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Fundraising guide
Work out whether venture funding fits your company, prepare your pitch and evidence, and find investors who understand what you are building.
Keep the optionality
A company can make you wealthy, useful, and proud without being VC-backed. Venture funds need a few outlier outcomes to carry a portfolio. Take that money when the scale you want to reach and the speed it requires make sense for your company, not because raising looks like the next thing founders do.
A first check might come from an operator angel, an accelerator, an expert syndicate or a pre-seed fund. Each brings different expectations. Before making a list, write down what the money should let you prove and why you cannot get there with the resources you already have.
Venture case
Explain what could become large if your first wedge works, and why capital now would help you reach it. Technical risk, distribution and a time-sensitive market can all matter.
Other routes
Compare revenue, angels, grants and loans against the same plan. Look at ownership, repayment, timing and obligations; none is free money.
Round readiness
With early users, show what they keep doing or will pay for. Before that, show unusual insight, access or technical progress. A research-heavy company should make the remaining technical risk clear.
Why this team, why this company, why now
Andreas Klinger offers a useful fundraising lens: credentials, innovation and execution. Use it to find the weak part of your case, not as a universal investor scorecard. His talk is linked in Sources.
Your job is to make the case simple enough that a good investor can retell it without you in the room. Explain what changed that makes your company possible now. Then connect the narrow thing you are building today to the larger business it could become. The big outcome should be an evolution of the wedge, not a second company stapled onto the pitch.
Credentials
What gives this team unusual insight or access? Relevant work, customer relationships and hard-won technical knowledge say more than a list of logos.
Innovation
What changed in technology, behaviour, regulation or distribution? Explain the difference that matters to the customer, rather than promising a slightly better version of everything.
Execution
Show what you have learned or made happen: repeat usage, paid tests, pilots, technical milestones or customer commitments. Be clear about what is observed and what is still an assumption.
Missing proof
If an investor asks for more traction, ask what uncertainty they need resolved. More signups may not answer a question about willingness to pay or whether the technology works.
Make diligence boring
The deck matters. The work behind the deck matters more. Put the evidence in order first, then decide which parts deserve a slide. You should be able to show where a claim came from without sending an investor through a folder of unfinished thoughts.
Keep the deck short enough to forward. Cover the customer problem, product, market, competition, route to customers, business model, team and raise. Acknowledge the tradeoff you are choosing. You do not need to look best at everything.
One-page case
What changed, why now, why you, and what proof you already have. Start here if the deck keeps getting longer.
Customer proof
Calls, usage, retention, paid tests, pilots or letters of intent. Distinguish interest from a signed commitment, and a signed commitment from revenue.
Product proof
A demo, the main technical risk and the next thing you need to test. For deep tech, show which risks you have already reduced.
Money plan
Current burn, a reasoned funding range, use of funds, runway and the milestone the round should buy. Model what changes if you raise less or later; do not choose an amount only because another company raised it.
Company records
Cap table, incorporation documents, IP assignment and founder equity or vesting arrangements. Review gaps with counsel before they become a closing problem.
The partner matters after the wire
Start with your category and stage, then look across borders. A fund being nearby or famous does not tell you whether it can write your first check. Keep a shortlist you can explain, not a spreadsheet you are proud of filling.
Use OpenVC for discovery and Dealroom for company and funding research. State of European Tech is useful background, not an outreach list. Check each investor's own site and recent investments before contacting them.
Fit
Record sector, stage, check size, geography and relevant investments. Check whether your company location fits their mandate, and whether a portfolio conflict could matter.
Role
Identify who can lead, who follows, and who actually makes the decision. A helpful meeting with someone at a fund is not the same as partner conviction.
References
Speak to portfolio founders, including someone whose company had a hard year. Ask what the investor did during a difficult month, not just during announcement week.
Working relationship
Reference the actual partner, not only the fund brand. Look for useful customer access, technical judgment, hiring help or follow-on relationships. If the early conversations feel wrong, do not assume a board seat will fix that.
Leave room for a conversation
An introduction helps when the person making it can explain why you are worth meeting. Give them a short, fresh email they can forward with one trusted line. If you go cold, open with why this investor is relevant, then the company, the proof and a specific ask.
Send the deck ahead when appropriate, but do not assume everyone read it. Open with what changed, what you are building and who urgently cares. Then stop long enough to hear the questions. The elevator pitch that matters is often investor to investor: an associate to a partner, or an angel to another angel.
Keep shipping while you raise
Build relationships before cash becomes urgent, then give the raise a defined working window. Allow for diligence, holidays and slow decisions in your runway plan. A short process is a goal, not a promise you can make on an investor's behalf.
Keep calls close enough together that you can compare feedback and follow through. Do not confuse a warm meeting with progress: the useful signals are a next meeting, specific diligence, a clear decision process or a commitment with its conditions understood.
Pipeline
Track the person, fit, stage, last conversation, open questions and next action. Practise with relevant contacts before your highest-stakes meetings, without spending months perfecting the story.
Follow-ups
Send the evidence that answers the questions from the call. For a pass, ask what was missing if they are willing to share. Reopen the conversation when something material changes, not with another 'just checking in'.
Momentum
Share real progress with interested investors: a pilot, repeat usage, a technical milestone or a credible commitment. Never manufacture scarcity or imply that an undecided investor has committed.
Closing plan
Know whether commitments depend on a lead, a minimum round or other conditions. Keep interest, conditional commitments, signed documents and received funds separate. Ask counsel how staged closes would work for your company.
Fallback
Decide what you will do if the round is smaller, slower or does not happen. Keep customer and product work moving so fundraising is not the only thing changing about the company.
Founder-friendly is in the details
The document is part of the deal. Do not assume the same fundraising template works across European jurisdictions. Ask local counsel which instrument fits your company and investors, how it converts and what obligations it creates. The linked UK ASA explainer is one example, not a continent-wide template.
Look beyond the headline valuation. Have counsel walk through ownership and proceeds under different outcomes, including a smaller exit or a down round. This guide is a preparation checklist, not legal, tax or investment advice.
Economics
Understand dilution, valuation caps or discounts, conversion conditions and any repayment obligations. Model what happens if the next round is delayed or never closes.
Exit proceeds
Ask how liquidation preference and any participation rights affect what founders, employees and investors receive. Compare worked examples, not just the headline terms.
Future rounds
Review anti-dilution and most-favoured-nation clauses, including side letters. Ask what happens to existing rights when you offer different terms to a later investor.
Control
Understand board seats, observer rights, consent rights and founder vesting. Know who gets a vote and which decisions require approval.
Local checks
Confirm company structure, IP ownership and any investor tax-relief requirements with qualified advisers. If UK SEIS/EIS matters to your angels, check eligibility rather than promising it in the pitch.
Fund the work you mean to do
Public funding can support technical milestones, prototypes, pilots and research. Explore national programmes and the EIC where they fit your work, but check the actual call before building a plan around it. Eligibility, timing and funding terms differ; the EIC Accelerator offers grant and investment routes, not simply a pot of non-dilutive money.
A useful grant moves your real roadmap forward. If you need to invent a parallel company to fit the application, it is probably the wrong call. Compare the work funded with the application effort, reporting and payment schedule.
Whatever the funding route, closing is a milestone, not the company. Celebrate, then return to what the money was meant to make possible: a working product, a hard technical question answered, or customers who keep coming back.
Make the next step easy
Use these as starting points, not a voice to borrow. Replace the brackets, keep the claims honest and make the ask specific.
Use this only before the raise is open. If you are fundraising, say so.
We are not fundraising yet, but we are working out what a round should help us prove. We think [market change] makes [customer] need [product] now. You have seen this category from [angle]. Would you be open to a short conversation about [specific uncertainty]?
We are building [one-line description] for [specific customer and problem]. Proof so far: [pilot, usage, paid test or technical milestone]. We would like to meet [name] because [specific reason]. The ask is [conversation, feedback or investment discussion]. Deck or memo: [link].
Since our last note: [one proof point]. What we learned: [one insight]. Next: [one milestone]. Useful ask: an introduction to [specific person or buyer type] for [reason].
Good to compare notes on [topic]. The questions you raised were [question] and [question]. We are testing [action] this week; here is [evidence promised on the call]. Would [specific meeting, introduction or review] be a useful next step? If the fit is not there, a clear pass is helpful too.
We are planning the first close around [instrument, amount and intended timing]. You mentioned [their stated interest]. Are you ready to proceed, and what conditions or steps remain on your side? If the timing is not right, I can keep you on updates for a later conversation.
Stay close to the signal
Event picks, useful Europe updates, and the occasional interview or video.