7 investor tips for raising smart & fast

If you’re currently prepping for a Seed or Series A round, here is your playbook for navigating the 2026 capital landscape with your equity, autonomy, and sanity intact.

Our recent Raise Fast & Smart breakfast broke away from the high-pressure atmosphere typical of the 'pitch,' creating a safe, welcoming space where investors and founders could drop the barriers and connect on a human level.

We’ve rounded up the best, unfiltered advice from our panel of experts: Andy Hodgetts (Infinity CF), David Miles (Foresight Group), Georgia Jones (Piper), and Ashley Abrahams (Guinness Ventures).

Ditch the Labels, Lead with the 'Hard Numbers'

Whether it’s 'Seed+,' 'Pre-Series A,' or 'Series A-adjacent,' funding labels have become increasingly subjective. Our panel was blunt: Venture terminology is a distraction. Investors don’t buy into a 'Series A'; they buy into a business with specific, repeatable metrics. Instead of pitching a 'Seed round,' lead with the raw data: your current revenue, your month-on-month growth, and your specific check size. Being transparent about your 'hard numbers' signals that you’re a founder focused on execution, not optics.

Pass the 'Who Pays Who for What?' Test

David noted that the most common reason a deck gets trashed is simple: the investor can't figure out how you make money. By slide five, if an investor is still guessing about your revenue stream, they’ve already checked out.

Your first two slides must pass the 'Grandmother Test.' If you can’t explain exactly who is paying you and what they are getting in return, your messaging is broken.

The AI Litmus Test: Your New First Impression

In 2026, the gatekeeper isn't just a junior analyst, it’s an AI. Almost every deck is now run through an engine (like Claude or ChatGPT) for a preliminary summary before a human ever sees it.

Run your deck through an AI today. Ask it: 'Summarise the core value proposition and the biggest risk in this deck.' If the output isn't what you intended, your deck is too cluttered. Rewrite it until the AI gets it right.

Master the 'Porter’s Five Forces'

Ashley highlighted a classic business school tool that is making a major comeback in 2026: Porter’s Five Forces. Investors are using this to see if you truly understand your market dynamics beyond just a 'competitor tick-box' slide.

When prepping your strategy, look at your business through these five lenses:

• Threat of New Entrants: How high are your moats?

• Bargaining Power of Suppliers: Who controls your costs?

• Bargaining Power of Buyers: How easily can your customers walk away?

• Threat of Substitutes: What is the non-obvious alternative to your product?

• Competitive Rivalry: Is this a race to the bottom on price, or can you maintain margins?

Solve the 'Missing Data' Mystery

Investors look for what isn’t in the deck. If you hide your churn or skip your repeat rates, they assume the numbers are terminal. Georgia emphasised that hiding 'ugly' data is the fastest way to kill trust.

Include the 'messy' data, but pair it with a slide on your plan to fix it. A founder who owns their weaknesses is infinitely more investable than one who pretends they don't exist.

Prioritise 'The Pint Test'

Fundraising is often compared to a marriage. Disagreements kill businesses more often than bad markets do. Before you sign a term sheet, you need to know that this is a partner you can trust when things go sideways.

Do your own due diligence. Ask the investor for references from founders of companies that failed. It’s easy to be a good partner when growth is 'up and to the right' - you need to know how they behave in the 'tough bits.' If you wouldn't want to sit in a pub with them during a crisis, don't take the capital.

Reframe 'No' as Just 'Not Yet'

The session ended with a powerful reminder from Andy: It only takes one. You can receive 100 'No's' and still close a massive round on the 101st try.

The difference between a 'no' and a 'not yet' is execution. If an investor passes, ask for three specific milestones they’d need to see for a 'yes' in six months. Document them, hit them, and go back with proof. There is no stronger signal to a VC than a founder who does exactly what they said they would do.

Final Thought

At the end of the day, investors don’t expect you to know everything; they expect you to have the curiosity to ask. It is vital to avoid the ‘fundraising slog’ in isolation - not just for your own sanity, but because scaling requires a shift in how decisions are made.

The 'gut feeling' and solo intuition that fueled your early success will only take the business so far. As you scale, that road runs out of tarmac quickly, and the strategic weight of a board or trusted group of advisors becomes your new engine for growth. Don't face the next stage alone; the best decisions are rarely made in a vacuum.

Watch the full event here