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How to Cold Email Investors - 19 Tips from VCs & Angels
We all know warm introductions are the best way to approach investors. Unfortunately, most founders have a limited investor network but this is all starting to change.
Nowadays, the requirement for a warm intro to investors is slowly dying and some VCs are even trying to end the warm intro altogether. At the end of the day, warm intros just give privileged founders an even more unfair advantage.
If you’re talented, have traction, why should a VC require you to jump through hoops just to have a meeting? They shouldn’t and many investors now agree with this sentiment.
You can even take this a step further. VCs raise their funds on the back of their deal flow. If a VC closes the door on every founder who can’t get a warm intro, they’re just burning deal flow so it’s actually in the investors best interest to be open to cold emails.
When it really comes down to it, most investors don’t care how you approach them. As long as you have a good head on your shoulders, some traction, and a compelling idea, there’s a chance they’ll take a meeting and possibly even invest.
Is cold emailing investors right for you?
You’ll always want to optimize for warm intros and once you've maxed out your network, every founder who has some traction and is raising capital should cold email investors. You should obviously make sure you’re cold emailing the right investors but at the end of the day, having more pitch meetings is better.
On the other hand, meeting with investors can be an awesome learning experience. You’re going to hear no more often than not but each meeting is an opportunity to learn, improve your pitch, and to build a relationship with an investor. They may not invest now, but there’s always a chance that a meeting today will turn into an investment down the road.
Even if you already have an amazing investor network, you can accelerate your round and meet even more investors by applying cold email to your fundraising process. The more investors you get to express interest, the more likely you are to close both your current and future rounds of funding.
In order to learn how to cold email investors, we’ve compiled a list of 19 tips that came specifically from VCs themselves. Let’s dive in!
19 Cold Email Tips from VCs & Angels
Here are 19 real tips from real VCs on how they prefer to be cold emailed.
Let's dive in!
Tip #1) Jason Lemkin @ SaaStr Fund
Tip #2) Gale Wilkinson @ Vitalize VC
Tip #3) Leo Polovets @ Susa Ventures
Tip #4) Gagan Goya @ IndiaQuotient
Tip #5) Alex Iskold @ 2048 Ventures
1/3:
2/3 & 3/3:
Tip #6) Elizabeth Yen @ Hustle Fund
Tip #7) Sahil @ SHL Capital
Tip #8) Mac Conwell @ RareBreed Ventures
Tip #9) Sriram Krishnan @ a16z Crypto
1/3
2/3 & 3/3
Tip #10) Andrew Reed @ Sequoia
Tip #11) Ryan Hoover @ Weekend Fund
Tip #12) Bailey Vasudev @ Artis Ventures
Tip #13) Nicole DeTommaso @ Harlem Capital
Tip #14) Sean Simons @ Newark Venture Partners
Tip #15) Michael Seibel @ Y Combinator
Tip #16) Justine Moore @ a16z
Tip #17) Paul Murphy @ Lightspeed
Tip #18) Harry Stebbings @ 20 Minute VC
Tip #19) Drake Rehfeld @ Day One Ventures
Proof That Cold Emailing Investors Works
Investor Cold Email Checklist:
When you’re Cold Emailing VCs here are the th 9 boxes you need to check off before you click send:
- Use the investor’s first name.
- Personalize your email.
- Open with a strong first sentence.
- Describe your company in one sentence.
- Keep the email short.
- Use bullet points to summarize highlights & traction.
- Don’t ask for a lot of time.
- Test subject lines.
- Be okay with rejection.
- Lastly, focus on relationship building - not fundraising.
Wrapping Up
It’s always best to get a warm intro when you can and if you can’t, cold email isn’t the worst option. More VCs are open to cold email every day so just make sure your cold email stands out. Quality is always better than quantity so be sure to follow our checklist when sending cold emails to investors.
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