in short
A PropTech company before its round: a pool of 120 investors across venture funds, corporate funds and strategic partners, 250 verified decision-maker contacts and scripts built on the company's strengths and industry growth forecasts. A 20% response rate, 50 investors in conversation, 10 offers and 3 deals.
Investor outreach for a PropTech company (property technology, software for the real estate market) ended with three successful deals out of a pool of 120 investors. Along the way: 250 verified decision-maker contacts, a 20% response rate and 10 offers, meaning proposals with terms. Below is who went into the pool, what we wrote, the full funnel and who this won't work for.
The job before the round
The client was a large PropTech company building digital products for the real estate market. It was getting ready to raise money for three things: scaling the product, entering new markets and growing the team.
The goal was to show investors three things: the business model works, the technology is strong and the company has room to grow. The script themes below line up with that goal.
How we built a pool of 120 investors
The search started with research into the PropTech market. The pool ended up with 120 investors of three kinds:
- Venture funds. They invest other people's money and look first at how big the company can get.
- Corporate funds, the investment arms of operating companies. They want returns, and a product that helps the parent business.
- Strategic partners: companies in adjacent industries that could use the product themselves. In PropTech the obvious ones are developers, who build and sell real estate.
The pool went wide because a founder usually knows about twenty funds, while in our experience three deals take about a hundred, roughly half of them corporate funds and strategics that founders think of last.
Next we collected and verified contacts for fund partners and investment directors: 250 decision-maker contacts, about twice the number of investors. Outreach needs to reach the people who run deals, not a shared info@ inbox, and a dead address means the investor never hears about the round.
Usually we pick funds by their deals in the sector over the last eighteen months and score each one on stage, check size and thesis (the theme it invests in). The guide on how to find investors for a startup covers this step by step.
What we wrote to investors
The scripts, meaning the outreach copy, were written for this round. They rested on three themes: the company's strengths, market trends and growth forecasts for the industry.
The logic behind that mix: the company's strengths speak to the business model and the technology, trends and forecasts to growth potential, since an investor buys what the company will become in a few years, and that depends on its market too. A trend answers why now, a forecast how much room is left.
We usually write a separate version per recipient type: venture fund, corporate fund, strategic, portfolio company. The hook comes from research: the fund's recent deal in the sector, its thesis or a portfolio company close to yours.
Here's an example of a first email to an investor for a round like this. It's a template, not copy from this project:
- Reason: "We noticed [fund] backed [portfolio company]. We work in the same space: [product] for [who in real estate]."
- Numbers: "[key metric], [growth over a period], [number of clients or projects]."
- Market: "[trend in real estate]; [source] expects the industry to [growth forecast]."
- Ask: "We're raising to scale the product and enter new markets. Would a call next week work for you?"
Numbers go in the second line on purpose: in our campaigns aimed at funds, 18-22% reply to an email with metrics and fewer than 5% to one without.
The funnel: from 120 investors to three deals
120investors in the pool
250decision-maker contacts
20%response rate
3successful deals
The response rate was 20%, and 50 investors engaged in conversation. Next came 10 offers, and three of them ended in successful deals. On the investor side, this case included venture funds, corporate funds and developers.
Another outcome of the project: we set up a meeting with the leadership of one of the key regions in MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) to discuss working together on the digital transformation of real estate and bringing PropTech solutions into large development projects.
Only a handful out of a hundred reach money
Three of the 120 investors in the pool reached a deal. That's normal fundraising math: only a handful out of a hundred reach money, so the pool needs room to spare. Twenty funds you already know won't add up to a round.
How to attract investors: what to take from this case
Four things carry over to your own round:
- Go wider than venture. Corporate funds and strategics make up about half of a working pool, and in PropTech that includes developers.
- Write to people, not inboxes: partners and investment directors at verified addresses.
- Company metrics first, market right after. Trends and forecasts explain growth potential but don't replace your own numbers.
- Work backward: decide how many deals you need, then size the pool.
This kind of fundraising outreach won't work without metrics: funds barely read an email with no numbers, so get first customers before you write. It won't work if you need the money this month, since in our experience the cycle to a check takes a quarter or more. It won't work if you want a guarantee either: we're responsible for the pool, the contacts and the conversations, and the fund makes the call. And the founder has to take the investor meetings personally.
The week-by-week steps and what stays with you after the project are on our investor outreach page.
Developers were among the investors in this case, and a list of venture funds alone would never have included them. If you're preparing a round, start your investor list by asking who besides funds gains when you grow.