Blog

Fundraising, decoded.

Insights on seed-stage fundraising, VC meetings, and startup evaluation.

Filtered by: cold email investors ×

David Rakusan · June 19, 2026

What Investors Actually Read in a First Email (2026)

Cold email reply rates to investors sit around 5%, and most of those replies are a polite no. This guide covers what the data really says, why most investor cold emails fail, and the templates and structure that turn a cold email into a reply, built on first-party data from Belkins, Woodpecker, DocSend, and Snov.io and seven years on the investor side.

cold email investors cold email templates fundraising pre-seed seed round investor outreach how to email VCs reply rate warm intro founder fundraising venture capital SeedForge

David Rakusan · May 19, 2026

How to Find Angel Investors for Your Startup in 2026

There are 400,000 angel investors globally in 2025 and US angels back 70,000 deals per year worth $28B. Finding them is not the bottleneck. Closing them is. This guide shows where angels actually source deals in 2026 (warm intros account for 60%+, cold email under 5%), what they test in the first meeting, and why the founders who close angel rounds in days arrive with structured proof, not a longer deck. Includes a 6-step framework and a week-one outreach playbook.

angel investors find angel investors AngelList angel investor platforms pre-seed funding seed funding warm intros cold email investors startup fundraising Jason Calacanis Brad Feld founder proof