LIVE EVENT
GCN Investor Conference in Newport Beach, CA
MARCH 25 · NEWPORT BEACH, CA
LIVE EVENT
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Part of our fundraising series. For the full picture, from deciding whether to raise to closing the round, read How to Raise Capital for a Startup: The Complete Guide.
One of the most critical (and overlooked) steps in successful startup fundraising is pre-building your investor pipeline before you officially begin raising.
Think of fundraising like sales: you wouldn't start selling without a prospect list, and the same logic applies to investors.
A warm pipeline gives you:
An investor pipeline is a structured list of:
It’s not just a spreadsheet — it’s a living CRM of your fundraising relationships.
Before compiling names, clarify:
💡 Use platforms like AngelList, Crunchbase, and OpenVC to segment targets.
Start collecting:
Tools to help:
Organize into:
This helps you focus your time and increase engagement rates.
Well before you're raising:
📬 You’re planting the seed — not asking for money yet.
Don’t wing it in your inbox. Use:
Track fields like:
🛠 Pro Tip: Use Zapier or Make to log calls, trigger reminders, or sync Calendly bookings.
If your goal is to close funding in Q4, then:
You want warm relationships waiting, not cold outreach.
Just like B2B sales, fundraising is a numbers game:
Build the funnel before you're desperate for cash.
A pipeline is only useful if every investor sits in a clear stage. Keep the stages simple and define exactly what moves someone forward:
Agree on these definitions before you start. “They seemed interested” is not a stage.
The example funnel above is a useful starting point, but your own numbers will differ. Build your target from the round you want to close, not from a generic list size.
For example, suppose a founder wants to raise $1.5M and expects an average check of around $100K. That means roughly 15 commitments. If, hypothetically, one in three investors who reach diligence goes on to commit, she needs about 45 in diligence. If half of first meetings lead to diligence, that is about 90 first meetings. If half of contacted investors agree to meet, she needs around 180 investors contacted.
These ratios are illustrative only. The point is the method: start with the amount, divide by your expected check size, and work back through each stage. If the number at the top looks unrealistic, you either need better-fit targets, larger checks or a longer runway to build the list.
For more on how round size and check size shape that number, see How Many Investors Do You Actually Need in the Room to Raise a Round.
Once outreach begins, record how many investors move from each stage to the next every week. Where the drop-off is steepest tells you what to fix:
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