Article · 20 min read

Raising a seed round 101

Lenny Rachitsky with First Round · Lenny's Newsletter Freemium Beginner

This nails the discipline behind the highlight reel: with prospects you share momentum factually without handing over what they have not earned. The line to internalize is that you can say 'we are in a third meeting with a top multi-stage fund' without naming anyone, and you must never fake a term sheet or name investors who have not committed. For the growth fund that passed, that is the whole game: every touch carries one real positive development (revenue, a key hire, a feature, angels closed) so the story compounds, but your hard financials stay with the people already on the cap table.

  • Share signals of momentum with prospects factually, no names, no invented term sheets, no committed-investor claims that are not true
  • Every follow-up to a warm prospect should carry at least one concrete positive development so the narrative keeps building
  • Curated momentum, not full disclosure, is what earns a prospect's conviction before you formally open the round
Open on lennysnewsletter.com ↗

It answers 3 questions

  1. How do I write a cold email to an investor without sounding desperate?
  2. Should my investor update be different for angels, my seed VC, and a growth fund that passed but wants to stay close?
  3. Investors passed and said 'we love the space but aren't sure you're the right team for it'. How do I fix that?

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