Funding round outreach: what to say instead of "congrats"
A company just announced a funding round. Here's how to write to them without sounding like everyone else in their inbox, with a simple template.
Outrun team4 min read
The day a funding round hits the news, the founder's inbox fills up. Investors, recruiters, agencies, tool vendors, and a lot of people who opened with "Huge congrats!".
If your email looks like theirs, it gets treated like theirs. Here's how to write one that doesn't.
Why a funding round is a good reason to write
It's public, it's dated, and it usually comes with a stated plan: "we'll use this to expand into X" or "grow the team". That plan is your way in.
It is not proof they need you. A raise tells you something changed. It doesn't tell you what they'll spend it on. Your job in the first email is to find out, not to assume.
Why "congrats" doesn't work
"Congratulations on the raise!" is polite and easy to ignore. It tells the reader nothing about you and asks them for nothing, so there's no reason to reply.
It's also what every other sender wrote, usually from a template that has swapped in the company name. Founders spot those in half a second.
What to say instead
Use three sentences. One about them, one about the problem, one question.
- The fact. Name the round and the date, and say where you saw it. Only use details that are in the source.
- The problem it creates. Link what they said the money is for to a problem you know well.
- The question. One, small, easy to answer.
A template you can steal:
Saw [Company] announced [round] on [date] and that the plan is to [stated use of funds].
Teams that go from [stage A] to [stage B] often hit [specific problem] around then.
Is that on your list for the next quarter, or already sorted?
That's it. No "quick call", no calendar link, no paragraph about us.
Use their words, not your guess
If the announcement says they're expanding to a new market, write about that market. If it says they're building a sales team, write about onboarding sales hires. If it says nothing about plans, don't invent one: ask what the money is for.
Never quote an amount or an investor you can't see in the source. Getting a number wrong is worse than leaving it out.
Timing
Write while the announcement is still in the news, but don't write in the first hour. Give the congratulatory noise a day to die down. A short, specific email a day or two later stands out against the pile from the first morning.
Funding is also a moving target. A company that raised a month ago may have already chosen its vendors, so the earlier you notice, the better your odds. That's an argument for a daily routine, not for panic.
Who to send it to
For a small company, usually a founder. For a larger one, the person who owns the area you sell into. We cover that properly in our post on who to contact at a company that just raised.
How to find the rounds in the first place
You can watch funding and startup news yourself, and for UK companies you can check Companies House filings. That's a daily habit, and daily habits are the first thing to slip.
Outrun does that bit. Funding rounds are one of the signals behind the leads in the digest, and every lead links to the source it came from. You get the digest every weekday at 7am, with named contacts, so you can spend your morning writing the email rather than hunting for the news.
Checklist before you hit send
- Is the first line about them, with a date?
- Did you use only facts that are in the source?
- Is there exactly one question?
- Would the email still make sense if you deleted the company name? If yes, it's a template. Rewrite it.
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