A different type of engagement from our 30-day diagnostic - fundraising and investor strategy advisory work for an early-stage venture studio.
An early-stage venture studio thought their fundraising problem was access to investors. It wasn't - direct conversations with 20+ VCs surfaced the real constraint, and reshaped their entire strategy.
An early-stage venture studio wanted to build broader VC relationships to fund its portfolio companies.
We ran direct conversations with 20+ active investors to find out what was actually blocking investment.
The real constraint wasn't access; it was the studio's own equity retention model. VCs consistently avoided deals where too much equity sat with one company, since it left founders under-incentivised further down the funding line. Angel investors, driven more by founder connection than cap table structure, showed no such resistance. This helped shift the studio's entire fundraising strategy toward angel investors, specifically non-British foreign angels, sidestepping the added friction UK tax relief rules (EIS) had been creating.