Raising a round requires more than a good company and a convincing pitch deck.
You need to reach the right investors, get their attention, and give them enough confidence to take the next step.
For many founders, the first challenge is getting a meeting.
You might have identified 30 funds that invest in your sector and stage.
You might even have several partners in mind.
But if you have no relationship with them, how do you get through?
The obvious answer is to send an email.
Sometimes, that works.
But when you have limited time and a finite number of opportunities to make a strong first impression, relying on unsolicited outreach alone is a poor strategy.
A credible introduction can do something a cold email cannot:
Give an investor a reason to pay attention before they have evaluated your company.
The trick is knowing how to get one.
Here is how to approach it.
Frontier Deal Flow 🎯
Companies struggle to reach the right investors. Investors struggle to find signal.
Frontier Deal Flow is a monthly curated database by 22nd Century Frontier, connecting high-quality companies with thousands of:
Angel investors, VC funds, corporate venture capital arms, venture syndicates, private equity firms, family offices, institutional investors, strategic corporate partners, and more.
Explore our latest Frontier Deal Flow issue.
Why submit:
• Get in front of serious investors actively looking for opportunities
• Share your raise in a clear, high-signal format
• Skip cold outreach
Submissions are completely FREE.
For the next issue, submissions close 30 October, and the report goes live 2 November.
Key takeaways
Relevance beats reputation.
Target investors who fit your business, not simply the ones with the biggest names.
A mutual connection is not necessarily an introduction.
The strength of the relationship matters more than the number of shared contacts.
Make it easy for people to help you.
Explain why the investor is a fit and provide a concise message they can confidently forward.
Protect the relationships you already have.
Ask whether someone is well placed to introduce you, and make it easy for them to say no.
A warm introduction is an advantage, not a requirement.
If no credible route exists, a specific, well-researched direct approach can still open the door.
Table of Contents
1. Start With the Investor, Not Your Contact List
Founders often begin fundraising by building a list of investors and asking everyone they know for introductions.
That approach gets the process backwards.
Before contacting anyone, understand who you want to meet and why.
Does the fund invest at your stage?
Does it have experience in your sector?
Has it backed companies with a similar business model?
Does the partner you are targeting actually lead investments, or do they focus on a different part of the market?
A fund’s reputation is not enough.
You need a reason to believe there is a fit.
Imagine you are building an enterprise cybersecurity company.
A former founder you know has a close relationship with a partner at a fund that recently invested in several enterprise software businesses.
That is potentially a useful connection.
Compare it with an introduction to a famous investor whose portfolio consists almost entirely of consumer brands and early-stage marketplaces.
The second investor may have a bigger name.
The first may be a much better fit.
Your objective is not to get in front of the most prestigious investor.
It is to get in front of the right investor.
Start with a focused list of funds and individual partners.
Research their investment criteria, relevant portfolio companies, and recent activity. Then identify the strongest possible route to each person.
The quality of your targeting determines the quality of your outreach.
2. Find the Person Who Can Actually Open the Door
Once you know which investor you want to reach, look for people who know them.
Your existing network is the obvious starting point, but do not limit yourself to friends, former colleagues, or other founders you know personally.
Look at the investor’s portfolio.
Founders whose companies they have backed may be well placed to introduce you.
So might senior executives at those companies, other investors who have worked alongside the fund, or advisers who have an established relationship with the partner.
Suppose you are raising a Series A for a logistics software company.
You discover that your target investor backed a business operating in an adjacent market.
You also find that its COO previously worked with someone on your founding team.
That connection might be more useful than a distant acquaintance who happens to know the investor socially.
The goal is to find a person who can credibly explain why the investor should speak with you.
But there is an important distinction here.
Knowing someone is not the same as being able to introduce them meaningfully.
A person might have hundreds of LinkedIn connections and still have little influence with the partner you are trying to reach.
Someone with a much smaller network might speak with that partner every week.
The relationship matters more than the connection count.
3. Understand What Makes an Introduction Valuable
An introduction is not valuable simply because another person forwards your email.
Its value comes from the confidence the intermediary can transfer.
Think about what happens when an investor receives a message from someone they respect.
They already have a reason to take the recommendation seriously.
They may still reject the opportunity, but the founder has earned a more informed first look.
Now consider an introduction from someone the investor barely knows, who offers no meaningful context and cannot explain why the opportunity is relevant.
Technically, it is a warm introduction.
In practice, it may offer very little advantage over direct outreach.
There are three questions worth asking about any potential intermediary:
Relationship: How well do they know the investor? Have they worked together, invested together, or built a meaningful professional relationship?
Credibility: Does the investor respect their judgment, particularly when it comes to evaluating companies?
Relevance: Can they explain why your business fits this particular investor?
The strongest introductions tend to combine all three.
You will not always find someone who scores highly on every dimension.
That is fine.
The point is to assess the relationship before relying on it.
Do not confuse a recognizable name with a credible recommendation.
4. Ask for an Introduction Without Putting Your Contact in an Awkward Position
Founders sometimes approach introductions as if they are asking for a small administrative favour.
They send a pitch deck, mention the investor’s name, and ask their contact to pass it along.
The problem is that this leaves the intermediary with all the work.
They have to decide whether the company is worth recommending, whether the investor is a good fit, and what they should say.
If they are not convinced, they may avoid responding altogether.
Make the decision easier.
Explain why you are targeting that investor, give a concise overview of the business, and ask whether your contact feels comfortable making the introduction.
You want someone who genuinely believes the introduction is worth making, not someone who feels pressured into forwarding your details.
5. Give the Intermediary Something Useful to Forward
Once someone agrees to introduce you, do not make them write your pitch from scratch.
Prepare a short, forwardable paragraph that they can use with minimal editing.
It should explain what the company does, the problem it solves, the evidence that it is working, and why you are reaching out.
Specific evidence is more useful than grand claims.
If you have meaningful traction, include it.
Depending on your business, that might mean revenue growth, retention, customer adoption, margins, or a particularly strong commercial partnership.
If you are pre-revenue, explain what you have validated and what makes the opportunity compelling.
The purpose is not to close the investment in an email.
It is to earn a serious first conversation.
6. What If You Cannot Get an Introduction?
Sometimes you will not have a credible connection.
That does not mean you should abandon the investor.
It means you need to make a deliberate decision about how to approach them directly.
First, check whether the fund has a clear submission process.
If it does, follow the instructions and make your submission specific to the fund’s investment criteria.
You can also consider a concise email to the relevant partner, particularly when you have a clear reason for contacting them.
The message should be short, relevant, and supported by evidence.
Explain why you chose them, what your company does, and why the opportunity may fit their investment focus.
Avoid generic messages sent to dozens of investors.
Do not pretend to have a connection you do not have.
And do not repeatedly follow up after receiving no response.
A lack of introduction is not an excuse for poor outreach.
Nor should you treat a warm introduction as a guarantee of a meeting or investment.
A strong connection can get your opportunity considered.
It cannot make the business attractive if the underlying fundamentals are weak.
The best approach depends on the investor, the opportunity, and the strength of your evidence.
Use your time accordingly.
7. Build Your Network Before You Need Capital
The most useful fundraising relationships are often built well before a fundraising process begins.
If the first time you contact another founder is when you need access to their investor, your relationship has an obvious imbalance.
Instead, build genuine connections with founders working in adjacent markets.
Stay in touch with investors who understand your sector.
Share useful information, make introductions when appropriate, and develop relationships without treating every interaction as a transaction.
This does not mean spending your days networking instead of building your company.
It means being intentional about the relationships that could become valuable over time.
A founder who knows your work, understands your progress, and has seen how you operate is in a much better position to recommend you than someone who received your first message yesterday.
The same applies to investors.
You do not need to cultivate a relationship with every fund you might approach in the future.
But if there are a few investors who are particularly relevant to your business, it can be worth establishing contact before you need a cheque.
Share progress when you have something meaningful to report.
Ask thoughtful questions.
Demonstrate that you understand their investment focus.
Fundraising becomes easier when it is not the first time the other person has heard of you.
8. The Practical Playbook for Getting a VC Introduction
Want to turn this into a repeatable fundraising process?
Paid subscribers get the practical playbook:
How to map your connections to target investors, assess which introductions are worth pursuing, approach potential introducers, and give them a message they can confidently forward.
Below you get the practical process I would use to work through this, including the research checklist, outreach templates, and a simple way to prioritize your contacts.
Upgrade to access the full guide and start building your introduction pipeline.
