352 Investors Who Take Cold Pitches (and the Order to Pitch Them In)
1. Key Themes
Theme: The "warm intro" gospel is a barrier for non-networked founders, and a public cold-pitch database is a credible alternative
Warm intros disadvantage founders without elite networks
The article argues the standard advice only works for a narrow group, costing everyone else time while runway burns.
- "Every founder gets the same advice before their first raise: find a warm intro."
- "That works if you went to Stanford or sat next to a partner at your last job. Everyone else loses three weeks asking friends of friends for favours while the runway shrinks."
352 investors have opted in to cold outreach
The supply of cold-pitch-friendly capital is larger and more explicit than most founders assume. Each investor self-reports their preferences.
- "352 investors have put their names in a public database saying they want your cold pitch. Each one filled in the form personally, listing the sectors they back, their cheque size, their stage, whether they lead, and how many of their investments started with a cold email."
Theme: "Cold deal count" is the most decision-relevant field for outreach prioritization
Track record of funding strangers beats stated openness
The author singles out the cold-deal column as the field that should reshape outreach, and the sample data shows wide variance in actual cold-sourced deals.
- "That last column changes how you should run your outreach."
- Exhibit 1 shows 10 of the first 18 investors report at least one cold-sourced deal: "Seven of the first 18 investors say they lead rounds, and ten report at least one deal that started with a cold pitch."
- Variance is large: Chris Moreno (80/20 Fund) reports 17 cold deals, Danielle Strachman (1517 Fund) 10, Ana Maury Aguilar (AC Ventures) 8, Pranavi Cheemakurti (Acceleprise) 7, versus 1-2 for several others. The chart notes "67 cold deals in the first 18 rows."
Theme: Outreach should be systematized as a filtered, sequenced process rather than a spray-and-pray exercise
Filter, order, and template the outreach
The premium content promises a pitch order, filters, and a structured email, framing cold outreach as a process.
- "The pitch order that the data points to, and why most founders get it backwards"
- "Five filters that cut 352 names to a shortlist you can work this week"
- "A five-line cold email built from the fields in the base"
- The headline summary states: "The full base, the pitch order and a five-line email."
Theme: Investor fit varies sharply by stage and geography, and list selection should match your raise
Stage and region coverage differs across lists
Exhibit 4 maps eight additional lists with 7,900+ investors, and guidance on which suit which stage.
- "Eight more investor lists add more than 7,900 investors, and six of them suit pre-seed and seed founders"
- "Raising pre-seed or seed? Start with the US early-stage map, the angel lists and the 144 pre-seed family offices. The European family offices and the top-100 ranking fit Series A and later."
- Lists include 1,503 US early-stage investors, 903 European seed funds, 2,500 SaaS angels, 2,000+ European family offices, 144 pre-seed family offices, 590+ US women angels, 200+ US AI angels, and 100 best-performing VC firms.
2. Contrarian Perspectives
Cold outreach beats the warm-intro orthodoxy, and the pitch order most founders follow is backwards
- The article rejects the near-universal advice outright: "Every founder gets the same advice before their first raise: find a warm intro."
- The author claims the sequencing most founders use is wrong: "The pitch order that the data points to, and why most founders get it backwards." (The specific order is paywalled, so the reasoning isn't visible.)
- Supporting evidence: investors with large cold-deal counts exist (e.g., 17 cold deals for Chris Moreno), and 10 of 18 sampled investors report at least one cold-originated investment.
Self-reported openness is not enough; track record of funding strangers is the real signal
- The author implies that what investors say they want matters less than what they've done: "how many of their investments started with a cold email" is "that last column [that] changes how you should run your outreach."
- Some investors claim openness but report no cold deals (a dash means the field was blank), so openness alone is a weak filter. Exhibit 1 footnote: "Cold deals is the number of investments the investor says started from cold outreach; a dash means the field was left blank."
3. Companies Identified
- Description: Newsletter/resource publisher for founders and investors.
- Why mentioned: Publisher of the cleaned-up investor database, lists, decks, and models.
- Quotes: "Here are the first 18 rows, cleaned up and colour-coded"; "Source: public Airtable investor base, first 18 rows as of October 2026"
- Description: Investment fund (Soham Avlani).
- Why mentioned: Appears as a lead-investing fund in the sample.
- Quotes: Exhibit 1 lists $250K-$2M first cheques, leads: "Yes," tagged "Love crazy ideas."
18.ventures
- Description: Venture fund (David Meister).
- Why mentioned: Sample row; AI/ML and BioTech focus, 2 cold deals.
- Quotes: Exhibit 1: $200K-$400K first cheque; cold deals: 2.
80/20 Fund
- Description: Fund (Chris Moreno).
- Why mentioned: Highest cold-deal count in the sample (17) and a distinctive thesis.
- Quotes: Tagged "No-degree founders"; first cheque "Up to $250K"; cold deals: 17.
- Description: Seed fund (Jai Malik).
- Why mentioned: Aerospace/hard tech focus in the sample.
- Quotes: Exhibit 1: "Up to $250K"; 1 cold deal.
468 Capital
- Description: Fund (Vlada Labzeyeva).
- Why mentioned: Leads rounds; AI/ML and cybersecurity.
- Quotes: Exhibit 1: leads "Yes"; "Up to $2M."
1517 Fund
- Description: Fund (Danielle Strachman, Zak Slayback).
- Why mentioned: Two partners in the sample, both with cold deals.
- Quotes: Strachman 10 cold deals; Slayback 2 cold deals, tagged "Love crazy ideas."
2048 Ventures
- Description: Fund (Paul Sethi, Zann Ali).
- Why mentioned: Pre-seed/seed B2B/SaaS investor; Sethi reports 5+ cold deals.
- Quotes: Sethi leads "Flexible," $300K-$500K; Ali leads "Yes," $300K-$600K.
AC Ventures
- Description: Fund (Ana Maury Aguilar).
- Why mentioned: CleanTech/Fintech, larger cheques, 8 cold deals.
- Quotes: "$500K-$2.5M"; cold deals: 8.
Acceleprise Ventures
- Description: Fund (Pranavi Cheemakurti).
- Why mentioned: FemTech/InsurTech focus, 7 cold deals.
- Quotes: "$100K-$600K"; cold deals: 7.
Acquired Wisdom Fund
- Description: Generalist fund (Mendel Chuang, Derek Langton).
- Why mentioned: Small-cheque lead investor.
- Quotes: "$25K-$75K"; leads: "Yes."
Acronym Venture Capital
- Description: Fund (Mat Kaliski).
- Why mentioned: Series A focus, "Finds leads" rather than leading.
- Quotes: "$500K"; leads: "Finds leads."
Adapt Ventures
- Description: Fund (Mohammed Amdani).
- Why mentioned: Fintech/Media, idea-stage capable.
- Quotes: "$25K-$250K."
Alchemy
- Description: Fund (Alex Macdonald), partially blurred in the chart.
- Why mentioned: Row 16, a preview of the paywalled data.
- Quotes: B2B/Marketplace, 3 cold deals, "$10K-$500K."
Synthesia
- Description: AI video company.
- Why mentioned: Its pitch deck is offered as a case study.
- Quotes: "Synthesia's 18-slide deck"
4. People Identified
Ruben Dominguez
- Description: Author/publisher of The VC Corner.
- Why mentioned: Byline of the newsletter.
- Quotes: "Ruben Dominguez"
Chris Moreno (80/20 Fund)
- Description: Investor.
- Why mentioned: Highest cold-deal count in the sample.
- Quotes: Cold deals: 17; tag "No-degree founders."
Danielle Strachman (1517 Fund)
- Description: Investor.
- Why mentioned: Second-highest cold-deal count in the sample.
- Quotes: Cold deals: 10; idea-to-seed stages.
Soham Avlani (9Unicorns)
- Description: Investor.
- Why mentioned: Lead investor with large cheque range, "Love crazy ideas."
- Quotes: "$250K-$2M"; leads: "Yes."
Zak Slayback (1517 Fund)
- Description: Investor.
- Why mentioned: Leads rounds; "Love crazy ideas" tag.
- Quotes: Leads "Yes"; cold deals: 2.
Paul Sethi (2048 Ventures)
- Description: Investor.
- Why mentioned: Flexible lead/follow, 5+ cold deals.
- Quotes: "$300K-$500K"; cold deals: 5+.
Ana Maury Aguilar (AC Ventures)
- Description: Investor.
- Why mentioned: 8 cold deals with large cheques.
- Quotes: "$500K-$2.5M."
Pranavi Cheemakurti (Acceleprise Ventures)
- Description: Investor.
- Why mentioned: 7 cold deals, FemTech/InsurTech.
- Quotes: "$100K-$600K."
Other investors in the sample: David Meister (18.ventures), Jai Malik (208 Seed Ventures), Vlada Labzeyeva (468 Capital), Zann Ali (2048 Ventures), Mendel Chuang and Derek Langton (Acquired Wisdom Fund), Mat Kaliski (Acronym), Mohammed Amdani (Adapt Ventures), Alex Macdonald (Alchemy). Each appears as a row in Exhibit 1 with stage, cheque size, and lead status.
5. Operating Insights
Prioritize investors by cold-deal count, not by brand or stated openness. The author flags this field as the one that "changes how you should run your outreach." Practically: shortlist investors with 5+ or 10+ cold deals first, since they have demonstrably funded strangers (Exhibit 1 color-codes 10+, 5-9, and 1-4).
Quote the investor's own self-written tags in your pitch. The base includes self-written tags (e.g., "Love crazy ideas," "No-degree founders"), flagged as "a self-written tag worth quoting in your pitch." Personalization is built into the data.
Filter hard and keep the email to five lines built from database fields. The author promises "five filters that cut 352 names to a shortlist you can work this week" and a "five-line cold email built from the fields in the base." Match on sector, cheque size, stage, and lead status before sending anything, rather than blasting the full list.
6. Overlooked Insights
The data is self-reported and messy, with real limits on reliability. The footnotes disclose that "Every field is self-reported by the investor; cheque formats were normalised by The VC Corner, and a striped bar marks an upper limit only," and that some entries were ambiguous ("Entered as '$254 - $250K' and '$25,000K - $250,000K'; shown here as the most likely reading"). Founders should verify cheque sizes and cold-deal claims before relying on them.
Family offices that write pre-seed cheques are a niche, underused investor class. Exhibit 4 lists "144 family offices that cut pre-seed cheques" as a distinct global list, separate from the 2,000+ European family offices that fit Series A and later, suggesting a small, specific pool of non-VC capital for the earliest stage.