How To Connect With Investors on LinkedIn for VC Jobs or To Raise Funds

With close to 900 million users worldwide, of which 40% are active daily, LinkedIn has become the platform of choice for generating business leads. If you’re a startup Founder, chances are LinkedIn already helps you get in touch with prospective clients, and you’d like to do the same with Venture Capitalists. If you’re aiming at breaking into Venture Capital, you’re probably already trying to connect with Investors through LinkedIn.

The problem is, you’re not the only one.

People on the right side of the checkbook (i.e., holding the pen) are besieged with so many requests they barely respond anymore. Investors, in particular, are known to dislike LinkedIn messaging. So how are you supposed to get through to them?

There are currently 14,000 connections and followers in my LinkedIn network, of which 4,000+ are listed as Investors. I thought I’d share some best practices I’ve learned about and implemented over the years to get in touch with them.

Here are four tested steps to use LinkedIn effectively to connect with Investors and meet with them.

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In This Post

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Step #1 – Don’t Use Linkedin Messaging To Connect With Investors

Many Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists are vocal about not liking LinkedIn requests and InMail. Early-stage VC firm M8 Ventures even published a Medium post titled “Do VCs Mind You Pitching Them On LinkedIn?“

The answer: Yes, they do mind—a lot.

I don’t know anyone in venture who welcomes LinkedIn pitches. There might be some, but I don’t know them. (Holla if that’s you).

Alan Jones (@bigyahu) – @M8ventures

Some VCs mention on their LinkedIn profile that they don’t reply to requests there. They usually indicate an email address where founders should send their pitch decks.

Why do so? They probably built an efficient funnel to (dis)qualify deal flow opportunities and want you to enter it through the same end as everyone else.

You’re Wasting Your Time

I get at least a dozen LinkedIn requests a week from startup Founders looking for money. I don’t invest professionally anymore, highlighting how bad these Founders are at targeting potential Investors. That being said, I try to reply to most of these messages and always ask the entrepreneurs how successful they have been at getting in touch with Investors.

I have yet to hear back from even one account confirming that this method works.

During a talk he gave at Harvard, Flybridge Venture’s Jeff Bussgang mentioned that only 1 out of 60 deals they had made came from a cold introduction. (For context, Bussgang’s book, Mastering the VC Game, appeared on the AppleTV+ show WeCrashed. Respect). That’s a 1.6% hit rate. I know what you’ll say: it’s not bad, all things considered. Since most Founders send over 500 messages over LinkedIn, they’re bound to find at least a sympathetic Investor. Plus, that stat was from ten years ago.

Now consider the following:

• On average, VCs invest in 1% of the opportunities they look at. That means Flybridge looked at 6,000 opportunities over the years to realize 60 deals
• That number is heavily skewed toward warm introductions. Assuming that 80% of their deal flow comes from cold intros, it’d mean that Flybridge received approximately 5,000 opportunities to close just one of them. That’s an effective 0.02% hit rate

You can do the maths with different numbers, but the result is the same: trying to connect with an Investor through unsolicited, no-context LinkedIn messaging is like throwing a bottle in a vast ocean. Some potential targets may answer, but most won’t.

Are Venture Capitalists horrible people for not answering? I don’t think so. Contacting hundreds of people on LinkedIn has become so easy that most Founders have abused the system, and VCs just stopped replying. Some of them will accept the connexion but ghost Founders afterward. Others put a restriction in place that requires you to know their email address before requesting a connexion, which is telling in an industry where network serendipity plays such a role.

Let’s face it: LinkedIn messaging has become almost as bad as email spam.

You’re Also Hurting Your Mental Health

It doesn’t mean that our beloved professional network is the wrong place to meet with Investors, quite the opposite. The issue resides in how LinkedIn is currently being used.

Founders and Aspiring VCs typically use the following methodology to connect with Investors on LinkedIn:

1. Run a basic search on terms like “Investor”, “Venture Capitalist”, or “Angel Investor”
2. Send the same message to a few hundred LinkedIn members at a time (due to current limitations)
3. Wait for an answer
4. Chase up after a week
5. Start again at Step 1

As mentioned above, this spray-and-pray strategy rarely produces results—otherwise, you would not be reading this post.

Worse still, it has a debilitating impact on entrepreneurial morale.

I’m writing a doctoral thesis on entrepreneurs’ psychological traits, worked with and trained hundreds of them for over a decade. I’m well aware that perseverance is a Founder’s superpower.

However, there is something inherently disheartening about having VCs not acknowledging you. After all, replying to Founders raising funds is part of their job description. Entrepreneurs being passed without notice also tend to feel they miss it on the “Gold Rush Bingo” in VC-land.

All this time, energy, and psychological capital devoted to sending umpteen LinkedIn requests to hundreds of unknown Investors would be better spent another way.

In the remainder of this post, I will detail a better method of getting to the desired results: effectively connecting with Investors and getting a meeting with them.

Step #2 – Find 15 to 20 Investors Who Are Likely To Invest In Your Startup

The approach I’ve been using and recommending to dozens of fundraising Founders who successfully connected with Investors on LinkedIn requires doing more work upfront.

Target The Right Investor For Your Startup

You need to target Angels and VCs actively looking for opportunities in your industry, geography, development stage, and so on. Investors are generally focused on a particular niche of the fundraising market.

To dig this point further, you should watch the webinar “The 3 Reasons Why VCs Will NOT Invest In Your Startup“.

Aspiring VCs should also understand it because a VC firm’s investment strategy conditions the skills it looks for in candidates.

Make Sure Your Target Investors Are Active on LinkedIn

While most Investors have a LinkedIn profile, not many use it actively.

Foundry Group co-founder and VC legend Brad Feld is one of them. At the time of writing, Feld had over 300,000 LinkedIn followers, which is a lot. But if you read his activity, you’ll realize he’s almost only “curating”: either sharing posts and articles from others, or about his books, or Techstars news.

It would be useless to contact him on LinkedIn or even engage him by commenting on his posts. He doesn’t go there often.

It’s easy to find out how active the Investor is:

• Go to their activity feed (click on See all activity at the bottom of their Activity section)
• Click on Posts
• Browse the history to see both what they write about and how often they do it
• One other helpful indication is how many followers have liked and commented on the post

A person’s LinkedIn activity will teach you much about what they care about and how they interact on the platform: write vs. share vs. comment on other people’s posts.

Step #3 – Engage Effectively With Your Target Investors

Now that you’ve found a group of 15 to 20 active Investors on LinkedIn who may show interest in your startup, you need to make them aware of your existence.

Engaging people on LinkedIn is an art I find not many individuals master. Most people commit one or several of the following mistakes:

• Only hit the Like button (influencers writing posts with many reactions rarely browse who liked them)
• Write “Great post” and not offer more value
• Comment on all the Investor’s posts with long messages
• Comment on a few posts, then disappear

To be effective, you need to write posts that are meaningful, engaging, and frequent.

Let’s illustrate these points one by one with concrete examples.

Be Meaningful

When you comment on a target investor’s post, you must add something to the table. It means you share knowledge or viewpoint relevant to the content the VC is sharing.

It could take the form of an anecdote from your professional life, a quote from a piece of research your startup published, a conference you attended, a YouTube video that illustrates the point, a case study you analyzed in business school, and so on.

Your comment needs to be authentic. Avoid not-so-subtle sales pitches.

The objective is to make you noticed by the author. The acknowledgment could take the form of a Like to your comment, then gradually become a dialogue. In the example below, I replied to a post by Jason Lemkin, a SaaS-focused VC I’ve long admired. His LinkedIn article tackled startup Founders’ need to carefully select their lead investors.

As you can see, my short comment shows that I am competent (I use VC lingo appropriately) and have industry experience (I mention working in private equity).

This comment attracted a Like from the author, which is what I was trying to achieve.

There are several lessons learned from this example:

• Focus on posts with a low number of comments. Authors of LinkedIn posts are anxious to receive comments early, as the algorithm will share them more widely. You’re more likely to be noticed if you write one of the first five to ten comments
• Favor posts with many Likes. Don’t forget that other VCs are probably reading these posts, too. Your comment will be shown to them if they interact with the original post. Double Whammy
• Some VCs are more “social-media generous” than others. They like or reply to comments more often, therefore giving you more visibility
• Write in a high-context manner. Your comment will be shown to your networks, who may not have seen the original post you are answering to. Make sure your response can be understood on a stand-alone basis.

A lot of thought goes into a comment to make it meaningful.

Be Engaging

Adding meaningful content to posts written by Venture Capitalists may prove difficult because you may not understand the ins and outs of the topic discussed. Besides, many Investors are often cryptic or write for specialists in their craft.

Don’t shy away from asking a question, formulating a hypothesis, or sharing doubts.

What matters is to keep an open mind, especially if you are not an expert on the issue. In the example below, Nidhi Prabhu replied to Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, a prolific and thought-provoking Angel Investor based in India.

Prabhu’s comment caught the author’s eye. She was one of the first three individuals to engage him.

Note how framing the comment as a question diffused the tension on what could be a contentious argument. 

Be Frequent

As in any relationship, LinkedIn ties are built over time. Don’t expect Investors to jump on your deal opportunity only because you replied meaningfully to one of their posts. 

You must show consistency and gradually demonstrate that you are a trustworthy potential business partner, that you “get them” and know their investment strategy and objectives. 

Business is about empathy, more than people are ready to admit. Angel Investors, because they invest their own money, are even more attentive to the low signals and the human touch. 

However, being over-present could backfire. Just as in real life, LinkedIn interactions need to show you exist but not by pestering the other party. It’s better to reply to the Investor’s post once a week with content that matters than answer every day with low-quality comments.

If you’re trying to break into Venture Capital, you need to target one of the three moments when VCs hire. Your objective is to build a mousetrap to be top of mind when that happens. Head to my webinar and companion post “How To Get A VC Job” for more.

After attracting their attention, you need to prod VCs to get in touch with you. The most effective way to do that is with a stellar profile that will pique their interest.

Step #4 – Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for VCs

Investors will accept your connection request or send you one if they feel that the relationship will be helpful to them. They are so pressed for time that they don’t have the luxury of taking random meetings, hoping they may lead somewhere one day.

It is not the same as taking a meeting early in the startup’s life. Most VCs will meet over coffee—and in this post-pandemic world, over a 30-minute and even sometimes a 15-minute Zoom video conference— if they get the impression that you will raise money in the next three to six months.

The idea is that they will be well-positioned to lead your deal if you turn out to be a promising prospect. Investors are essentially buying a free option to make a proprietary deal soon.

Nail Your LinkedIn Headline

The headline on LinkedIn is your “title”. It says who you are in 120 characters maximum.

It’s what investors see when you engage them on LinkedIn, for instance, when you comment on their posts. It needs to be catchy yet straightforward to stand out yet not freak out. It’s a complex skill to master and will take several tries before you get it right.

My current headline is “Making Venture Capital Happen @ The VC Factory”. It can undoubtedly be improved and will probably change in a few months. My previous headline was “VC Researcher & Teacher I E-Learning Founder I Professional Investor”. For reasons I will detail below, it was not focused enough.

(By the by, don’t hesitate to connect me on LinkedIn, I generally accept requests from Founders and VC enthusiasts.)

Your headline must be short, focused, and specific to be effective. Let’s illustrate each of these with real-life examples.

Keep It Short

Founders often try to be very thorough at the expense of brevity. The problem is that long headlines generally put off Investors’ interest. They are either too vague, cut halfway, or both.

Here’s an example of what not to do.

What this headline does well is to mention a buzzword—artificial intelligence—that might generate a click. However, it does not explicitly indicate that Puneet is an entrepreneur raising funds.

Besides, “achieve business outcomes” is not specific enough. Specificity matters, I discuss further below.

Be Focused

One strong non-starter for Investors is getting the feeling that Founders are chasing too many rabbits simultaneously.

Multi-tasking is a critical ability for entrepreneurs, but being unfocused almost always leads to failure. It’s why term sheets (and the shareholders’ agreements that succeed them post-closing) forbid Founders from having side activities.

My previous headline—”VC Researcher & Teacher I E-Learning Founder I Professional Investor”— was so unfocused that I had to spend the first few minutes of every video conference explaining what I do. Many professionals I was trying to engage had trouble understanding why they should accept the request.

I understand why some entrepreneurs may present several facets of their professional lives. They try to catch as many fish as possible by keeping the net wide.

Yet, the unfocused headline is precisely what rebuts VCs. Riding several horses at once gives the impression that the Founder is not serious about the startup venture.

Be Specific

Just adding your title and your company’s name doesn’t do it, either.

Adding remarks such as “We’re Hiring”, “Forbes 30 Under 30”, or “TEDx Speaker” may rouse some interest on the part of some VCs, but it’s generally not enough to push them to act.

I am often asked whether “We’re Fundraising” is better. I have mixed feelings about it. Investors typically don’t like to chase a lame duck. If you’re so insistent on the fact that you’re on a roadshow, maybe your fundraising effort is not going well. “We’re Hiring” gives the impression that you are growing, so if you have to choose between the two, the latter seems preferable.

A Headline That Attracts VCs’ Attention

A clear and concise headline makes the investor engage with you in one of three ways:

1. Click on your name to check your profile and hopefully send you a message to learn more about you. (VCs don’t mind LinkedIn messaging if they are the ones initiating it)
2. Like your post or comment, or reply to it
3. Remember you

Your headline’s objective is to raise your target Investors’ interest in you and your startup.

Ask yourself: “If I were that person, would I be curious to know more?”. It will help you polish your headline. 

Here’s a headline that works well:

This headline is bound to tickle the brain of VCs interested in the student housing space. Maybe only to find out what other solutions are out there. In any case, Investors are likely to click and find out more.

On the flip side, it is missing a picture. Showing your face is essential to your headline and helps Linkedin’s algorithm reference you better.

Additional best practices, such as having a complete profile, naturally apply. You can see on the first screen capture above that posts without pictures are much less engaging.

You can read this article if you want to know more about Summaries.

Connect With Investors On LinkedIn (And Social Media In General): How Much Work Is Required?

Engaging investors on LinkedIn is a subtle and continuous task that requires more effort than most Founders are prepared to put in. Whether you are raising funds or looking for a career in Venture Capital, success lies in the initial targeting, meaningful engagement, and attractiveness of your profile.

You should also apply these recipes to your posts too. Make sure you demonstrate your expertise and engage many of your followers regularly. I offer more tips here.

One more tip: frequently check your “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” page to find out how effectively you are enticing VCs.

A successful fundraising round is a succession of many steps, of which your LinkedIn strategy is gradually becoming a major one. The key is to engage in the conversation early. Getting a job in VC follows the same logic: the objective is to build a mousetrap so that you are top of mind when a position opens at the Venture Capital firm of your dreams.

What If Your Target VCs Are Not On LinkedIn?

The steps highlighted in this guide are the same regardless of the social platform. While they all follow specific usages (one post a day is a lot on LinkedIn but doesn’t get you noticed on Twitter), the methodology I describe in this post remains valid.

Many VCs write on Medium, Twitter, or a blogging website.

The key to engaging them is to convince them that they have something to gain in doing it: gaining the knowledge they are looking for, investing in a Founder with a unique insight, or hiring someone who will quickly be an efficient team member.

Final Word…If You’re Still Going To Cold-Message, Do It Like This

Among all the Venture Capitalists who tell you they love cold emailing or social-media messaging (they don’t, it’s a publicity stunt), Danielle Strachmann stands out.

Her fund, 1517, targets “dropouts, renegade students & deep tech scientists” (not sure if that’s the same person). In her case, as with other Investors who hunt in the fringes–diversity-first VC firms come to mind–sifting through hundreds of messages from entrepreneurs without network makes sense.

It doesn’t mean you should send a boilerplate message. The key is to personalize. I leave you with her recent tweet on the topic, which will help you tailor your message better.