building investor pipeline. the good, the bad, the ugly.
"I sent about 500 cold emails and built the whole sequence of 7 follow-ups - no response, though. why?"
there are usually three main reasons:
1) the targeting problem - spray-and-pray is a nice strategy when you sell soap because everyone needs it. for the rest of the cases, you have to narrow the list down and be pretty precise about who's on it.
2) the messaging problem - you target the right people, but with a message that is either too vague, too long, no value, or all of the above.
3) the positioning problem - targeting and messaging is alright, but you're building your case in a way only you can understand. remember to close the context gap between you and the investor you're targeting.
some things to keep in mind before we dive deeper:
+ building the pipeline, targeting and messaging takes a ton of time
+ most of the founders spend 80% of their time on building the deck whilst they should be working on real investor relations
+ there are ~3,5k VCs in the US, but only about 15% of that number would be interested in what you’re building (unless you’re Anthropic, of course).
ok, let’s do it. targeting, building the pipeline, getting warm intros - where do you even start?
1. targeting is a game of ruling out.
who will NOT invest into your startup? go across different criteria: stage (pre-seed vs ser B), industry (healthtech vs semiconductors), business model (SaaS vs marketplace), client type (d2c vs enterprise), check size, technology type, geography and mission. one more thing to check - do they deploy now? if the VC is between vintages, they’ll be talking to you, but won’t put money on the table.
basically, we want to have fewer conversations with better suited investors = higher chances to close with less time and energy burned. so look at it as at investment.
look no further
why bother? because VC money comes with strings attached and people on your cap table will either help you or drown you, and we don’t want that.
ok, that was the easy part. now you’ve got a solid idea of who your ideal investor is and the main question is how to find and connect with them.
2. building the pipeline → prioritizing.
there are three tiers of investors, (given that all the basic requirements we’ve been talking about at the targeting part are met):
tier one - investors you personally know (angels, you worked together before, you’re an exited founder and it’s your second startup, etc) + big names like Sequoia, A16Z, Founders Fund, etc. the first ones you know and they know you, the big names are so cool to have on board as they come with the perks and status.
tier two - warm intros.
tier three - cold outreach.
we’ll get deeper into the warm intros in a minute, but for the cold outreach you’ll want to have some platforms / databases, so I’ve got you covered:
+ Crunchbase - old but gold, offers a free 7-day trial (but you can’t download a .csv file - yeah, annoying, I know)
+ Pitchbook - more powerful but a bit more expensive, too
+ Open VC has great filtering
+ here’s a free directory, listed in categories. it’s open source, so don’t rely on the searching function much, as it sometimes misses good options
+ another database with a much better search engine and all the important criteria for sorting
+ Signal and AngelList are useful for angels and early-stage funds
+ newsletters with updates, e.g. Fund Momentum - they are listing the funds that are ready to deploy
I wish I could tell you I found a platform that you can simply prompt with the plain English and it’ll return you a list of the perfect matching investors, but as per now (it’s summer 2026), I haven’t seen one that would do just that.
now, there’s a simple rule of thumb about how to approach - please don’t underestimate this one: never start with tier 1 investors.
it looks like the most reasonable thing to do because they are most likely to invest in you (except for the big names, who you have to win over). unless you’ve raised money with them before or you have really strong relations, put a batch of tier 2 investors together → test your approach → refine → go after tier 1 next.
3. ok, so how do you get those warm intros then?
with a lot of patience I must say.
the first way: “outside-in”.
you make a strong list of investors you want to target and see on your cap table (even if you don’t know them yet, but their thesis / social media presence / other founders’ feedback suggest they are a good match) → you look for people in your network who could introduce you to them.
the second way: “inside-out”.
you take about half an hour to come up with a list of 30-35 people who are your close connections → ask who those people can introduce you to. warning: yes, you’re getting it right - a lot of those potential intros will turn out to be worthless, because some of the folks on that list don’t invest in your stage, business model, etc. but we’ve already agreed that this is a long and messy process (don’t take my word for it - see a screenshot from a wonderful angel investor Bettina below).
here’s who to think about when you’re struggling to get those initial 30 names to start with:
- customers - current or past. if they pay you with their money, there’s trust.
- fellow founders / ex-colleagues, accelerator/incubator alumni.
- any side-projects, consultancies, or short-term gigs? dig deeper.
- friends and family in the industry.
- your lawyer/accountant - you’ll be surprised, but they often have VC networks.
- industry experts you know - people who could validate your space to investors.
main mistakes when looking for warm intros:
+ “hey Josh, glad to connect, I see that we have Investor_Name as a common connection - do you think you could introduce me?” in LinkedIn DMs. Josh doesn’t know you, Josh doesn’t care for you, that’s very far from a warm intro.
+ intro brokerage, aka ‘you’ll book the meetings for me - I’ll pay a %% of whatever I raise’. sounds like a good idea until you put yourself into investors’ shoes. every early-stage investor has one job: evaluate you as a founder and bet on you being able to figure things out. so your outreach strategy is a proxy for sales. outsourcing it early = losing $$$. not a good start really.
and the most costly mistake of all: getting a warm intro → coming to that meeting with your narrative being loose. please don’t, that’s heartbreaking.
alright, so by now you:
1. know who to target so it’s a good match
2. know how to build the pipeline and prioritize
3. know where to get warm intros
what a good Friday!
the next steps would be to track the progress (any tracker will do), to come up with a strong messaging strategy and to get those first meetings.
should I write about the messaging strategy? please do answer this email (I read it all) and give me a wink in the comments.
appreciate you and have a great weekend!