How to find investors for your startup
Almost every guide to fundraising starts with building a list of funds. That's the second step. The first is working out who can introduce you — and the answer is usually closer than you'd think.
In short
- Cold inbound is the lowest-converting channel a fund has. A warm introduction changes the question the partner is asking.
- Look beyond fund partners: **portfolio founders, scouts, angels and corp-dev** are all routes in, and far easier to ask.
- Filter your network by investor **title patterns and fund-shaped employer names** — it's a fifteen-minute spreadsheet job.
- Stage fit beats relationship strength. A warm intro to the wrong-stage fund is a wasted ask.
The uncomfortable arithmetic of cold outreach
A seed-stage partner sees somewhere between a thousand and several thousand inbound decks a year and writes perhaps ten to twenty cheques. Cold inbound is the lowest-converting channel they have, and they know it, which is why most funds route it to an associate or a form.
A warm introduction changes the question being asked. Cold, the partner is asking *is this worth my time?* Introduced, they're asking *why does someone I respect think this is worth my time?* — a question that already contains its own answer.
You are not looking for investors. You are looking for the shortest path to an investor from someone who will vouch for you.
Who counts as an investor in your existing network
Most founders massively underestimate this, because they picture a fund partner and stop. The people who can actually get you in the room hold a wider range of titles:
- Partner, General Partner, Managing Partner — the cheque-writers at a fund
- Principal, Associate, Investment Manager — often the ones actively sourcing, and far more responsive
- Angel Investor, Business Angel — self-declared on plenty of profiles
- Founder or ex-Founder of a funded company — they know their own investors and introductions from portfolio founders carry real weight
- Venture Partner, Scout, EIR — explicitly paid or incentivised to find deals
- Corp Dev, Strategic Investments, Venture Arm — at larger companies, a whole separate route
That last group and the portfolio-founder group are the ones people forget. A founder two years ahead of you who raised from the fund you're targeting is a better introduction than a cold approach to a partner, and considerably easier to ask.
How to search your own network for them
Export your connections, then filter the Position column for the title patterns above. It's crude but effective — this is a fifteen-minute job in a spreadsheet and most people have never done it once.
Get your Connections.csv, strip the preamble lines, and make sure Position and Company import as text.
Search for partner, principal, angel, investor, venture, capital, VC, GP, LP, investments. Case-insensitive, and accept false positives at this stage — 'Partner' also catches law and accounting firms.
Search for capital, ventures, partners, VC, fund, equity. This catches people whose title is vague but whose employer isn't.
Counter-intuitive, but old connections are often the strongest: you met when you both had less to lose, and reconnecting after a decade is a genuinely warm message rather than a transactional one.
A growth-stage partner cannot help with your pre-seed and will say so politely. Two minutes on the fund's site saves you a wasted ask.
The best-connected person in the world can't write you a seed cheque from a Series B fund. Filter for stage before you filter for warmth — a lukewarm intro to the right-stage investor beats a glowing one to the wrong fund every time.
What to actually send
Two different messages, and people constantly conflate them.
To someone who can introduce you
Make it trivially forwardable. Ask permission, then send a short paragraph they can paste without editing: what you do, one number that shows it's working, what you're raising, and why this specific investor. Never ask someone to describe your company for you — write it for them and let them add a line of endorsement.
To an investor you already know directly
Acknowledge the gap honestly if there is one. Then lead with the change since you last spoke, because that's the only genuinely new information. “We connected at a conference in 2019 — since then we've got to $40k MRR with no paid acquisition” is a better opening than any amount of framing.
In both cases, keep it under 120 words and make the ask explicit. Ambiguity reads as either a pitch in disguise or a request for open-ended free advice, and neither gets replies.
Sequencing the raise
Having a list is not having a plan. The order you work it in changes the outcome more than the list's length.
Dream funds, solid fits, and long shots. Most founders build one flat list and burn their best relationships on the first version of the pitch.
Approach five or six long shots first. You will be bad at this for the first few conversations — the questions you can't answer are the point of the exercise, and you want to discover them somewhere cheap.
Funds talk to each other and momentum is real. A round that dribbles out over four months looks like a round nobody wanted. Once you're sharp, run the top tier in parallel.
Not the polite reason — the real one. Three passes citing the same concern is product feedback, not fundraising feedback, and it will not be fixed by talking to more investors.
How to ask for the introduction itself
Always double opt-in. Ask your contact whether they'd be comfortable making the introduction *before* they do it, and give them an easy out — "no problem at all if it's not a fit" costs you nothing and preserves the relationship when the answer is no.
Then send the forwardable paragraph as a separate message so it can be copied cleanly. Four sentences: what you do, one number, what you're raising, why this investor specifically. If your contact has to edit it, some of them simply won't get round to it.
Every introduction spends a little of your contact's credibility with that investor. That's why they're valuable and why people are careful with them. Send an update afterwards telling them how it went — it costs a paragraph and it's the single biggest determinant of whether they'll do it again.
Common questions
Is it worth messaging investors on LinkedIn at all?
Directly cold, rarely. To someone you have a genuine prior connection with — you worked together, met at an event, or have been connected for years — yes, and it outperforms email because the shared context is right there on the screen.
How many investors should I approach?
For a seed round, most founders end up speaking to 50–100 to close a handful. Build the list wider than feels comfortable, but sequence it — approach a few of your second-choice funds first so your pitch is sharp by the time you reach the ones you actually want.
Should I ask for money in the first message?
No. Ask for a conversation. The first message exists to earn a meeting, and mentioning a specific round size before there's any interest anchors the discussion before you have leverage.
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