My first raise was for PizzaPortal in 2005. I opened a Google Sheet. Three columns: fund name, contact, status. By week three I had 47 rows. I had no idea who I had spoken to. I had no idea who needed a follow-up. I sent the same deck to the same partner twice. I forgot to ping a fund that had asked for our numbers. By the time I realized the spreadsheet was useless, I had lost two weeks and at least one or two term sheets that might have closed. I closed the round eventually. But the chaos cost me. Since then I have raised over €150 million across five companies. The biggest improvement was not better pitch decks or warmer intros. It was building a real pipeline. A system that tracked where each investor stood. One that reminded me who to follow up with. One that did not rely on my memory. This guide is what I wish I had that first time. Everything below comes from doing it wrong and then doing it right.
What a Fundraising Pipeline Actually Is
A fundraising pipeline is a way to track every investor you are talking to and where each conversation stands. It is not a list of names. It is a staged view of your round. Each investor sits in one stage. You move them forward when the conversation progresses. You move them out when they pass or go cold. The pipeline shows you the funnel. How many you have contacted. How many are in meetings. How many are in due diligence. How many have committed. That view matters. Without it you are guessing. With it you know exactly where the round stands.
A fundraising pipeline is different from a sales pipeline. Sales pipelines track leads, opportunities, proposals, closed won. Those stages fit B2B sales. They do not fit fundraising. Fundraising has its own rhythm. You do not have a proposal stage. You have a pitching stage and a due diligence stage. You do not close one deal and stop. You close multiple investors in one round. The stages need to reflect that. Researching. Intro requested. First meeting. Pitching. Due diligence. Funded. Those six stages map to how a raise actually works. A sales CRM can be bent to fit. A fundraising pipeline is built for it. The difference is clarity. When you see First Meeting you know exactly what it means. When you see Pitching you know the deck is out and you are in dialogue. No ambiguity. I have seen founders use HubSpot or Salesforce for fundraising. They create custom stages. They rename fields. It works. But it is friction. Every time they look at the pipeline they have to translate. First Meeting means something different in sales. In fundraising it means you had a call. That is it. A pipeline built for the raise removes that translation. You see the stage. You know what it means. No mental overhead.
The Six Pipeline Stages Every Founder Needs
These six stages have worked across five raises. You can rename them. You can add sub-stages. But the logic should stay. Each stage has a clear trigger for entry. A clear trigger for advancement. And a clear way to mark an investor as dead or paused.
1. Researching
You have identified the fund. You know they invest at your stage and in your sector. You have not contacted them yet. They are on your list. That is it. Entry trigger: you add them to the pipeline after you have qualified them. Advancement: you send a cold email or request a warm intro. You move them to Intro Requested. Dead classification: you realize they do not invest at your stage, or they have a portfolio conflict, or they are not taking new meetings. You remove them or mark them out. Do not clutter Researching with funds you will never contact. Qualify first. Add second.
Example: You find a fund that does pre-seed in B2B SaaS in Europe. You add them. You note the partner to contact. You are still gathering intros or drafting your cold email. They stay in Researching until you hit send or ask for the intro. Do not rush out of Researching. Make sure you have the right contact. Make sure your message is tailored. A generic blast to 50 funds in Researching is worse than a personalized email to 20. Quality of outreach matters. Researching is where you prepare. Use it.
2. Intro Requested
You have reached out. Cold email sent. Or warm intro requested. You are waiting for a response. Entry trigger: you send the email or you ask someone for an intro. Advancement: they reply. You schedule a call. You move them to First Meeting. Dead classification: no reply after three follow-ups over two to three weeks. Or they reply with a pass. You move them out. Do not leave people in Intro Requested forever. If they have not replied after three tries, they are not interested. Move on.
Example: You send a cold email to a partner. You set a reminder for five days. If no reply, you follow up. If still no reply after two more tries, you mark them out. If they reply and say let us talk next week, you move them to First Meeting and schedule.
3. First Meeting
The first call has happened. Or the first coffee. You have had a real conversation. Entry trigger: the meeting is done. Advancement: they want to see the deck. They want to dig deeper. You share materials and schedule a pitch meeting. You move them to Pitching. Dead classification: they say they are not interested. Or they say they will get back to you and never do after one follow-up. Or the meeting goes badly. You move them out.
Example: You have a 30-minute call. They ask good questions. They say send us the deck and we will schedule a longer meeting. You send the deck. You move them to Pitching. You set a reminder to follow up if you do not hear back in a week. One mistake I made early on: leaving people in First Meeting when the meeting had not happened yet. First Meeting means the meeting occurred. If you have scheduled but not had the call, they stay in Intro Requested. The stage reflects reality. When the call is done, you move them. Clarity prevents confusion. Your co-founder sees First Meeting and knows you have spoken. They do not ask when the call is. They know it happened.
4. Pitching
You are in active dialogue. Deck shared. Pitch meeting done or scheduled. They are evaluating. Entry trigger: deck is out and you have had or will have a pitch meeting. Advancement: they want to do due diligence. They ask for more materials. They want to talk to references. You move them to Due Diligence. Dead classification: they pass after the pitch. Or they go silent after two follow-ups. Or they say we are not going to move forward. You move them out.
Example: You present to the partnership. They say they like it and want to dig into the numbers. They ask for a data room or more docs. You send it. You move them to Due Diligence. Pitching can take one meeting or several. Some funds want to meet the whole team. Some want a second call with a different partner. As long as you are in active dialogue and the deck is out, they stay in Pitching. When they ask for DD materials, they move. The line between Pitching and Due Diligence is clear: DD starts when they want to verify. Data room. References. Deeper dive. That is the trigger.
5. Due Diligence
They are serious. They are reviewing materials. Talking to references. Maybe doing a site visit. Entry trigger: they have asked for and received due diligence materials. Advancement: they say yes. They send a term sheet or commit. You move them to Funded. Dead classification: they pass after DD. Or they drag for months with no progress. Or they say they need to wait for their own fund raise. You move them out.
Example: They have had access to your data room for two weeks. They have talked to two customers. They call and say we want to lead. You move them to Funded.
6. Funded
They have committed. Term sheet signed or verbal yes. Wire in process or documents in progress. Entry trigger: they have said yes. Advancement: money is in the bank. The deal is closed. You keep them in Funded until the wire hits. Dead classification: they pull out. Rare but it happens. You move them back to Pitching or out entirely.
Example: You have a signed term sheet. You are waiting for the wire. They stay in Funded. When the wire hits, you close the round and the pipeline resets for the next one.
How Many Investors Should Be in Your Pipeline
Numbers vary by stage. These are benchmarks from my raises and from founders I have talked to. They are not rules. They are reference points. Adjust for your round size and market.
Pre-seed. You want 30 to 50 investors contacted to get 5 to 10 first meetings. From those meetings you hope for 1 to 3 investors in the round. The funnel is wide at the top. Many will not reply. Many will pass after the first call. You need volume. Do not stop at 20 contacted. You will run out of momentum. Aim for 30 to 50. Track how many move from Intro Requested to First Meeting. If your conversion is below 15 percent, your list may be wrong. Or your outreach may need work. Fix the list or the message. Then keep going.
Seed. You want 50 to 80 contacted to get 15 to 20 first meetings. From those you hope for 5 to 15 investors in the round. Seed rounds often have more participants. Smaller checks. More names. The pipeline is bigger. The stages are the same. You need more people in Researching and Intro Requested. You need to track more conversations. A spreadsheet starts to break here. Around 15 to 20 active investors a CRM helps. Below that a spreadsheet can work. Above that you will lose track without structure.
Series A. You want 30 to 50 contacted to get 10 to 20 first meetings. From those you hope for 1 to 3 term sheets. Series A is fewer but larger checks. You are talking to fewer funds. The process is longer. Due diligence is heavier. The pipeline is narrower but deeper. Each investor gets more attention. You still need the stages. You still need follow-up reminders. You still need to know who is where. One more note: these numbers assume you have a decent list. If your list is wrong (wrong stage, wrong sector, wrong geography), your conversion will be low no matter how many you contact. Fix the list first. Then focus on volume. A pipeline of 50 wrong investors is worse than a pipeline of 30 right ones. Quality before quantity. But once the list is right, you need enough volume to fill the funnel. Do not stop at 15 contacted for a pre-seed. You will run dry. Keep adding until you have 30 to 50 in motion. Then track. Then optimize.
Building Your Initial Investor List
Before you can track a pipeline you need a list. Three methods that work.
Method 1: Manual search. Go to Crunchbase, LinkedIn, or VC list sites. Filter by stage, sector, geography. Build a list by hand. This works. It is slow. It takes one to two weeks for a good list. You will miss funds. You will add wrong ones. But you will have something. Export to a spreadsheet. Add columns for stage, contact, notes. Start tracking. The key is to verify before you add. Check the fund website. Check recent investments. Make sure they invest at your stage. A fund that did pre-seed five years ago may be seed only now. A fund that invested in fintech may have pivoted to AI. Verify. Then add. Wrong funds waste your time and burn your credibility. One bad-fit email is forgettable. Fifty bad-fit emails make you look like you did not do your homework.
Method 2: Ask your network. Other founders. Lawyers. Accountants. Ask who they used for their raise. Get warm intros where you can. Add the funds to your list. This gives you a curated set. It does not give you volume. Combine with method 1. Use your network for the top tier. Use search for the rest. Warm intros convert better than cold. Start there. Fill the gap with search.
Method 3: Use a matching tool. Some tools let you fill in your profile (stage, sector, geography, check size) and return a ranked list of investors. You get a list in minutes instead of weeks. You add them to your pipeline and start reaching out. RaisePilot does this. So do others. If you want speed over manual control, try one. If you prefer to build the list yourself, methods 1 and 2 work fine.
Tracking Your Pipeline
A spreadsheet works when you have fewer than 15 investors. Columns: fund name, partner, stage, last contact, next follow-up, notes. Sort by stage. Filter by who needs a follow-up this week. That is enough for a small round. When you cross 15 names the spreadsheet breaks. You cannot see everything. You forget to update. You lose track. At that point you need a CRM. A fundraising CRM with stages built for the raise. Not a sales CRM with custom fields. Stages that match: Researching, Intro Requested, First Meeting, Pitching, Due Diligence, Funded. Reminders for follow-ups. History of what was said. One place. If you are past 15 investors and still on a spreadsheet, you are leaving money on the table. You will forget to follow up. You will lose deals. Move to a fundraising CRM when the pipeline grows. The fields that matter: fund name, contact person, stage, last interaction date, next follow-up date, notes. Notes should capture what was said. Not vague summaries. Specific points. They asked about burn rate. We said 18 months. They want to talk to Customer X. Log it. When you follow up in two weeks you will forget the details. The notes will remember. I have lost deals because I could not remember what we discussed. The pipeline is only as good as the notes you put in it. Discipline here pays off.
Follow-up Cadence
When you contact someone and hear nothing, follow up in 5 to 7 days. Not the next day. Not three weeks later. 5 to 7 days. If no reply, follow up again in another 5 to 7 days. Third try, same interval. After three unanswered follow-ups, stop. They are not interested. Move them out of the pipeline. Do not keep pinging. It looks desperate.
After a first meeting, follow up within 24 hours. Send a thank you. Recap next steps. If they said they would get back to you, note the timeline. Set a reminder. If they do not reply by that date, follow up once. If still nothing, one more try. Then stop.
During due diligence, follow up weekly. They have your materials. They are talking to references. Check in. Do not nag. Do not disappear. Weekly is enough. More than that feels pushy. Less than that and you lose momentum.
For investors who say not now, come back in 3 to 6 months. Set a reminder. Do not forget them. They may have capacity later. They may have passed for timing, not fit. Put them in a separate list. Follow up when the reminder fires. One email. If no reply, wait another 3 to 6 months. Do not spam them. The worst mistake is following up too often. Investors get hundreds of emails. If you ping them every week they will tune you out. If you ping them at the right cadence they will remember you. 5 to 7 days for cold. 24 hours after a meeting. Weekly during DD. 3 to 6 months for not now. Stick to it. Your pipeline reminders should enforce this. Set the date. Follow it. Do not improvise. Improvisation leads to over-touching or under-touching. Both cost deals.
When to Kill a Deal
Three unanswered follow-ups. If you have followed up three times and heard nothing, they are out. Move them out of the pipeline. Do not hold hope. Do not keep them in Intro Requested or First Meeting. They have voted with silence. Accept it and move on.
Vague we will get back to you with no timeline. If they say we will let you know and do not give a date, that is a soft pass. Follow up once in two weeks. If they still do not give a date or go silent, move them out. Real interest has a timeline. Vague interest does not.
The fund is raising their own fund. If the fund is in the middle of raising fund two or fund three, they may not have capacity. They may be slow. Ask directly. If they say we cannot move until we close our fund, put them in a paused list. Set a reminder for when their fund might close. Do not keep them in an active stage. They are not moving. You are. One more: if an investor has been in Due Diligence for more than 8 weeks with no clear progress, ask for a timeline. If they cannot give one, consider moving them out or to paused. Some funds are slow. Some are stringing you along. You cannot always tell. But 8 weeks with no material progress is a signal. Have the conversation. If they are serious they will give you a date. If they hedge, you have your answer. Kill the deal. Free the slot for someone who will move.
Pipeline Metrics
Review weekly. Four numbers matter.
Investors per stage. How many in Researching, Intro Requested, First Meeting, Pitching, Due Diligence, Funded. The distribution tells you where the round stands. If you have 40 in Intro Requested and 2 in First Meeting, your conversion from outreach to meeting is low. Fix the message or the list. If you have 10 in Due Diligence and 0 in Funded, you are close. Push for decisions.
Conversion rates. What percent move from Intro Requested to First Meeting? From First Meeting to Pitching? From Pitching to Due Diligence? From Due Diligence to Funded? Track these. If one stage has a 5 percent conversion and others have 25 percent, that stage is the bottleneck. Fix it.
Average days per stage. How long does an investor sit in First Meeting before moving to Pitching? How long in Due Diligence? If Due Diligence is taking 8 weeks on average, that may be normal. Or it may mean you are not pushing for decisions. Compare to your target. Adjust your follow-up or your expectations.
Overdue follow-ups. How many investors have passed their follow-up date? This number should be zero. If it is not, you are forgetting people. That costs deals. Clear the overdue list every week. No exceptions. I review my pipeline every Monday. I look at the four numbers. I clear overdue follow-ups first. Then I look at conversion. Then I look at days per stage. The whole review takes 15 minutes. It keeps the round moving. Without it the pipeline becomes a graveyard. Investors go cold. You forget who to ping. The round stalls. Fifteen minutes a week. Do it. Your future self will thank you. The pipeline is not a one-time setup. It is a weekly habit. Treat it that way.
Frequently Asked Questions
Review these numbers every week. Write them down. Track them over time. Your pipeline will tell you what is working and what is not. The data does not lie. If you ignore it, you are flying blind. If you use it, you can fix problems before they cost you the round. Small habit. Big payoff.
What is a typical timeline from first contact to term sheet by stage?
From first contact to first meeting: 1 to 3 weeks. From first meeting to pitch meeting: 1 to 2 weeks. From pitch to due diligence: 1 to 2 weeks. From due diligence to term sheet: 2 to 8 weeks depending on fund size and process. Pre-seed can move in 4 to 6 weeks total. Series A can take 3 to 6 months. Seed is in between. These are averages. Some funds move fast. Some move slow. Track your own data and adjust.
Should I use a separate tool or my existing CRM?
If your existing CRM has stages you can map to fundraising (Researching, First Meeting, Pitching, etc.) and you can set reminders, it can work. Most sales CRMs do not. The stages are wrong. The reminders are built for sales cycles. If you are bending a sales CRM to fit fundraising, a dedicated fundraising CRM will save you time and reduce errors. One round. One tool. Fewer mistakes. If you only raise once every few years, a spreadsheet may be enough. If you raise repeatedly or have a large pipeline, get a tool built for it.
How do I track warm intros vs cold outreach in the same pipeline?
Use a tag or a column. Warm intro vs cold. Both go through the same stages. The difference is conversion. Warm intros typically convert from Intro Requested to First Meeting at 30 to 50 percent. Cold is 10 to 20 percent. Track both. See which converts better. If cold is below 10 percent, improve your list or your message. If warm is below 30 percent, your intro source may not be strong enough. Same pipeline. Same stages. Different source. Tag it and measure.
What do I do with investors who say come back when you have more traction?
Move them out of the active pipeline. Create a separate list or stage: Come Back Later. Set a reminder for 3 to 6 months. Or for when you hit a milestone they care about. When the reminder fires, reach out once. Share an update. If they engage, move them back into the pipeline. If they do not, wait another 3 to 6 months. Do not keep them in Pitching or Due Diligence. They are not active. Your pipeline should show active conversations only. Paused investors go in a separate bucket.
How do I give my co-founder access to the pipeline?
Use a tool that supports multiple users. Or use a shared spreadsheet with clear ownership. Each investor should have one owner. The person who had the first contact or the warmest relationship. Both co-founders can view. Both can add notes. But one person drives each relationship. That avoids double pitching. It avoids conflicting follow-ups. If you use a CRM, invite your co-founder. They see the same view. They add notes. They do not duplicate work. If you use a spreadsheet, share it. Agree on who owns which investors. Update the sheet in real time. Stale data is the enemy. Shared access and clear ownership fix that.
If you are building your fundraising pipeline from scratch, RaisePilot can help. The matching algorithm finds relevant investors, and the CRM gives you the stages described here. Try it free for 30 days. No credit card. Start free trial