Jason M. Lemkin advises founders that typically only one investor will actively 'stand up' and catalyze a funding round. That investor—often not the largest fund—commits capital and social capital to force others to decide, helping coalesce the round. Founders should identify and engage this one committed backer rather than rely on passive praise or superficial signals.
What I have seen across my whole career of investing for 11 years is there's usually only one investor that will stand up for you. There's usually only one. Even though I have a pretty efficient portfolio, I've had to do three of these in the last 14 months. And often I'm the smallest fund on the cap table. I've had to be the catalyst, the one that stands up and say, look, you're at 30 million, growing 90%, that's not bad. I will put the money in. If one person is a catalyst, generally folks that are humming and hawing and that are waiting, the catalyst can force them to shit or get off the can. And that's how you coalesce the round. So as founders, you got to know who's the one. Not the a backslapper, not the one that always says, great job, Harry at the end of each meeting, not the one that responds to in the investor update with a thumbs up emoji, but who's the one that's really engaged and believes in you. And that will burn their social capital and their time to catalyze around. Someone's got to catalyze it. It doesn't happen on its own unless you're crushing it.
