Part 3: Preparing for the Fundraise

Get practical steps for engaging investors—networking, warm intros, updates, and first meetings done right.

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Outline

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Tools

1. How to Engage Investors- A Step by Step Process

Startup fundraising is a structured process - not a game of luck. The founders who succeed follow steps, build relationships early, and iterate fast. Use this checklist to manage your time, strengthen your strategy, and raise with focus.

Step 1: Build Your Fundraising Foundation Through Networking

Why it matters: Fundraising starts long before you send a pitch deck. The strongest fundraising outcomes are built on warm relationships, strategic visibility, and repeated exposure to the right investors.

What to do:

Add every relevant person you meet to LinkedIn to expand your investor network.

Attend VC and angel events 3–6 months before you raise.

Research attendees in advance and prep one personalized talking point per person.

Develop a concise, compelling 30-second pitch.

Focus on scalable business models — avoid slow-growth paths like government contracts.

Ask for feedback, not funding, during early investor conversations.

Publish consistent PR updates (press, blogs, LinkedIn) to build visibility.

Collect emails from networking interactions and maintain regular contact.

Send monthly investor updates to stay top of mind.

Step 2: Send Monthly Investor Updates That Build Trust

Why it matters: Most investors won’t fund you after one meeting. Consistent, well-crafted updates demonstrate traction, build familiarity, and increase the odds they reach out when the timing is right.

What to do:

Use bullet points with 2–3 lines per section for quick readability.

Lead with traction: wins, key metrics, partnerships, growth.

Include one specific ask per update (e.g. intros, advice).

Send on a consistent schedule (e.g. 1st of every month).

Step 3: Secure Warm Introductions to Investors

Why it matters: A warm intro significantly improves the likelihood of your pitch getting read and taken seriously. Cold outreach is rarely effective at early stages.

What to do:

Craft a forward-able email with a 1-line company description and a link to your pitch deck.

Personalise your outreach — avoid generic copy.

Handle all investor communication directly — never delegate this to advisors or team members.

Use clear subject lines that show relevance or traction.

Step 4: Schedule Investor Meetings Professionally

Why it matters: Poor scheduling habits — like sending vague times or rescheduling often — create friction and signal lack of professionalism. How you schedule is part of your first impression.

What to do:

BCC introducers after an intro to keep the thread clean.

Offer 2–3 time slots in the investor’s time zone, in bullet format.

Avoid using Calendly unless explicitly requested.

Only reschedule meetings when absolutely necessary.

Step 5: Nail the First Investor Meeting

Why it matters: You only get one shot at a first impression. The goal is to earn a second meeting — not to close on the first call.

What to do:

Keep your pitch under 8 minutes. Focus on the problem, solution, traction, and market.

Be prepared for interruptions. Use them to clarify or deepen interest.

Track recurring investor questions and refine your elevator pitch accordingly.

Step 6: Maintain Your Fundraising Mindset

Why it matters:

Fundraising is filled with rejection. Success depends on your ability to stay strategic, not emotional.

What to do:

Track your outreach and pipeline like a sales funnel — volume matters.

Treat every “no” as data — not failure.

Focus on consistency, clarity, and compounding trust.

2. The Best Intro Framework

Venture capital fundraising is primarily driven by warm introductions, with startups referred by trusted contacts being 13× more likely to get funded than those reaching out cold. When engaging with investors, there are set of guidelines that every founder should know.

The framework below was created to help founders craft structured, compelling intros that match investor expectations and screening criteria.

Outcome: Founders using the framework can significantly increase their chances of securing meetings, speed up fundraising, and boost conversion rates

Best Intro Framework

Section	Prompt	Example (BrightPath Health)
Industry Overview	What industry or category are you in? Keep it short and recognizable.	Operating in the $10B youth mental health sector
Problem	What’s the specific pain point or friction you're solving?	Public and private mental health services have 6–12 week waitlists for adolescents, leaving families without timely or affordable care during periods of acute need
Solution	How do you solve the problem, and what are your top differentiators?	BrightPath delivers clinically vetted therapy within 72 hours via digital triage, addressing urgent access gaps for youth. – Direct partnerships with school systems – Proprietary triage engine based on acuity, not queue order – 94% first-match therapist satisfaction
Market Opportunity	What is your TAM and wedge, and how do you compare to existing players?	Targeting a $3.4B wedge in youth telehealth, with expansion into adult care and education-based delivery. Most incumbents focus on adult B2C or employer-driven plans; BrightPath is the only vertically integrated model for youth-first, school-linked care.
Product Overview	What does your product do, and why is it fit for this customer?	Mobile-first platform with 24-hour matching, progress tracking, and school compliance reporting — optimized for institutional deployment
Key Metrics & Traction	Revenue, growth, customers, usage, retention, or pilots — what proves demand?	$700K ARR, 6× YoY growth, 88% retention; pilots with three education networks covering 40K+ students
Future Pipeline	What near-term growth milestones are credible and in motion?	Signed MOU with NZ’s largest public school provider; expanding therapist network; launching analytics module Q4
Fundraising Details	How much are you raising, and what’s the use of funds?	Raising $1.5M seed to scale sales ops, onboard new districts, and expand clinical coverage in Tier 2 regions
Founding Team	Who are you, and why are you credible to win in this space?	Maya Chen – ex-Google ML lead, second-time founder (prior edtech exit); team includes former heads of clinical services and K–12 GTM. [LinkedIn link goes here]

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Bonus!

The Best Intro Framework – Example Best Practice Email

3. The Risks of Raising Venture Capital

New Zealand has a relatively small ecosystem of early-stage investors, with lots of overlap between the membership of various Angel groups. On the plus side, you have a small, tight-knit group of investors to engage with, who are very close to the early-stage startup world. Conversely, this also means that often your funding options are limited, and you’re at the mercy of a handful of investors and how they like to operate. Word travels fast in the New Zealand funding ecosystem, and if you piss someone off, try and pull a fast one or generally behave outside the norm, everyone knows about it.

Key Risks to Consider

Risk	Mitigation
Raising capital may result in you losing control and autonomy over your business decisions	Make sure to get comfortable that the VCs you’re choosing share your vision for the business. If you’re all broadly aligned, it’s less likely that they’ll encourage the business into a different direction. Always conduct your own detailed due diligence into VCs.
There’ll be inevitable pressure to scale rapidly, and to continuously raise further capital as you scale	Get comfortable that raising capital is a long-term choice for your business. It would be extremely rare to just raise a single round and never need to raise again. Also, don’t over-inflate your growth forecasts in order to gain investment - it’ll only come back to bite you later where the VCs expectations are not met in reality
VCs will have high expectations for return on their investment (10–20x within 5–7 years)	Taking VC money is a long-term commitment for you and your business. Whilst you could see their expectations as being pressure on you, don’t forget that you’ll also benefit if the business grows 10-20x within 5-7 years. It’s not all a one-way street.
Most VCs will take a board seat, and you’ll therefore be accountable to other Board Members and the investors they represent	Whilst it might seem foreign for you to be held accountable in your own business, if you pick the right VC and you’re aligned with them on the overall vision, then being held accountable is actually just a good way of maintaining focus on the things that are truly important. If your VC feels like they’re part of the team, (rather than someone on the outside throwing rocks in) then you’ll get a lot more value out of the relationship
There are limited funding options locally due to NZ’s tight-knit investor network	NZ has some great VC options, but you may want to cast your net wider than just locally - if only just to get more competition into the process. More and more often, VCs from the US, Australia and the UK are looking to the New Zealand market as a source of good startups. Be aware though, that you still need to find a VC that has similar cultural norms and behaviours as you do so that there isn’t a culture mismatch!

Quick Navigation:

The Founder’s Guide to Venture Capital

Part 1: Is VC Right for My Startup?

Part 2: The Fundraising Process

Part 3: Preparing for the Fundraise

🆕Part 4: How to Raise a Successful Round

Part 5: How It Feels to Run a VC-backed Startup