Seed To Sale: What VCs Actually Look For (Most Founders Get This Wrong)

There’s a version of fundraising that founders imagine.

There’s a version of fundraising that feels clean and linear.
You get introduced, you pitch, you answer questions, and things move forward.

That’s not how it always works…

Last week in New York, we hosted our Seed to Sale event with BHI and Pillsbury, bringing together founders and investors across stages; from first checks to growth rounds.

The panel included:

• Alisa Mall, CIO at Dell Family Office

• Eyal Bino, Founding Partner at 97212 Ventures

• Moshe Bellows, Partner at Maccabee Ventures

• Taylor O’Toole, VC Attorney at Pillsbury

The goal was to hear how decisions actually get made.

And across the conversation, a few patterns came up repeatedly, not tactics, but fundamentals that quietly determine whether a process moves forward or stalls.

This issue breaks those down.

The Process Starts Before the Meeting

Cold outreach can work, but only when it’s intentional.
At this point, investors can spot a mass email in seconds.

When you’re reaching out cold, it has to be clear you’ve done the work: why this investor specifically, how your company fits their thesis, and why now is the right moment to connect.

Without that context, it reads like distribution.

Warm intros change the starting point. They carry context, and more importantly, they carry trust. When that intro comes from a founder they’ve already backed, you’re already considered close to home.

Startup Legal Mistakes That Kill Your Fundraising

There’s a version of early-stage fundraising where founders assume they can “clean things up later.”

Legal structure is one of the fastest ways investors assess execution risk.

Not because they expect perfection, but because they expect familiarity; standard documents, normal terms, clear ownership, clean cap table.

If something feels off, their intuition is triggered and if the first impression creates friction, there usually isn’t a second meeting.

If something is messy, fix it before you fundraise, and if something is unclear, clean it up.

Above all, if something went wrong, be upfront about it. It’s easier to explain it early than defend it later.

What Actually Stands Out in a 30-Minute Meeting

In a short meeting, investors aren’t trying to absorb everything; you’re being read.

How you think, how you respond, how you handle pushback.

Most founders default to presenting. The ones who stand out create dialogue.

There’s a natural flow, quick context, a clear transition into what matters, then space for the discussion to open up. If you’re talking the entire time, you’re doing too much.

The meetings that move forward are conversations, not an all-in pitch.

Work Backwards From What You Can Actually Support

If you’re raising at a $10M valuation today, you have to assume the next investor is looking for at least a 3x step up. That means your next round needs to support something closer to $30M.

That number is usually tied to revenue. If you’re working off something like a 10x multiple, that implies the business needs to be doing around $3M in revenue by then.

So instead of starting with the valuation and working backwards to justify it, the better approach is to start with the fundamentals; what are the actual milestones, what does the revenue realistically look like, and how does that build over time?

From there, the valuation becomes a reflection of what the business can support, not something you’re trying to grow into later.

Does the step-up to the next round actually make sense based on what you can realistically achieve, or are you setting yourself up to reset expectations down the line?

We’ll be sharing more from this conversation over the coming weeks for those who want to go deeper.

Huge thank you to BHI and Pillsbury for hosting us in Manhattan, and to everyone who joined us.

P.S. Email replies are on! If there are any topics you'd like to explore or questions you have, feel free to reply to this email.

Until next time, we’ll be on the lookout!

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