A method for building a 60–120 investor list that matches your stage, sector, and check size — plus the signals that separate live investors from names.
A great investor list is the difference between a 6-week fundraise and a 6-month grind. Founders who spray-and-pray 500 generic firms convert worse than founders who target 80 well-chosen ones.
Stage (pre-seed / seed / Series A). Check size range that fits your round. Sector (B2B SaaS, consumer, deep tech). Geography (US, Europe, global). Thesis alignment (revenue traction vs pre-product, technical founders vs commercial). Write these down before you look at names.
Best signal: firms that funded 2–3 companies similar to yours in the last 24 months. Look at their portfolio pages and press releases, not their marketing thesis. Marketing says 'we love enterprise SaaS' — the portfolio says which enterprise SaaS.
Crunchbase and PitchBook for structured data. Signal by NFX and OpenVC for founder-friendly search. Twitter/X and Substack for what partners actually invest in vs what the firm's website says. Portfolio company founders for firsthand references.
A partner who tweeted about your space last month is warm. A partner whose last blog post was 2019 and whose portfolio hasn't added a company like yours since 2021 is cold. Time-of-last-signal is the single most predictive filter.
60–120 investors for a typical seed or Series A round. Fewer and you don't have enough shots. More and you can't do quality outreach. Tier them: 20 top priority (custom outreach, warm intros), 40 second tier (targeted cold email), 60 long tail (batch outreach).
Firms whose last check was 3+ years old. Firms whose portfolio is 90% outside your stage. Firms with no recent partner activity. Adding firms 'because they might' fills the list with dead weight.
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