What to do when a VC rejects or ignores you

This is a five-part series by Clement Vouillon with help from those at Point Nine Capital.

Here’s the outline for our series:

• Part 1: Before working with VCs
• Part 2: Preparing your fundraising
• Part 3: First contact and assessment phase
• Part 4: From term sheet to signed deal
• Part 5: Post-investment

Now that you’ve submitted your pitch deck, there are three possible scenarios:

• They tell you, “No, we’re not interested.”
• They tell you, “Thanks. We’re looking at your company.”
• You don’t receive any answer.

The 2 minute TL;DR video

What happens during the assessment phase?

Deal assessment

The deal evaluation process can vary significantly between funds, but it often looks like this:

• The founders submit their pitch deck (cold or warm).
• An analyst/associate/principal checks whether the deal is in line with the firm’s investment scope and thesis.
• If the startup looks promising, the VC will start discussing it with the rest of the investment team and write a deal memo to dive deeper into the opportunity. If it’s not promising, they’ll pass.
• At this stage, VCs usually have multiple discussions with the founders, existing customers, or fellow investors.
• Once they have enough information, they’ll decide whether to invest or not. It often happens during investment committee meetings.

Again, this is a very general framework.

The “hot or not” framework

No, we’re not interested

We’re looking at your company

You don’t receive an answer