Cold Outreach: When You Have No Warm Introductions

Sometimes you need to reach out cold. Learn how to craft emails that get responses and start building relationships with investors.

Cold Email Best Practices

Subject Line

Make it specific and relevant to them:

• "Following your thesis on B2B SaaS - [Company Name] intro" • "[Mutual connection] suggested I reach out - [Company] fundraising" • "[Company]: Scaling what [their portfolio company] started"

Email Structure

  1. 1. Personal connection: Why them specifically?
  2. 2. Problem/Solution: What do you do in 1-2 sentences
  3. 3. Traction: One impressive metric or milestone
  4. 4. Ask: Specific request (15-min call, coffee, etc.)

Cold Email Template

Subject: [Specific connection to their thesis/portfolio] - [Company] intro


Hi [Name],

I've been following [specific thing about them - recent investment, blog post, interview] and your focus on [their investment area] really resonates with what we're building.

we're [company] - we help [target customer] [solve specific problem] by [unique approach]. We've [one impressive traction metric] in the past [timeframe].

Given your experience with [relevant portfolio company/sector], I'd love to get 15 minutes of your time to share what we're working on and get your thoughts.

I've attached a brief deck. Happy to provide any additional context.

Best,
[Your name]