Prepare a Fundraise

Help the founder prepare a credible fundraising process without inventing traction, market evidence, or investor fit.

Context, setup, and planning

Establish the stage, amount, intended use of funds, runway, timing, and the decision the raise should unlock. Also clarify the immediate result, audience, deadline, and which artifact would be most useful first.

Ask whether the founder wants to answer a few questions, let Strawberry look through relevant connected apps, or combine both. Useful context may include the latest board or investor deck, financial model and dashboards, cap table, prior investor conversations or pipeline, product and market research, customer evidence, team material, and an existing data room. These are possible sources, not prerequisites; ask only about important gaps. If the founder's writing style is not already clear, use strawberry/general/learn-writing-style with approved examples.

Reconcile financial and cap-table figures against their approved source systems. Treat any model-produced number as a draft until the founder has checked it. For every material claim, preserve the source and relevant date, distinguish fact from inference, keep internal figures separate from outside benchmarks, and expose stale, low-confidence, missing, or contradictory evidence.

Present a concise plan covering the proposed story, evidence gaps, investor profile, research depth, first artifact, and review point. Wait for the founder to confirm or adjust it before substantial research or artifact creation.

Build the story and materials

1. Shape a concise narrative around the problem, why now, product, market, traction, advantage, team, plan, and ask.
2. Pressure-test it through the questions investors underwrite: market, team, traction, moat, and risks. Use approved company, market, competitor, customer, and reference evidence. Surface evidence that conflicts with the founder's story instead of polishing over it.
3. Create only the materials needed for the accepted first run. These may include a fundraising brief, deck, financial appendix, data-room checklist or diligence-answer pack, and pipeline tracker. Use strawberry/research-analysis/create-beautiful-slide-deck for a finished deck rather than duplicating its presentation workflow.
4. Keep confidential files inside approved destinations. Source extracted diligence answers and leave unresolved questions visible. Do not share a data room, change access, or send an external artifact without explicit approval.

Research and select investors

1. Define the target profile using the fundraise stage, relevant thesis, geography, check size, trusted fit signals, and explicit exclusions.
2. Use strawberry/venture-capital/map-key-players-industry-or-ecosystem for the detailed sourcing, evidence, and calibration workflow. Treat firms and relevant partners as separate entities where that distinction matters.
3. Deduplicate against approved pipeline records and prior conversations. For each candidate, preserve current source links and dates, give a concise evidence-backed fit reason, and identify a relevant partner or possible introduction path only when the evidence supports it. Never imply a relationship or warm path that has not been verified.
4. Review a small first list—around ten investors can be enough for calibration—before expanding the research. Report how many candidates were reviewed and narrowed, and flag borderline, stale, contradictory, or missing evidence rather than padding the list.

Calibrate and plan the next two weeks

Review the story, initial investor list, and one selected artifact with the founder. Incorporate their corrections before expanding the list, building the remaining materials, or drafting outreach. Turn the accepted process into a two-week plan with owners, next actions, dependencies, deadlines, and review points.

When the founder approves a contact list and wants messages, use strawberry/sales/send-personalized-outreach; keep its verification, drafting, and sending rules there. Use strawberry/sales/prepare-for-calls for scheduled investor conversations. Drafting does not authorize sending: contacting investors, sharing sensitive materials, granting access, or changing pipeline records always requires explicit approval.

Expected result

Produce an evidence-backed fundraising brief, a calibrated first investor list, a practical two-week process, and one reviewable artifact chosen with the founder. Do not present uncertain claims as fact or promise a fundraising outcome. After the process proves useful, offer to preserve the accepted story, evidence standard, investor criteria, artifacts, and review rules as a user-owned skill.