FUNDRAISING GUIDE

Pre-seed fundraising guide

Turn your idea into a fundable thesis

Pre-seed funding is the earliest institutional capital a startup raises, typically before a product is fully built or validated in the market. At this stage, investors are betting primarily on the founding team and the size of the problem being solved. European pre-seed rounds are usually led by angel investors, micro-VCs, or accelerators who can move quickly with less formal due diligence.

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Typical metrics

Round size€150k–€500k

Pre-money valuation€1M–€3M

Equity dilution10–20%

Monthly burn rate€10k–€30k

Runway post-raise12–18 months

Fundraising tips

Lead with the problem and why you are uniquely positioned to solve it — at pre-seed, your story and conviction matter more than metrics.
Target investors who have backed companies at idea stage before; check their portfolio for pattern matching.
Keep your pitch deck to 10–12 slides and practice distilling your thesis to a 60-second verbal summary.
Use warm introductions wherever possible — a founder reference from another portfolio company converts far better than a cold email.
Close your round quickly by setting a clear deadline and being transparent about who else is already in.

Common mistakes to avoid

!Building too much before fundraising — pre-seed investors want to see a tight hypothesis, not months of unsolicited development.
!Valuing yourself based on potential rather than evidence, leading to a cap that scares away seed investors later.
!Pitching to large Series A or B funds who have no mandate to write pre-seed cheques.
!Neglecting to agree on pro-rata rights and information rights in the term sheet, which causes friction at seed.
!Raising too little to reach a meaningful seed milestone, leaving you underfunded at the worst moment.

Typical timeline

4–8 weeks from first meeting to term sheet

What investors look for

A credible founding team with relevant domain expertise or unfair distribution advantage.
A clearly articulated problem with evidence that real people experience it and are willing to pay to solve it.
A large addressable market — European pre-seed investors typically want to see a credible path to €100M+ revenue.
Early signals of product thinking: wireframes, landing page signups, waitlist numbers, or letters of intent.
Founder resilience and coachability — pre-seed backers will work closely with you for years.

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