5 Keys to Raising Capital Using Cold Outreach to Investors

Many startup founders lose faith in their ability to raise money from investors they’ve met through cold outreach because they attempted to do it and failed. When I talk to these founders, I discover that one or more of the following reasons have stopped them from succeeding in their cold outreach. Get these right, and your investor outreach will get results.
Here goes:  

1. Set your pitching materials and online presence to attract investors: Before reaching out to new investors, have your pitching materials lined up and ready. Your pitch deck, along with an abbreviated version of it (the “teaser deck”) is an obvious must. Your online presence should be set to support your raise as well. Investors will look you up online before agreeing to meet you. If your LinkedIn profile, company website, and other places you can be found online aren’t set up correctly, you are doing yourself a huge disservice and driving away investors who could have been interested.
2. The quality of your list of potential investors: Good prospecting on potential investors will save you a lot of time and improve your success rates dramatically. If your initial list of potential investors isn’t clean and accurate, you will get fewer responses and the meetings you get with the investors from the list could turn out to be a waste of time. But if you do your research and build a highly targeted list of potential investors, tailored to your specific needs, you will get more responses, more meetings, and more closures with the investors on the list.
3. Sharp, focused messaging: The first message you send potential investors is your best chance to get their attention and spur their interest. Most investors are busy and look at a lot of startups before deciding to move forward to a meeting. Help them come to a quick yes by providing the most important information about your startup, concisely. If your messages are too long and unfocused or fail to highlight the strengths and potential of your startup, investors will not be interested in hearing any further information.
4. The volume of the outreach to investors: This is a numbers game. Most investors aren’t likely to be interested - but you will find and connect with the ones that are, if only you reach out to enough investors. You should send 10-15 connection requests to investors each business day (no more than 100 per week).
5. Consistency, keeping track, and following up: To succeed, you need to be consistent and efficient. Failing to keep track of your efforts means you aren’t able to improve and iterate effectively. You are also likely missing the opportunity to connect with investors who require a follow-up or ask you to get back to them at some later time. Keeping in touch and following up has a compounding positive effect. You might get the investors you contacted to invest later, and they can connect you with other investors or business contacts.