must contain

At minimum, your outreach flow should include the survey prompts from the Venture Capital Demographic Data Survey form:

• Business Receiving Venture Capital Investment
• Calendar Year Received Venture Capital Investment
• Gender: I identify as
• Race/Ethnicity: I identify as
• LGBTQ+: I identify as
• Disability Status: I identify as
• Veteran Status: I identify as
• California Residency: I am
• Decline to state for all responses

Each category should preserve the DFPI response set and a "decline to state" option.

FIPVCC supports both interfaces

FIPVCC is designed to support either compliance posture:

1. Question-contained interface
   Use an in-product survey experience that mirrors the DFPI survey questions and options, includes required disclosure language, and supports aggregate-only handling.
2. DFPI PDF interface
   Use the official DFPI PDF workflow for outreach when your legal or compliance team wants the form itself in circulation.

This lets counsel and compliance owners pick the operational mode that best matches their risk posture without changing the underlying privacy model.

Practical recommendation

If your team has not settled on one interpretation, adopt a conservative default:

• Keep the official DFPI PDF available in your outreach process.
• Ensure any digital experience mirrors the DFPI question set and required disclosure.
• Preserve aggregate-only data handling so responses are not tied to individual founders.

That approach gives you flexibility while staying aligned with both a content-first and form-first interpretation.

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This article is informational and does not constitute legal advice.