Fundraising

An investor list is easy to get and almost worthless. What decides a raise is whether the fund actually invests at your stage in your sector right now, whether you reach the partner who owns that thesis, and whether you get in warm. Pioneer researches all three.

Describe the fund you want, not "VCs"

Write the pipeline description like the sentence you'd say to a friend who offers to help:

Funds writing $2–8M Series A checks into industrial decarbonization or energy hardware in Europe or the US, that have led at least two rounds in the last 18 months and have a partner who has written publicly about process heat.

Criteria that keep the list honest

• MUST have led a round at our stage in the last 18 months
• MUST invest in hardware or industrial technology
• MUST NOT hold a position in a direct competitor
• SHOULD have a named partner with a public thesis in our space
• SHOULD have participated in a follow-on round with a portfolio company
• SHOULD have offices or active deals in our geography

The competitor MUST NOT rule and the "still active at our stage" rule are the two that remove most of the noise from any public investor list, and Pioneer shows the evidence for each verdict on the lead card, so a "no" is auditable.

Research the partner, not just the fund

Useful properties per fund:

• check size and stage, with the announcement it came from
• most recent lead investment (name and date)
• relevant portfolio companies, and any that are competitive with us
• the partner who owns this thesis, with what they wrote or said and where
• whether they follow on

Then use Find the Right People to get the individual partner rather than a general info@ inbox. Contact details are found and sourced, never guessed.

Get introduced instead of applying

Cold inbound is the weakest way to reach a fund, and it's the one most founders default to. Bring your contacts (founders, operators, angels, ex-colleagues) into My Network, then click Find warm connection on a partner's card. Pioneer searches your researched contacts for the path: a portfolio founder who can vouch for you, an angel who co-invests with the fund, someone who worked with the partner directly. Each path comes with a confidence level, the type of connection, and a suggested two-line ask.

Two features earn their keep here specifically:

• Ask your network in plain language: "Who do I know who has raised from a European climate fund in the last two years?"
• Share a link to your network with your co-founder or an advisor, so they can search your network for intro paths without an account and without seeing your contacts.

Run the process on the board

Buckets and statuses track the funnel (researching, intro requested, first meeting, partner meeting, passed), and sharing a pipeline gives your co-founder or board a read-only view by link. Private notes on a contact are where the relationship detail belongs; they never feed research.

Hand it to your agent

Your agent can keep the raise moving through the API: refresh the investor pipeline weekly, flag funds that just led a round at your stage, and pull the warm paths for the ones you haven't approached yet. See Use Pioneer With Your Agent.

Next steps

• Create Your First Pipeline
• Find the Right People
• My Network
• Outbound and Partnerships

Need help?

If you have questions, reach out to us at support@pioneerclimate.com