In this SaaStr Europa 2022 Cantina Stage session, Peter delivers a practical playbook for startup founders navigating the fundraising process. He emphasizes maintaining a rolling funnel of 15–20 target funds, continuously looping in new investors as others reject, and driving momentum through rapid communication—answering emails within 24 hours and proactively following up after calls. Peter showcases an effective follow‑up email that includes a deck, product demo, Q&A, and KPI dashboard, illustrating how thorough preparation accelerates investor review. He warns founders not to be misled by early investor enthusiasm (“blended” love), noting that most VCs initially express interest but later decline; the first term sheet is the critical milestone. Maintaining confidence, positivity, and full knowledge of key metrics (sales, revenue, CAC, margins, growth) is essential. He outlines typical fundraising timelines: fast (2–3 weeks to term sheet), normal (3–6 weeks), slow (6–10 weeks), with an overall 10–12 week window from first conversation to money in the bank, plus a 4‑week legal closing period in Europe. Peter concludes with three takeaways—invest in preparation, focus on the first term sheet rather than early praise, and keep process momentum alive. The session ends with a question from the audience about whether investor fear of missing out (FOMO) can be detrimental to startups during fundraising.
Chapters
increases likelihood of conversion. And start the process at the same time. Do outreaches in waves, you know, start with the 20 funds you put on your preference list. But if one drops out and rejects, you just loop in the next one. And so you have a continuous 15 to 20 funds that you're always talking to, and never let the funnel dry out. Then on, on driving the process forward, you should really try to drive it also on the communication side, meaning answer fast to emails. So block time to answer emails the same day. Always try to answer it within latest 24 hours, but the faster the better. And, and do follow-ups and push, push the process forward. Ask about next steps. I'm gonna have an example in a second about it. And also, if you have a call with funds and then you don't hear from them, follow up with it. If you didn't hear from them for 2 days or 3 days and you didn't discuss otherwise in the call, send an email, ask if they're interested to dig deeper. This increases sort of like your speed of getting an answer for them, and it will allow you to You know, if they reject, focus on another fund or loop another fund to the process, but it will, it will push the process forward. And that's, I think, a great follow-up example here. It's an email I actually received from a founder of a B2B marketplace, and it directly came after, after the meeting of like, hey Peter, great to chat with you. They personalized it. So we talked about one thing around B2B marketplaces. He referenced to it, and then he shares more information like, here's our deck, here's our video and product demo, there's the Q&A we put together, here's a KPI dashboard. We're happy to do these next steps with you. Let me know if you need info. Please get back. And I think that really gives me a— like, wow, they're very well prepared, they know their stuff, and I can do my work now quickly in the next days. And follow up with you, set the next meeting, and the next meeting will be better because the investor had time to go through your data, and you will have more informed conversation and more detailed conversation then. This is a key point for me: don't get blended. Everyone says they love it initially. It's, it's the investor's job to tell you how much they love your business, even if they don't. Why? Think about your first meeting. There's a guy and he says, "Great, I love what you're building. I really think this is an interesting space. I believe in the market. We should continue to chat." And there's the other investor sitting there saying, "Hmm, maybe this is interesting." Who are you more inclined to move forward with and excited to work with? It's probably the first guy. But actually, the likelihood of conversion is the same for them. Every VC will try to give enthusiasm and excitement for you, either before the fundraising process or after, or during the process. And so initially everyone says they love it, but reality is most of them, or almost all of them, will say no. But you need to optimize for the 1, 2, 3, or more term sheets you get. But the first one is the most important one. And why is this important to have in mind? Because sometimes there's the conversation with founders that I have is Hey, but we only need to talk to 5 funds because they all love it so much and they're so convinced about this, they're gonna do the round. And yes, that's the investor's job. They show you love, they tell you how much they love it. 5 will probably decline, and then you lost probably 2 weeks in talking to them, you lost process momentum, and you need to restart your process. And as we learned, momentum is key, and you really don't want to, you know, lose this process momentum if you need to restart a process with new reach-out and these kind of things. So what are some dos and don'ts? Be ambitious, but don't overpromise. Don't frame negative, always positive. And even if you're not, always show full confidence. A fundraising process, when you talk to 20, 30 investors where you get lots of nos, you know, can be a pretty tough and bumpy emotional ride. But it's always important to show full confidence and make investors feel that things are going really well, that the process is moving. And investors very quickly sense if a process is losing momentum. So think smartly of what you say to them. If you say like, yeah, we're getting term sheets until end of the week, and end of the week you don't get term sheets, and you talk about it with them end of the week, it's like, oh yeah, maybe you have one or two weeks more time. You know, investors sense these kind of little things of like, oh, maybe they didn't get term sheets. And then that doesn't define maybe the conviction of investor, but it defines the momentum of a round. And again, momentum helps you increase likelihood of conversion. Don't be blank on numbers. So I think it's much better to have all your numbers top of your head. Top of mind, and like sales, revenue, costs, margins, growth, CAC, key KPIs. And don't necessarily only refer to your CFO or, or another person in, you know, in the organization for it. But because if you're pitching alone in those 30-45 minutes, you should have all the information that is very relevant, and the key KPIs and metrics are part of that. So what's an expected timeline to keep in mind? I always say 10 to 12 weeks from first conversation till money in the bank on a normal case, but this can vary. It can be longer and shorter. So what is fast? For example, fast, I would say, is 2 to 3 weeks from first conversation until term sheet signed. And you always hear about those processes that took 3 days and got preempted so quickly. These processes happen, but they are more rare. And typically it takes 2 to 3 weeks, also with scheduling and all these kind of things, to, you know, get from first conversation to term sheet in a fast case. In a normal case, it's more of like a 3 to 6 weeks process. And in a slow case, it's more of a 6 to 10-week process. So have that in mind in terms of runway and going out before you run out of money, how long it will take. The legal process afterwards is typically 4 weeks in Europe, and then it takes another few days or 1 to 2 weeks to have the money in the bank. So 10 to 12, or depending on how fast you think your case is, will be a— will would be a good speed. So what are my key takeaways? Prepare well and invest the time. So this means the months before the process, the weeks before the process. Usually it's worth it. Number 2, don't get blended by initial love. Only the first term sheet counts. So it's not the words, it's only the actions. And always keep that in mind when you receive lots of investor love before they actually give you a term sheet. And the third one is process momentum is key. Drive the process forward from your side and keep the momentum up. Follow up, answer fast. With that, I hope it's a few tactics that help you increase your likelihood of conversion to the first term sheet. And hopefully more. And I want to open the round for questions and see if I can answer any here. Over there.
Yeah, there is a joke that investors usually have two ways to answer: no, no, no, or please, please, please. And you talk a lot about the momentum and losing that momentum while fundraising. Do you think this fear of missing out in investors is actually detrimental and harmful behavior when startups are fundraising?
