Who Says Yes First?

Who Says Yes First? Raise Smarter blog hero

Every round and every fund has a first committed investor. After that yes, each new investor asks who else is in, and the answer becomes part of the pitch. Here’s what one week of round data shows, a Series B led by an investor from the Series A, a debut fund that credits its first founders as its proof, and how founders and fund managers can line up a first yes the next investor can check.

This post covers relationships and process. It isn’t legal or investment advice.

One Week of Rounds

Fundable Notes, a weekly newsletter by Leon Eisen, tracks verified US rounds of $5 million to $100 million. For the week of October 12 to 18, it counted 26 rounds:

  • Returning investors: 19 of the 26 rounds (73.1%) included an investor who had backed the company before.
  • Share of capital: those 19 rounds took $775.0 million of the week’s $901.2 million (86.0%).
  • Leads: five of the 26 were led or co-led by a prior investor.

Context matters here. This is one curated week, with the author’s own scoring. The week before, 13 of 22 rounds (59.1%) had a returning investor. Healthcare took 43.7% of the week’s capital, and all nine healthcare rounds had a returning investor, which pulls the numbers around. So this isn’t a trend, and it doesn’t show that returning investors make rounds bigger or faster. It also covers rounds of $5 million and up, larger than most pre-seed and seed rounds.

What it does show is how often the people already on a cap table are part of the next yes.

Case Study: Albert’s Series B

On October 13, Albert, an Oakland company building chemistry-native AI for enterprise R&D, announced a $55 million Series B “led by TCV.” New investors included Delta-v Capital, Socium Ventures, HighSage Ventures, Coral Capital and Legion VC. Existing investors Coatue, J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners, Index Ventures and Applied Ventures also took part.

TCV was named among the investors in Albert’s $22.5 million Series A in December 2024, a round led by Coatue. Fundable Notes counts the Series B as led by a prior investor.

The release doesn’t say how the TCV relationship developed or who committed first, so I won’t guess. And Albert is a venture-scale enterprise company at Series B, not a seed story. The point is narrower: an investor that already knew the company, its customers and its team was the one that led the next, larger round.

The Fund Side: First Founders as Proof

Fund managers face the same question from the other direction.

Eastend Ventures, an Adelaide firm founded by JD Sheard and Josh Garratt, closed its debut Fund 1 at A$30 million (Australian dollars) on September 30, with more than 50 sophisticated investors and family offices from Australia, Singapore and the US, according to Startup Daily and InDaily. Sheard: “The founders who partnered with us early, before the fund had a track record, gave us something to show every investor who came after.”

In Sofia, LAUNCHub Ventures announced a €65 million first close of its Fund III on October 1, targeting more than €75 million, according to EU-Startups. Its backers include the European Investment Fund, EBRD, family offices and “more than ten LAUNCHub portfolio founders who have exited their own companies.” That’s a first close; the final close is still ahead.

Both accounts come from the firms themselves. But they describe the same thing: for a first-time GP, the founders you backed first become the proof every later LP looks at.

What LPs Say They Check

McGuireWoods published takeaways from its inaugural emerging-manager conference on October 21. LPs there said references are critical, both on-list and off-list, and that a lot of real diligence happens through informal conversations with former colleagues and portfolio executives. That’s a law firm’s summary of panel views, not a statistic, but it matches what Sheard described.

What Founders Can Do Now

  1. Start with the people who already know your work. Past investors, advisors, former colleagues, early customers. Ask them before anyone else, and ask what they’d need to see to commit.
  2. Prepare for “who else is in?” Know who your first committed investor is, what they’ll say about you and whether they’ll take a call from the next investor. Ask their permission before you open the round.
  3. No past investors? Find one believer first. A smaller first check from someone who has watched you work gives the next investor something to check. Never invent urgency or imply interest you don’t have.
  4. Model, test, adjust. Before you open the round, have one trusted person play the second investor and ask, “Who else is in, and can I call them?” Fix whatever you can’t answer.

What GPs Can Do Now

  1. Treat your first founders as your reference list. Ask what they’d tell a prospective LP, and make sure they know the call might come.
  2. Expect off-list calls. LPs talk to people you didn’t name. Keep relationships with former colleagues and founders you passed on.
  3. Keep early backers informed. Founder LPs and first believers can only vouch for what they know. Regular updates keep their answers current.

The First Yes Is Built Before the Round

In these examples, the first yes didn’t come from a stranger. In that week’s sample it often came from an investor who had already backed the company. In Eastend’s account it came from founders who had already worked with the team. The relationships came first.

ConnectLab.live is a relationship discovery platform. It doesn’t predict who will lead a round and gives no financial advice. It shows warm paths alongside your own contacts, so you can see who in your network sits close to the investors who fit your raise.

Connection is the currency of the 21st Century.

Who would give you your first yes on your next round, and when did you last talk to them?

Sources

About Ken McArthur

Ken McArthur is the founder of ConnectLab.live, an AI relationship-intelligence and warm-intro platform that helps founders who are raising find the funds that fit and the people who can introduce them, and helps fund managers connect with the founders they back. He was recently accepted into Harvard Business School Foundry. He also writes Raise Smarter, a daily newsletter on what's really moving in early-stage fundraising. Ken challenges us to realize we ALL have an impact, whether we want to or not, on thousands of people we touch in our day-to-day lives, and he shows that simple things make a HUGE difference. ConnectLab.live grew out of that belief. Connection is the currency of the 21st Century, and the right introduction can change a company's future. Long before ConnectLab, Ken was the popular host of live events that brought together top-level marketers, entrepreneurs, business owners, corporations and non-profit organizations to build multi-million dollar joint venture relationships. He has managed product launches ranked in the top 400 sites on the Internet and is regularly asked to speak at leading marketing events. He created AffiliateShowcase.com, a pioneering affiliate program search engine and directory. He also founded the MBS Internet Research Center, which conducted the world's largest survey ever attempted on creating and launching successful information products. Ken was the official mentor for Sterling Valentine as he took his launch from zero to over $100,000 in less than 8 days, a proof of concept documented in Info Product Blueprint. Today he puts that same skill for connecting people and launching ideas to work for founders and the investors who back them.

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