How to Find Investor Contacts for Your Startup Raise
Finding the right investor emails is the part of fundraising nobody warns you about. You have the pitch deck. You have the conviction. But the pipeline is empty. Here's how founders actually build it.
The hard truth about cold outreach
Warm introductions are the gold standard — and if you have them, use them first. But most first-time founders are building their list from scratch. And the internet makes it look easier than it is: investor websites are vague, LinkedIn scraping is against TOS, and contact forms exist to keep you out.
What's actually needed is a structured approach. Here's the rank of methods by speed, coverage, and quality.
1. Investor databases and directories
The fastest way to get a broad list. Crunchbase, PitchBook, and The Raise List compile investor organisations and the people inside them. You filter by geography, stage, and sector, then export.
What you get: Names, titles, organisations, and — if the database is good — email addresses. The Raise List specifically focuses on verified emails for every individual contact.
✓ Fastest way to build a list from scratch. One-time cost, permanent access.
2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Search by title ("Partner", "Investment Director"), company ("Sequoia Capital"), and geography. Export up to 250 leads per month on the basic plan.
The catch: LinkedIn doesn't give you email addresses. You need a separate email finding tool (Apollo, Hunter.io) to fill that gap — and the enrichment is often wrong.
✗ Requires manual email enrichment. Accuracy varies. Time-intensive.
3. Firm websites and team pages
Go to Sequoia.com, look at the team page, note the partners, then cross-reference with their professional profiles for email patterns.
The catch: This works for 10–20 firms. It doesn't scale to 200. And most partner pages don't list email addresses.
✗ Works for warm targets. Doesn't scale to a broad pipeline.
4. AngelList and Crunchbase
Both platforms list investors, their check sizes, and sometimes their emails. AngelList has the advantage of allowing you to follow specific investors and get notified of their activity.
✓ Good for angels and micro-VCs. Less comprehensive for institutional funds.
5. Warm intros from your network
Ask every person you know: "Do you know anyone who has invested in [your sector] recently?" Two degrees of separation is usually enough to reach a partner.
★ Highest conversion rate. But you need to already know people who know investors.
How to actually use an investor list
Getting the list is step one. Step two is building a pipeline, not a spam list. Here's what that means:
- Filter before you email. Don't email every VC in the world. Filter to your stage (pre-seed, seed, Series A), your geography, and your sector. A list of 200 qualified targets beats a list of 10,000 cold contacts.
- Personalise the first line. "I saw your firm invests in fintech in the UK" is a minimum. "Your portfolio company X just did Y, and we're doing something similar" is better.
- Follow up once. One follow-up email, 5–7 days later. That's it. If they haven't replied, move on.
- Track everything in a spreadsheet. Name, firm, email, sent date, response, outcome. It's a CRM in its simplest form.
The fastest path: pre-built investor lists
If you're doing a raise in the next 3–6 months, you don't have time to build a list from LinkedIn manually. The ROI on a £29–79 investor database is straightforward: one warm intro from a list you've worked through pays for itself many times over.
The Raise List gives you 13,000+ fundraising organisations and 8,000+ individual contacts — every one with a verified email — as a one-time download. No subscription. No per-seat fees. Your download link is permanent and always serves the latest version.
13,000+ organisations. 8,000+ emails. One download.
From £29. CSV + Excel. Free updates forever.
See pricing and get access →What to look for in an investor database
Not all investor lists are equal. Here's what separates a useful list from a waste of money:
- Email coverage: Every individual record should have an email address. If the list only has names and firm names, you still have to find the emails yourself.
- Freshness: Investor teams change constantly. Check when the list was last updated. A list from 2022 is stale.
- Linked files: Organisations and individuals should be cross-referenced. You want to go from a fund to the partners inside it in one lookup.
- No per-seat pricing: A one-time purchase means you own the data. Subscription models mean you lose access if you stop paying.
The Raise List is built for founders who are doing the outreach work themselves. It's a spreadsheet — CSV and Excel — that you can import into Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion, or any CRM. Filter by type, geography, and stage. Build your pipeline. Run your raise.