👋 Hi, I’m Kenneth, - Welcome to the Tech Venture Navigator.
Your weekly playbook for staying ahead in tech, AI, and venture.
How to Find Your Lead Investor
Fundraising can make or break your startup and the right lead investor makes all the difference. Your lead sets the terms, shapes your round, and gives other investors the confidence to follow. Here's a streamlined strategy to find your perfect lead investor:
Designing Your Fundraising Strategy
1. Tell a Compelling Story: Your venture is a story, not just numbers. Investors want to see a narrative with vision, potential, and unique value proposition. Describe not just what your product is, but what it promises, a vision that's compelling enough to warrant a 100x scaling view.
Your move: Make your vision impossible to ignore.
Great example of Vision Story is Sell the vision of where you are going by
Sean Byrnes
2. Arm Yourself with Metrics: While a captivating story captures attention, backed metrics ensure credibility. Investors are more likely to trust and join a journey rooted in quantifiable prospects, growth rates, customer acquisition costs, and lifetime value that align with the story you're pitching.
No big traction yet? Double down on why now is the moment and why you’re the founder to bet on.
3. Know Your Odds and Prepare: Recognise that the odds are stacked high. A significant number of proposals don't progress beyond the initial stages, past the email introductions and into meetings. The key is persistence and preparation for all eventualities.
4. Listen to Every ‘No’: Every rejection is data. Why didn’t they bite? Tweak your story, refine your numbers, improve your positioning. Repeat until it sticks.
5. The Only Thing That Matters: Your Lead Investor: Here’s the truth: if you don’t have a real lead, you don’t have a round. Your lead:
Sets the terms
Drives due diligence
Writes the biggest check (20–50%+)
Secure the lead, and the rest will follow.
Once you lock them in, others follow. Until then, you’re just collecting “maybes.”
6. Where to Build Your Target List: Use real data. Start here:
Crunchbase (€): Solid for early-stage searches, You can search open funding rounds.
Signal by NFX (Free): Great list of funds, partners and check size along with some of the deals they have done previously, they also have great lists of investors by industry and stage.
PitchBook ($$$): Best for Series A+ - For later-stage rounds, A and beyond, Pitchbook is great for finding out the details of rounds and the full list of investors in each round. Ideally, one of your angels or VC friends can look for deals in pitchbook and share them with you.
Twitter & LinkedIn: Many VCs say “DM me” — they mean it
Shai’s List: Goldmine for under-the-radar pre-seed & seed funds.
7. Run a Process, Not a Lottery
Fundraising is a process, treat it like sales.
Put together a simple spreadsheet or Airtable: See our example here.
| Fund | Focus | Stage & Check Size | Partner | Intro Source | Portfolio Fit | Status |
Fill it with 25–50 qualified leads. Batch intros. Run all first meetings in a tight 2–3 week window. This creates urgency and makes multiple term sheets more likely.
More term sheets = better terms. More money for less dilution. Better partners on your cap table.
Grab the Pipeline Template
I built a simple Google Sheet to run this exact process - grab it here.
One Last Thing
Fundraising isn’t just about money — it’s about finding a partner who believes in your mission and gives others the confidence to follow.
Push through the grind, run your process tight, and lock in the lead that will make your round real.
Your fundraising process = your runway. Nail your lead → control your round → build momentum.
Bonus: The Intro Script
“Hey [Name],
I’m raising a [round size] [stage] for [startup] — we’re [traction metric]. I think [Fund, VC] would be a perfect lead given your work with [X portfolio company] and give a strong reason [Why?].
Would you be open to a quick chat next week?
I’ll keep it tight and share our deck beforehand.”
Keep it short. Get the meeting. Pitch
Setting Yourself Up for Success
- Identify Your Ideal Lead Investor: Your lead should align not only with your industry and stage but also play an active role in investments, committing a significant portion of the round (typically 20-50%).
- Build a List of Potential Leads: Using tools like Crunchbase or Signal NFX, compile a targeted list of potential leads that fit your criteria. Check if they are actively investing and avoid those already backing direct competitors.
- Network and Introduction: Once you’ve identified potential leads, use your network strategically to secure introductions. This is where storytelling continues, not just in formal pitches but in every email and casual conversation within shared circles.
Execution
Create a spreadsheet to streamline your research process. Track firms, focus areas, check sizes, and status updates to keep everything organised. Time your outreach and prepare to run multiple meetings in a condensed period for maximum impact.
Closing Thoughts
Fundraising is not merely about securing capital, it's about finding partners who genuinely believe in your mission. Over the upcoming weeks, brace for pitches and anticipate an array of responses. Your lead investor will pave the way, making the subsequent journey more navigable.
Remember, your goal is not just one term sheet, but to create a competitive scenario. Aim high to command the best terms for your growing venture.
If you’re gearing up for a raise and want help with intros, send me a message on LinkedIn or book in a time on hubble here.
Top Tweets
Podcast of the Week
Sam Altman just revealed what’s next for GPT-5 and AGI
In OpenAI’s first official podcast, Sam Altman reveals GPT-5 is landing this summer (“substantially better”), AGI will arrive within our lifetimes, and Stargate — a $500B Microsoft-backed supercomputer — is the next moonshot. If you think today’s AI is big, buckle up: next-gen agents with memory, reasoning, and long-term goals are closer than you think.
Trending Tools
Instance - Turns your ideas into functional apps, games, and websites in minutes.
Wonderish - Build stunning pages and apps with zero coding experience.
Softr - Run your workflows, data, and apps all in one place — finally, one platform to rule them all.
10Web - 100% the best AI website generator.
Agent.ai - No prompts, no freelancers — run your entire content engine 24/7.
ChatLLM - Access every top AI model, visuals, automation & more for just $10/month.
SeedancePro - Create professional videos instantly from text or images.
Fluidworks - Talks to each user in session, personalizes every journey.
Scribe - Records your screen and turns it into a detailed step-by-step guide with screenshots.
Meco - Frees your newsletters from inbox clutter — with AI summaries, smart filters, and a focused reading space built just for you.
Top Trainings
Feel busy but not actually productive? This short, practical guide shows how top founders and operators use ChatGPT to 10x their output — without burning out.
Meetings → Auto-generate agendas, summarize notes, and track actions.
Emails → Write, respond, and personalize at lightning speed.
Daily Planning → Turn vague to-do lists into structured, time-blocked plans.
Research → Skip Google. Get instant summaries and decision-ready briefs.
Brainstorming → Go from blank page to 5 creative ideas in under 60 seconds.
💡 Real-World Bonus: Use ChatGPT to craft elevator pitches, draft LinkedIn posts, or even rewrite job descriptions in seconds.
TL;DR: ChatGPT isn’t just a chatbot — it’s your always-on productivity engine for your calendar, inbox, and daily grind. Download the Free file here.
AI BASE
Here’s one worth your time:
The full YC talk by Andrej Karpathy - co-founder of OpenAI, former AI lead at Tesla, and the father of “vibe-coding.”
Software in the Era of AI - a must-watch if you want to understand where building is going next.
Video of the Week
“There’s a 20% chance AI wipes out humanity.” - Geoffrey Hinton
The “Godfather of AI” isn’t pulling punches. In a new interview with Steven Bartlett, Geoffrey Hinton explains why he left Google — and why he believes advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity.
Hinton co-invented the neural networks behind today’s AI boom
He estimates a 10–20% chance AI could end civilization
Warns that once AIs become smarter than us, we may lose control
Says researchers are building systems they barely understand
TL;DR: This isn’t sci-fi paranoia — it’s a warning from AI’s co-founder.
Headlines Founders Should Watch
💰 Abridge raises $300M Series E — The generative AI healthtech startup, backed by a16z and Khosla, is doubling down on AI for smarter clinical conversations and revenue cycle automation. If you’re building vertical AI, this is your benchmark. Read more
▶️ Prime Video leans into GenAI — Amazon’s streaming arm is using generative AI for dubbing, live recaps, and personalized content flows. The big takeaway: AI is quietly transforming how big media keeps viewers hooked. Read more
🔍 Ring’s new AI camera upgrade — Ring just layered generative AI into its home security cameras to generate smarter descriptions of footage. Another signal that edge AI is moving into mainstream consumer hardware. Read more
🏆 Upwave bags AI Innovation Award — Upwave’s AI-powered platform is setting a new standard for real-time brand measurement and insights. If you’re in martech, note how fast AI-first startups are pulling away. Read more
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If you’d like tailored help you can book time with me on hubble here.
Stay Bold,
— Kenneth
Founder @Tech Venture Navigator
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