FounderSeed-stage, raising a Series A
How a founder found the investors who had already backed the thesis
Partners who personally led a round in the category — not every fund with the word on its website.
Names, companies, sectors and figures are anonymised. This study describes the workflow and the persona rather than the customer.
01Situation
A developer-infrastructure company opening a Series A. The list everyone starts from is every fund whose site mentions infrastructure, which is several hundred firms and almost no information.
What matters is narrower and harder to see: the individual partner who has personally led a round in the category, recently, from a fund that still has money to deploy. The founder had been assembling that by reading announcements one at a time, in the evenings, while running the company.
02Search
Find partners at venture funds who have personally led a Series A in developer infrastructure or developer tools in the last two years, in the US or Europe, at funds writing five to fifteen million dollar cheques.
Must have
- The person led the round — not the firm participating
- Within the last two years
- Cheque size consistent with the round being raised
Ruled out
- Funds that have already passed
- Investors in three named competitors
- Associates, principals and platform roles
Intended actionA warm introduction wherever one existed, and a short first-person note where it did not.
03Evidence
Why they fit
- The lead is attributable to the individual through the announcement or a board seat, which is the difference between a partner who backed the thesis and a firm that once wrote a cheque.
- The fund has deployed recently, so it is investing rather than between funds.
- Eleven had a warm path the founder did not know existed — several through portfolio founders rather than existing investors.
Verified
- Current firm and title
- That the round was led rather than followed
- Recent deployment activity from public announcements
Still uncertain
- Remaining fund life, which is rarely public and materially changes whether a partner can act.
- Whether a partner's thesis has moved on since the round — two had visibly rotated to a different category.
- Whether a competitor investment was disqualifying or merely awkward; the founder made that call, not the tool.
04Action
- Twenty-five partners shortlisted; eleven routed through a warm path, fourteen approached directly.
- Warm paths were requested one at a time rather than in a batch, so no introducer was asked for three favours at once.
- Two were dropped after the competitor check, on the founder's judgement rather than automatically.
05Outcome
Nine first meetings from twenty-five, three progressing to a partner meeting, and a term sheet seven weeks after the first note went out.
- Partners shortlisted
- 25
- Warm paths found
- 11
- First meetings
- 9
Elapsed7 weeks from prompt to term sheet
Net newThe warm paths through portfolio founders were routes the founder did not know were available. Two of the three partner meetings came through them.