SUMMARY

Conor White, a capital advisory expert, shares tactical advice on raising startup funding in 2025, drawing from his firm's $600 million in secured deals, emphasizing a marketing-funnel approach amid eager investor dry powder.

STATEMENTS

Over the past two years, the speaker's firm has helped secure over $600 million in term sheets and capital commitments for clients ranging from seed-stage ventures to commercial-scale renewable energy projects across various industries.
In 2025, the economic environment favors fundraising due to quantitative tightening ending, creating urgency among investors with substantial dry powder eager to deploy capital into promising opportunities.
Hiring a capital advisory firm like the speaker's is effective but costly, with retainer fees ranging from $25,000 to $100,000, making it prohibitive for many startup founders.
Founders should treat fundraising as a systematized marketing funnel, including top-of-funnel outreach for interest, middle-funnel meetings for qualification and selling, and bottom-funnel conversion to secure term sheets.
Effective investor targeting involves building a list of 200 to 500 prospects based on recent activity, average check size matching the raise stage, and prior investments aligning with the company's profile.
Outreach must occur at scale via LinkedIn and cold emails, aiming for 4-7% response rates on high volumes like 1,000 to 5,000 contacts, with automated follow-ups since most responses come on the second email.
A compelling pitch deck must include the "why now" element to create urgency, FOMO, and scarcity, countering investors' risk-averse tendencies to wait for derisking or lead investors.
Fundraising requires a data room, such as a Google Drive folder, containing financials, product info, and the deck for investors to quickly evaluate the business.

IDEAS

Economic shifts like the end of quantitative tightening in 2025 are transforming a dormant investment landscape into one buzzing with urgency, where dry powder from institutions and family offices is ready to flood viable startups.
Fundraising mirrors a go-to-market strategy, turning investor acquisition into a scalable funnel rather than sporadic pitches, emphasizing volume over perfection in initial contacts.
Tools like Clay and Pitchbook enable hyper-personalized outreach by matching investor portfolios to startup profiles, using recent investments as hooks in cold emails.
Achieving 5-10 investor conversations weekly through massive outreach can compress fundraising timelines to 30-60 days, flipping the narrative from endless grinding to efficient closure.
Investors, despite being in venture capital, exhibit extreme risk aversion, often delaying commitments until opportunities are overripe, highlighting the need for engineered psychological levers like FOMO.
Retainer fees for advisory firms, starting at $25,000, underscore a hidden barrier in fundraising, forcing bootstrapped founders to master internal processes or risk exclusion from professional networks.
The majority of outreach responses—often over half—arrive on follow-up emails, revealing how single-touch attempts leave vast potential untapped in a numbers game.
Pitch decks frequently omit the "why now" urgency, a critical flaw that allows investors to procrastinate, akin to sales tactics in marketing where scarcity drives decisions.
Data rooms serve as silent closers, providing instant due diligence access that accelerates evaluations and builds trust without endless back-and-forth.
In a competitive era, mismatched targeting—like pitching seed rounds to growth-stage private equity—wastes cycles, while precise alignment on check size and vertical boosts hit rates dramatically.

INSIGHTS

Fundraising success in 2025 hinges on leveraging post-tightening investor eagerness, treating capital raises as precision-engineered funnels to convert dry powder into fuel for innovation.
Personalization through data tools transforms cold outreach into warm leads, but true velocity comes from scaling volume and follow-ups, mirroring digital marketing's core mechanics.
Investors' inherent risk aversion demands proactive urgency creation in pitches, using FOMO to bypass their wait-and-see inertia and secure commitments before opportunities evaporate.
Internal fundraising democratizes access for bootstrappers, bypassing high retainers by systematizing processes that rival professional firms in efficiency and outcomes.
High-volume outreach with automated persistence uncovers hidden response patterns, where second-touch conversions dominate, emphasizing diligence over sporadic effort.
Comprehensive data rooms act as trust accelerators, streamlining diligence to keep momentum alive and differentiate serious founders in a sea of incomplete propositions.

QUOTES

"Now is as good of a time as ever to raise capital."
"We treat fundraising like a marketing funnel."
"The majority of responses to our outreach come on the second email."
"Investors, while they're in the business of venture capital, they're some of the most risk-averse people you'll ever meet."
"You need to create urgency. You need to create FOMO. You need to create scarcity."

HABITS

Systematize fundraising as a structured process akin to go-to-market strategies, with defined stages for outreach, qualification, and conversion.
Conduct thorough research on investors using tools like Pitchbook and Clay to ensure alignment on stage, check size, and portfolio fit before outreach.
Scale outreach volume aggressively, targeting 1,000 to 5,000 contacts via LinkedIn and cold emails to achieve viable response rates.
Automate follow-up sequences with software like Instantly or Email Bison, scheduling second touches after three days to capture delayed responses.
Maintain a perpetually updated data room with all financials, decks, and product details to facilitate swift investor evaluations.

FACTS

The speaker's firm has secured over $600 million in term sheets and commitments across seed to series B ventures and utility-scale renewables.
2025 marks the end of quantitative tightening, shifting to an investor environment with abundant dry powder and high deployment urgency.
Typical advisory firm retainers for fundraising range from $25,000 to $100,000, often unaffordable for early-stage founders.
Cold outreach response rates average 4-7% for entirely new audiences, requiring high volume for meaningful results.
Post-COVID competitiveness peaked during high interest rates, but 2025 shows investors unable to deploy capital fast enough.

REFERENCES

Clay (data enrichment tool for investor research).
Pitchbook (database for tracking investor portfolios and recent deals).
Instantly and Email Bison (email automation software for outreach and follow-ups).
Google Drive or Dropbox (platforms for creating data rooms).

HOW TO APPLY

Build a targeted investor list of 200-500 by researching recent activity, average check sizes matching your raise (e.g., seed under $5 million), and portfolio fits via tools like Pitchbook, personalizing initial emails with specific past investments.
Launch scaled outreach using LinkedIn messages and cold emails to 1,000-5,000 prospects, crafting hooks like "Based on your investment in XYZ, our clean tech aligns closely," and track responses meticulously.
Implement automated follow-up sequences with tools like Instantly, sending a second email after three days if no reply, focusing on value addition to boost the 4-7% baseline response rate.
Prepare meetings by qualifying investors during calls, selling your vision while they evaluate you, aiming for 5-10 weekly conversations to maintain pipeline momentum.
Develop a pitch deck emphasizing the "why now" with urgency tactics like limited timelines or milestone unlocks from funding, paired with a data room containing all financials and docs for immediate access.

ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY

Treat fundraising as a high-volume marketing funnel to capitalize on 2025's eager investors and close deals swiftly.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Prioritize investors with recent deployments in your vertical to maximize relevance and response potential.
Engineer FOMO in pitches by detailing time-sensitive opportunities that funding will unlock within 1-2 months.
Avoid low-volume outreach; commit to thousands of touches with follow-ups to hit meaningful conversation thresholds.
Always include a "why now" section in decks to combat investor procrastination and drive quicker commitments.
Set up a data room early as a one-stop diligence hub to streamline evaluations and build credibility.

MEMO

In the bustling world of startup financing, 2025 emerges as a pivotal moment for founders seeking capital. Conor White, whose advisory firm has orchestrated over $600 million in deals from seed rounds to massive renewable energy projects, argues that the era of quantitative tightening has faded, unleashing a torrent of "dry powder" from institutions and family offices. No longer the freewheeling days of 2016 pitch-deck dreams nor the post-COVID chill of risk aversion, today's market pulses with urgency. Investors, flush with unspent funds, are scrambling to deploy—yet success demands strategy, not serendipity.

White likens fundraising to a meticulously run marketing campaign, a funnel that captures attention at the top, nurtures leads in the middle, and seals conversions at the bottom. For bootstrapped entrepreneurs wary of the $25,000 to $100,000 retainers charged by firms like his, the path forward is internal mastery. Start with a curated list of 200 to 500 investors: those actively writing checks in your stage and sector, vetted through platforms like Pitchbook or Clay. Personalize outreach—LinkedIn notes or cold emails referencing a target's recent bet on a similar venture—to pierce the noise.

Scale is the secret weapon. White recounts founders' folly in dabbing at 20 or 50 prospects, yielding scant replies; instead, blast thousands, banking on 4-7% response rates amplified by volume. Automation tools handle the grind, queuing follow-ups that snag most conversions on the second touch. This rigor can spark 5-10 weekly dialogues, compressing timelines to 30-60 days. But beware the pitch's Achilles' heel: omitting "why now." Investors, paragons of caution in a high-stakes game, dither for leads or milestones. Counter with urgency—FOMO, scarcity—detailing how $5 million today unlocks fleeting advantages before the window slams shut.

A polished deck alone won't suffice; pair it with a data room, a digital vault of financials, metrics, and artifacts, enabling swift scrutiny. White's counsel, born of sourcing deals for blue-chip funders, underscores a truth: capital abounds, but only the prepared will claim it. As dry powder itches for ignition, founders must ignite their own processes to thrive in this revitalized arena.