Tactics on Setting Up a Successful Venture Capital Fundraising Process

FREE COURSE · 6 LESSONS

I used to be a terrible fundraiser.

I'm Kelly Nyland — Founder/CEO of Whym, a conversational commerce company I ran from 2017 to 2024. When I first started talking to VCs, I didn’t understand how to sell my story over the course of a few weeks and a half dozen phone calls. I tried to jam way too much into the first 20 minute call.

I'd run sales organizations before, so I went back to first principles and rebuilt fundraising the way I'd run a sales pipeline. That system raised $9M for Whym across multiple rounds — and I've since used it to coach dozens of other founders through theirs.

These tactics and more were used to secure $9m from investors & angels at Stripe, Venmo, Paypal, Apple, Google, Lightspeed, Sequoia, Salesforce, Microsoft, Snap, Facebook, Redbull, Spotify, Bread (BNPL), Good Money, AirBNB, WeWork, The Council, AngelList, Fast Co, P&G, Amplitude, SAP & others.

This series is category & stage agnostic.

🤔 Intro // How to Fundraise, A series by Kelly Nyland @ Whym

5 minutes

• What will we cover in the series?
• How is this series different than all of the Medium articles out there?
• What is my motivation for doing this?
• Mental health check: Don’t skip the last video on rejection & objection handling!

🏁 Step 1 // How to qualify your investors

9 minutes (💡4.5m on 2x playback rate)

Statistically, I believe you need 120 qualified investors to get 2-3 to say “yes”. Most founders waste a ton of time talking to unqualified investors. Top reasons you’re wasting time:

1. You’re not targeting the right stage of investment
2. You’re not looking at which investors are actively investing in your sector
3. You’re taking any/every warm intro without pre-qualifying

How to qualify a solid 120 investors

• Do they invest in my sector?
• Are they actively investing?
• Do they participate at my round size?
• Are they a lead or follow at my stage?
• Do they invest or have they invested in my competition?

Resources in video:

Crunchbase Queries

Decent Medium article on how many investors you need

✏️Step 2 // How to setup your fundraising process

9 minutes (💡4.5m on 2x playback rate)

Fundraising is like selling

• Which investors do you want to meet?
• Who can connect you those investors?
• Once you meet them, how do you maintain momentum in your process?

Resources in video:

Notion Board (previously Trello)

Google Sheet Signup Warm Intro(s)

YCombinator Docs

📊 Step 3 // How to prepare the documents you'll need

14 minutes (💡7m on 2x playback rate)

Be prepared and iterate quickly. Here are the documents you’ll eventually need during your process. Better to have them ready ahead of time.

I would remake this series to harness the power of LLM prompts and AI agents, but the Startup In A Box by Notion will give you a great start:

• Company Overview
• Deck Outline
• SaaS Financial Model & Operating Budget
• Investor Data Room example
• GTM Plan
• Growth Model

Resources in video:

Docsend

Cal.com or Calendly

🏎️ Step 4 // How to keep up the momentum in your raise process

13 minutes (💡6.5m on 2x playback rate)

While investors are busy and distracted by lots of deals, this is your process. Here is how to run a tight 3-week process in which you move your investors thru your materials and keep up momentum in getting to a “yes” or “no” efficiently.

Resources in video: PDF of examples 👇

🎭 Step 5 // How to turn rejection into insight

13 minutes (💡6.5m on 2x playback rate)

Making rejection productive. Add fuel to your fire.

• Momentum
• Decoding rejection messages
• By the numbers
• Keeping track & looking for trends

Resources:

Remind me why I was in love with you

Six Reasons investors say ‘no’ and 7 More Rejection messages

Nice Things Founders Have Said About This Series

I haven't seen anything like this online. There's a Marc Andreessen version somewhere in the interwebs. But this one's better!

I love that you're showing an actual email and breaking it down. This is really valuable. There's a Marc Andreessen intro email like this, broken down as well, somewhere in the interwebz. It's very similar, but this one's better! I also love the first meeting's follow up email. It's so comforting and useful to be able to see one like this. Cadence of interest: GREAT to have a ballpark idea for what good momentum looks like. VERY useful. Thank you! Super-useful to see the overarching narrative of all these emails.

— Sebastian, Founder / Web 3, Gaming

TL;DR: minimum education for founders raising money. Watch it now. Moar plz thanks.

🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 My overall review? 5 popcorns (out of 5). A really super-solid, very necessary and thorough run through of all the steps a founder needs to hit to raise funds. I liked the forensic detail around how to break down email communications and which beats to hit at each step; I also really enjoyed the 'what funder says … what founder hears' bit. As you mentioned, it was exactly the rejection analysis people need! I also really enjoyed that you kind of tackled the whole thing as an individual process of iteration, as opposed to a definite equation. Somehow someone else acknowledging the fuzz was comforting.

— Aisha, Founder / SaaS

I'm soaking it up as I am starting my pre-seed raise next month. Your insights are invaluable — really appreciate it!

Hi Kelly, big thanks for the fundraising guidance! I'm soaking it up as I am starting my pre-seed raise next month. Your insights are invaluable — really appreciate it! Thanks a bunch.

— Ezgi, Founder / SaaS

I've been watching your fundraising series and thought I could breeze through it, but have been finding it even more helpful than I anticipated!

So, I'm taking my time and working your strategies & tactics into my fundraising process etc. 😀

— Jeremy, Founder / Web 3

Don't pay to have someone help you fundraise until you watch this series!

I was introduced to somebody who helps founders raise money, but once I interviewed her I was just like, 'let me show you what I got as a resource from someone (Kelly Nyland) who creates all this incredible fundraising material'. When she reviewed the videos, she was like 'Wow, this is wonderful material. This is exactly what I would have charged you for. It's great that Kelly is just putting this out there.'

— Anonymous, Founder / SaaS

You are my hero.

— Zack, Founder / SaaS

Really good job on the fundraising seminars. Funny to think that that was the process behind closing us!

— Richard, Investor / SaaS, Retail

Listening, working, taking notes. LOVE this and will be sure to share!

— Jonalyn, Founder / SaaS

Came across your fundraising video series. Thank you!

— Steven, Founder / DTC

Great information here. Thanks for sharing!

— Ryan, Founder / Marketplace

Your videos have become my go-to resource while fundraising…thank you!

I watched the video series and found it extremely helpful. Thank you for creating the resources, I am sure they will continue to support SO many founders with fundraising. Everything you've shared is stuff that I've never found anywhere else.

— Jamilla, Founder / SaaS

Running your process: This is far and away the most valuable video for me. I think it's because I haven't seen anything like this online. This is SO USEFUL!!

Video lengths are right on the sweet spot. How to set up your fundraising process: Love the Kanban board. Love the suggestion to evaluate the individual partners. The spreadsheet for the connectors is excellent. Assembling your materials: One key point on each page → great. Narrative flow → great. DocSend: I didn't know this! Super-cool. I'm going to try it. Thanks! Calendly: solid!

— Nicole, Founder / SaaS