A super angel’s guide to being on the better side of fundraising

Fundraising is about as fun as visiting a dentist at the best of times, never mind amid the ongoing funding winter.

This is more than a market dip; it’s the first major venture correction in 15 years. If you’re a founder raising capital for your startup right now, the bad news is that you’re doing it in the worst time over the last two decades. As such, how you approach potential investors is more important than ever.

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I began my venture investing career in 2016, when I wrote my first startup check as an angel investor and experienced these highs and lows firsthand. In 2020, I launched an angel syndicate – a group of angel investors who pool their resources – to scale my impact. Today, I’m backed by 1,400 angel investors, family offices, and fund managers.

How is this relevant to startup fundraising?

Syndicates bridge the gap between startups and investors. When conducting due diligence, we represent investors. But after deciding to back a company, we go into fundraising mode as the founder’s representative.

This means I’ve sat on both sides of the fundraising table, and I’m in a similar battle for attention that founders face when I approach my syndicate with a potential deal. Here are a few principles I’ve learned about fundraising that should help founders.

Reality check

At this point in my career, I’ve seen thousands of companies and backed fewer than 1%. So for founders, that means there’s a 99% (or greater) probability you won’t get funded.

A big reason for this massive attrition is that, understandably, founders lack the lens of investors. For any moderately established investor, a typical day involves being bombarded by internet strangers who found their LinkedIn details or email address online.

The messages and emails can be downright atrocious in their approach, but this may not reflect the quality of the startup. Some have drawn my attention and deals have gotten done this way. But on the whole, it feels objectifying to be treated like a walking ATM.

See also: The VC playbook for managing investor relations

The good news is that 95% of that attrition happens in under a minute, and it comes down entirely to how you approach investors. Now why is this good news?

Well, optimizing your approach is low effort, high impact, and 100% within your control. We’re not talking about refactoring your code base, changing your business model, orchestrating a pivot, or shortening an industry’s sales cycles.

Understanding investor psychology

Personalization over scale

Simplify your messaging