Why warm paths matter more in fundraising than almost anywhere else

Investors see a lot of cold inbound, and relatively few deals come from it. In a survey of 885 venture capitalists by Gompers, Gornall, Kaplan and Strebulaev, 31% of the deals they closed came through their professional networks, 20% were referred by other investors and 8% by portfolio companies. Only 10% came inbound from founders. A warm intro from someone they trust — a portfolio founder, a co-investor, a person they've worked with — puts you in the larger group. This makes network search unusually high-leverage during a raise.

Where the warm paths actually are

  • Founders they've backed. Portfolio founders are often one of the best sources of a warm intro to a fund — they have standing credibility with the partners.
  • Former colleagues now in venture. Operators who moved into VC are usually reachable through old coworkers, even a few degrees removed.
  • Co-investors and syndicate members. If you have one investor committed, ask who else in their network might be a fit — the intro often comes from inside the round itself.
  • Your existing cap table or advisors. Current investors and advisors usually have broader VC networks than founders realize, and are motivated to help.

A practical raise workflow

  1. Build your target investor list first, same as any outbound motion.
  2. For each fund, search your network (and your co-founders' and current investors') for any existing connection.
  3. Prioritize outreach to funds where a warm path exists; queue the rest for a well-researched cold email.
  4. Ask connectors for a specific, short intro they can forward with minimal effort.

Don't skip the check because it feels slow

Manually cross-referencing a 30-fund target list against your network (and your co-founders') is the kind of task that gets skipped under time pressure, even though it's often the highest-leverage hour of the week during a raise. People by Sniff runs that cross-reference in seconds — ask "who in my network can introduce me to seed investors in [sector]" and get a ranked list back instead of doing it fund by fund.

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