Applications: Founders Who Pitch You
The other way startups reach you. Deal Room is you going to an incubator; Applications is founders coming to you directly, from your public investor profile.
What you will learn
- Where inbound pitches come from
- Triaging without letting the queue rot
- Shortlisting and converting to a deal
- Why your profile decides the quality of what arrives
Where these come from#
Founders find your public investor page - through the platform's discovery, an incubator, or a link you shared - and pitch you. What lands here is unfiltered by anyone but you.
Important
Your thesis, sectors, stages, geographies and cheque size are what founders match themselves against. A vague profile produces a queue of irrelevant pitches, and the fix is upstream on the profile rather than here.
Triage#
- 1
Read against your thesis, not against the pitch
The question is whether it is a fit for what you invest in, not whether the deck is good.
- 2
Shortlist what deserves a second look
Shortlisting is a holding position - it keeps something out of the noise without committing you to a pipeline slot.
- 3
Convert the real ones into deals
The moment you would put work into it, make it a deal. That is where notes, documents, meetings and requests live.
- If an active deal already exists for that startup, the portal says so rather than creating a duplicate.
- 4
Decline the rest
An untriaged queue costs you more than a declined pitch costs the founder.
Tip
Set a rhythm - once a week is plenty for most investors. Applications is the surface that quietly grows until it becomes unusable, and then gets abandoned.
Applications versus deals#
| Application | Deal | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A pitch you have received. | An opportunity you are working. |
| Who created it | The founder. | You. |
| What you can attach | Very little - it is an inbox item. | Notes, documents, meetings, tasks, requests, term sheets. |
| Counts towards your monthly limit | No. | Yes. |
Good to know
Because deals count against your monthly allowance and applications do not, converting everything on arrival is a bad habit. Convert when you intend to do work.
Common questions#
Check your profile is complete and your page is public. Founders cannot match against fields you left empty.
Tighten the profile - sectors, stages and cheque size especially. Vague criteria read as 'anything considered'.
They see the outcome. That is a good reason to decline promptly rather than leaving people waiting.
Yes, if their role grants deal flow. Reading and converting are separate actions, so you can let someone triage without letting them create deals.
