When I was in venture capital, it wasn’t uncommon to ask founders “What’s your runway?”. And way too often I’d get back “1 month”. Which meant the company will be out of money in 1 month’s time. That’s waaaay too little time to close your round, and it sends a very wrong signal to investors: you are raising out of desperation.

To avoid this, I drafted today’s newsletter: my guide to structuring your fundraising process, step by step. And because fundraising is a huge topic that you can look at from so many different angles, I also created a resource database for you including every single fundraising guide I’ve ever found useful. It’s here. Free. As a gift for you.

Now let’s dive into the topic.

But first, a reality check on what that process actually looks like in Europe.

The European fundraising process, in plain numbers

A typical round in Europe takes around 6-8 months from the moment you start approaching investors to the moment the money hits your account. Which means you need a cash runway of at least 6 to 8 months before you start, so you’re never negotiating from a position of desperation.

Keep in mind, an average fund sees somewhere around 1,000+ applications a year. Roughly 10% make it to a meeting. And only about 5 to 10 companies actually get funded.

I’m not telling you this to scare you. I’m telling you because once you understand the funnel, you stop taking the “no’s” personally. So your job isn’t to convince every investor. It’s to run a tight enough process that you find the few right ones.

Here’s how I’d do exactly that, in 6 steps.

Step 1: Do your homework (on the market, on investors, and on yourself)

Before you build a single slide, understand how the people across the table think.

VCs aren’t looking for a nice, stable business. They’re looking for outlier growth, the potential to return their whole fund from a single company. That means they care about the same things over and over: a huge market, a credible path to becoming the global leader in it (not a local champion), an unfair advantage, and above all a team they believe can pull it off. At pre-seed and seed, the bet is roughly 80% on the team. They’re also reading you for signals: ambition, speed, adaptability.

Part of this homework is relationship-building, and it’s the step almost everyone skips.

Cold-emailing a VC the week you decide to raise is like sending a stranger a marriage proposal and expecting a yes. Most VCs won’t even reply without some reference on you. So start building relationships with investors early, when you’re not asking for anything: approach investors for advice rather than money, get to know their portfolio companies and junior team, say hi at events, and ping them now and again with a quick update. By the time you officially raise, the best case is that you’re not introducing yourself, you’re reconnecting with people who’ve already watched you grow.

The best founders I know have it high on their priority list to constantly network with investors, round open or not.

Finally, do the homework on yourself.

Look at your company honestly, the way an investor would. Understand what investors are looking for, and score your company against that. Where are you strong? Where are the gaps? Stress-test your story, team, market, traction, and materials against what VCs expect at your stage.

I’ve got just the right offer for this (see at the bottom of the newsletter).

Step 2: Determine your round basics

Before you talk to anyone, get clear on the shape of the round itself. Five things to pin down:

• How much you’re raising. Not a vague range, a number you can defend.
• At what valuation. Roughly where you expect to land, based on your stage, sector, and geography.
• Your instrument. Priced round, SAFE, or convertible loan. Each has trade-offs for how (and when) ownership gets settled.
• How long it carries you. Aim for 18 to 24 months of runway, enough to hit real milestones without diluting yourself too early.
• What you’ll achieve with it. The specific milestones this money buys, and that make you fundable for the next round.

There’s some (simple) math behind the amount and the valuation, which I’ve covered before. For now, just know that if you can’t explain how much you need and why, investors won’t trust you to spend their money wisely.

Step 3: Build your story, then the materials that carry it

Before any materials, decide on the story you’re going to tell. What’s your single strongest element? An exceptional team, and why exactly? A product no one has seen before? An unfair advantage inside a massive market? Pick the thread that’s the most compelling and build everything around it. This storyline becomes the backbone of every other material: your deck, your cold email, even how you answer questions in the room. They should all reinforce the same narrative, with no contradictions.

Then build the materials. Two you simply can’t fundraise without:

Your pitch deck. It’s the first thing an investor sees, and the basis on which they decide whether to take a meeting at all. It has to tell your story clearly and compellingly.

Your financial model. Yes, everyone knows early-stage projections are always wrong. But investors don’t use them to hold you accountable, they use them to understand your vision, ambition and how you think. Your key assumptions, hiring plan, and GTM channels are what matter. Keep it to bulk numbers and summaries, not 30 pages of Excel.

Now, the part founders underestimate. The moment a first meeting goes well, investors start asking for more, and you don’t want to be the bottleneck, scrambling to build documents from scratch while the momentum drains away.

This is your dataroom: one place where all your supporting docs live, ready to share. Drive, Notion, a dedicated tool, it doesn’t matter which, as long as everything is in one place and easy to send. One rule: every document should support your narrative, never contradict it. And less is more.

Here’s a short list of what most VCs will ask for, so you can prepare it in advance:

• Financial projections with your key KPIs: LTV, CAC, burn rate, sales by segment and geography, margins, personnel costs, COGS, customer count.
• Traction to date. For B2B: sales by customer type, contract sizes and durations, signs of product-market fit. For B2C: month-over-month user and revenue growth, cohorts, churn, retention.
• Sales pipeline (anonymised): total pipeline size, prospects by stage and probability, by channel.
• GTM Strategy
• Product Vision and Tech Stack
• Cap table showing your current shareholder structure and dedicated ESOP, ideally with a calculator for how shares change after this round.
• Market segmentation and competition: bottom-up market sizing with assumptions, market drivers, and a competitor overview.
• Other: team profiles, a pre-recorded product demo, and incorporation documents (usually only needed later, in due diligence).

Step 4: Build your target list and your outreach toolkit

“The more the merrier” does not apply here. You want to approach investors who are actually a fit and can bring value, not blast everyone with the same message. Filter on three key things:

• Geography: do they invest in your country or region?
• Sector: do they invest in your space, with relevant prior investments?
• Stage and ticket size: do they write checks at your stage and round size?

Most of this is on the fund’s website or Crunchbase. Aim for a list of roughly 100 to 300 good-fit investors, and within each fund, identify the partner with the most experience in your space. They’re the most likely to get your product and champion the deal internally.

Then prepare your outreach toolkit before you send anything:

• A cold email for investors you’re approaching directly.
• A warm email for the ones you already have a relationship with.
• A forwardable blurb so your network can make intros on your behalf without writing anything themselves.
• A short LinkedIn message for outreach there.

Your blurb is what decides if investors would even open the deck, so don’t underestimate it! Keep it short: a two-line description plus key value proposition, your biggest achievements to date, market size, and what you’re raising. It should work as a strong teaser, the thing someone forwards that makes a VC want to reply.

Step 5: Run the outreach, all at once

This is where timing matters. Block 3 to 4 weeks, set everything else aside, and go hard! The goal is as many meetings as possible in parallel, so you build and keep momentum. Why parallel and not one at a time? Because investors know you’re talking to other investors, and a little healthy competition works in your favour. Aim for 10 to 20 new conversations a week so the process compounds.

A few things to nail once you’re in the room:

• The founder and CEO leads the process. Handing investor calls to non-founders leaves a bad impression.
• Be able to tell your story in under 5 minutes. If a VC can’t grasp your business on a short call, they won’t move forward. (If you can’t explain it, how will you sell it?)
• Know your market and your numbers by heart.
• Respond fast. Some investors test you with how quickly you reply. Going quiet for two weeks reads badly, whatever your reason.
• Have a couple of references ready (customers, advisors, industry experts) for when a VC enters due diligence.

And keep requesting feedback on every “no.” Some are just timing. If a fund passes but the door’s open, a strong update 3 months later (“last time we had no MRR, now we’re at X”) can absolutely bring them back.

Step 6: Choose your partner, not just the check

If you’ve run a tight process, the ideal outcome is having 2 to 3 term sheets to choose from. And this is where you slow down. The highest valuation isn’t automatically the best deal. You’re choosing a partner you’ll be working with for years, often through the hardest moments of your company. Some of the worst situations I’ve seen were good companies stuck with the wrong investor on the wrong terms, raised too early out of fear.

So weigh the terms, yes, but also weigh the person. Do they get your space? Will they actually help? Do you want them in the room when things get hard? Pick the VC and the partner you genuinely want beside you for the long run.

If this is starting to feel like a lot, that’s because it is.

Fundraising is a huge topic, and no single newsletter can cover all of it. So I gathered every fundraising guide I’ve ever found useful into one Notion page. If you’re new to all this, they’re a great way to get a feel for what’s ahead.

Access the Fundraising Guide Database

Fundraising could be really draining, and it rewards founders who treat it like a process. Start early, way before you actually need the money, build relationships on a rolling basis and prepare everything you can upfront, so no single day is lost on your account.

PS: Step 1, looking at your company the way a VC would, is exactly what I help with in the Fundability Sprint I run at Fundraise Ready. It’s a detailed review of how VCs evaluate companies, where you stand and what to fix before you start raising.

Next cohort is June 2nd and 4th. You can learn more and register here.

Ciao,

Geri