Fundraising Unlocked
The fundraising blog
How investors actually decide, from someone who sat on their side of the table. Fund deep dives, round breakdowns, and the three things that close rounds: the room you get into, the belief you build, and the process that ends in term sheets.
Getting in the room
Building the investor network that gets you meetings: warm introductions, target lists, and outreach that gets answered.
How do warm introductions to investors actually work?
The four reasons cold outreach fails, the Skin+Me story, and why cold email should be 5 to 15% of your approach at most
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How do you cold email investors?
The last-resort channel done properly: the five-part structure, and why the goal is a reply, never a decision
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How do you build an investor network before you raise?
The 90-day system: surface the network you already have, give value for 70 days, then activate it in a 14-day window so meetings stack
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How do you prioritise which investors to approach?
150 names, three honest tiers, practice meetings first, and why you feed engaged funds instead of booking easy new intros
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Making investors believe
The narrative side: how investors decide, what they ask, and the story that turns meetings into conviction.
How to develop your spiky point of view
Investors see thousands of founders who sound the same. The funded ones have a specific, defensible, slightly dangerous thesis
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How do investors actually decide to invest?
Feeling first, logic second. Deal flow KPIs, loss aversion, and the psychology of the room, from someone who sat in it
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What do investors look for in a founding team?
The eight-parameter scorecard from inside the investment committee, the green flags, and the red flags that end deals
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What questions do investors ask founders?
The eight questions partners ask each other about you after the meeting, and how to handle the unanswerable one
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What does "you're too early" actually mean from an investor?
Nine times out of ten it is a polite no, and more traction will not fix it. The three things investors really mean
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Why do investors reject startups?
The three real reasons behind most passes, none of which get said out loud, and how to tell a polite pass from a fixable concern
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How do you run a first meeting with an investor?
One goal: earn the second meeting. Why the CEO goes alone, the 30-minute shape, and the hedging language that kills intro calls
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Do investors invest in ideas or execution?
80% of startups pivot before Series A, so the deck is not the asset. What execution evidence looks like when you have no revenue
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Closing the round
The process side: timing, momentum, valuation, and running a raise that ends in term sheets on your terms.
How do you prove product-market fit to investors?
The five kinds of evidence investors read, what changes between seed and Series A, and the one chart that convinces
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How do you build momentum in a funding round?
A 30-to-50-meeting launch, updates that keep the round felt, backchannelling, and the founder who faked his term sheets
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When is the right time to raise?
Milestones and relationships set the timing, never the calendar. Why investor outreach 2 to 9 months out backfires
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How do you tell if an investor is actually interested?
The seven buying signals, from someone who displayed all of them as a VC, and the polite phrases that mean nothing
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How do you value a startup for a fundraise?
The four things investors weigh, the return maths behind their number, and why you should almost never name a price first
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How does the fundraising process work, end to end?
6 to 12 months of prep, 6 to 12 weeks in market: the launch, the silent middle where rounds die, and the converging close
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How do you stay sane during a fundraise?
The four phases of a raise, the silent middle where rounds die, and the support to arrange before you launch
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Inside the funds
How the Tier 1 firms think, what they back, and how founders actually get in.
How do you get funded by a16z?
$90B+ under management, 175 deals in 2025, and two realistic ways in: a warm introduction or Speedrun
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How do you pitch Sequoia Capital?
The evergreen fund means they buy companies to own for 20 years. Your pitch has to read that way
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How do you pitch Index Ventures?
One fund, one team: the partner who backs you at seed stays through IPO, so the first meeting is the decision
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What did Y Combinator fund in 2025?
470+ companies across four batches, 88% AI-native, and what the $3.1M median seed round hides
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How did health tech founders raise in 2025?
$14.2B into fewer deals, an 83% premium for AI positioning, and the commercial-model question that kills rounds
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How they raised
Real rounds, broken down: the narrative, the signals, and the investor psychology that closed them.
How did ElevenLabs raise $781M and reach $11B?
A $2M pre-seed that was hard to close, a year spent building instead of raising, and a16z arriving five months later
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How did Legora raise a $550M Series D at $5.55B?
Six rounds in under two years, a 25-year-old founder, and execution fast enough that investors could not wait
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How did Lawhive raise its $60M Series B?
A trillion-dollar problem narrative, a pivot told as proof of judgement, and every insider re-upping
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Gian Seehra
Ex-Octopus Ventures, part of deploying $200M as a VC. 3x founder, raised $16M. Has coached 120+ founders who have raised $250M+ collectively.
Work with me
I coach founders through the whole raise, from building the investor network to closing the round. 120+ founders so far, with $250M+ raised between them. If you're planning a raise in the next six months, here's what working together looks like.
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