Your round did not start when you decided to raise.
Venture has two live seasons a year, and a partner writes one or two cheques inside them. The founders funded in October were introduced in August. Everything in this programme is built backwards from that fact.
Put a date in. Whatever lands twelve weeks earlier is the day your raise actually had to begin.
Partners return with an empty diary and six to ten decks a day. Meetings are cheap. Almost nobody gets a term sheet — each partner is quietly building a shortlist of eight to twelve names.
Second meetings, partner-meeting airtime, reference calls you never hear about. By month end most partners have privately chosen the one or two deals they will fight for.
Diligence, committee, terms, legals. A partner is not shopping in November — they are defending a choice already made in October.
Deals close in the first week. After that the industry goes quiet until mid-January, and January restarts the cycle with no memory of your November email.
You are not competing to be good. You are competing to be the one.
Filter by stage, sector, geography and cheque
To get to a closed round
Half of all successful raises
Average point at which failed raises gave up
Decks screened by one partner in a year
Real conversations
Opportunities worked properly
Cheques written
Answer them properly, not generously.
This is your preparation season. Your raise starts next window — and that is the most valuable decision available to you.
Take the full readiness test