Hey, Jason here.
Welcome to the 900+ folks who've joined Fundraising Demystified since the last issue!
This week I talk about something I know all too much about: how AI can support your fundraising strategy (and no, it won't be a Thunder sales pitch all the way through).
Also;
📸 - Social Snapshot- What you should ask your investors
📊 - The cost of raising funding
🎙️ - Celebrity endorsements for startups with Gil Eyal
🆓 - Resources for founders looking to access capital or exit
Welcome to issue 115.
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Social Snapshot
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Getting Celebrity Endorsements to Scale Your Startup
with Gil Eyal
This week on Fundraising Demystified, I sat down with Gil Eyal of Stardust Ventures, who’s helped major brands land celebrity and influencer deals that actually move the needle. If you’re considering using celebrities or influencers to grow your startup, listen to this before spending a dime.
Watch Now
Listen on:
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Data Corner
The Cost of Fundraising
Raising a pre-seed round? Expect to spend around $10K, thanks to SAFEs as they're simple, standardized, and not much for lawyers to nitpick.
Seed rounds cost more, about $17K, but you’re also raising 2-5x more.
Series A? Double the bill because you’re now paying for your lawyers and your VCs’ lawyers, plus a more complex deal structure. Most term sheets include a clause making you cover investor legal fees, often capped at $25K.
By Series B, legal costs level off. Bigger checks, but the process stays the same—so the price tag does too.
Cheers to Hudson Bova for the data.
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Raising Capital for your startup?
Thunder's mission is to guide founders toward the right path to reach their North Star, be it through securing equity or debt financing or navigating the path to a successful exit.
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Fundraising is rigged, AI levels the playing field a bit
AI supports us in so many things these days, I always have a tab with either ChatGPT or Gemini open personally. So why do so many founders waste months chasing investors who were never going to fund them? Meanwhile, VCs use data and AI to surface the best deals instantly. The game has been one-sided for decades. But now, founders finally have access to the same AI-driven tools that can help them find the right investors before wasting time on the wrong ones. So why not use AI to help you raise capital? Here's how you can:
Investor Matching at Scale
Every investor has a thesis: specific sectors, check sizes, stages, geographies. The problem is that most of this data is buried in blog posts, Twitter threads, and outdated Crunchbase profiles. AI-powered investor databases (like Thunder) analyze these sources in real-time, surfacing the most relevant investors based on your company’s profile.
Instead of guessing who might be interested, you can now access investor shortlists tailored to your business, which means fewer wasted intros and more high-quality conversations.
Identifying hidden investor patterns
Some investors follow clear-cut mandates. Others operate in patterns that aren’t obvious at first glance. AI tools analyze historical investment data, uncovering trends like:
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Investors who consistently back second-time founders.
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VCs who invest in underrepresented founders, even if they don’t state it explicitly.
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Funds that tend to invest in B2B SaaS companies after they hit $1M ARR.
These insights help founders avoid the guesswork and focus their efforts on investors who are most likely to say yes.
Personalizing cold outreach (without sounding like a robot)
Mass emails to investors don’t work. But AI can help you write outreach that does. Tools like ChatGPT and investor research platforms can generate hyper-personalized email drafts, pulling in references to an investor’s recent deals, blog posts, or portfolio companies.
This means founders can scale outreach without losing personalization, making each email feel like a warm intro rather than a cold pitch.
Predicting investor response probability
AI tools are beginning to predict which investors are most likely to engage based on:
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How active they’ve been in the last six months
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Their historical response rates to cold outreach
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The likelihood they’ll invest in your stage/sector
This helps founders prioritize their outreach, focusing first on investors who are actually deploying capital instead of wasting time on the ones sitting on dry powder.
Automating follow-ups and pipeline tracking
Fundraising is a sales process, yet most founders treat it like an art rather than a science. AI-powered CRMs can:
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Automate follow-up reminders so investors don’t go cold
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Track open rates and responses to optimize messaging
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Suggest next steps based on investor engagement
Founders who use structured pipelines and data-driven follow-ups close rounds faster. AI just makes that process effortless.
The future of AI in fundraising
We’re just scratching the surface. Soon, AI will be able to:
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Analyze term sheets and flag potential red flags before founders even involve a lawyer.
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Simulate pitch meetings, offering real-time feedback on investor objections and improving your delivery (can't wait to see this).
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Predict fundraising success, helping founders tweak their approach before burning through warm leads.
VCs have had data advantages for decades. Now, founders are finally getting the tools to level the playing field.
Fair, fundraising will always be hard. But with AI, it doesn’t have to be a soul-sucking exercise in rejection. The best founders will use these tools to make capital-raising faster, more targeted, and (dare I say) less painful.
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Fundraising Resources
💸 - Access working capital fast - Explore options for free
😍 - Free list of AI Recommended VCs - Apply for free
👨💻 - Free fundraising coaching session - Schedule 15 minutes with us
📝 - Playbook for Negotiating Term Sheets - Download it Here
💽 - Playbook for Setting Up and Sharing Your Data Room - Download it Here
✉️ - Playbook for Sending Investing Updates - Download it Here
📞 - Guide to Nailing Your First Calls With Investors - Download it Here
📆 - Your 12-month Fundraising Plan- Download it Here
💫 - Pitch deck design services for founders by VCs - Decko
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Let's stay in touch:
- Written by Jason Kirby - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonrkirby
- Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for market and industry news and tips when it comes to raising capital and growing your business - https://join.thunder.vc
- Seeking to raise capital? Get your list of target VCs by creating a free profile here - https://web.thunder.vc
- Looking to raise debt? Explore tailored debt options for free by completing a profile at https://debt.thunder.vc
