Email Strategies for GreenTech Founders

Stop the investment SPAM. The main reason that founders fail with their outreach for a potential investment are overly generic messages. Every day I get messages that congratulate me on my great investments in payment technologies, battery tech or other sectors I have never invested in. I delete all those messages - those founders just need money, they do not want to have ME on the captable. They have not done their homework. Messages often lack a link to the website, a link to their linkedin and a pitchdeck. I need to filter quickly. Everything that is missing makes this process more complicated for me and increases the chance of me not continuing the process because I can not distinguish between spam and legit outreach. The outreach is often not a match for my investment criteria speaking about rounds that are too late for me or funding sums that are not relevant to me. I delete all those messages. Again: homework not done. People asking to jump on a call before providing any information apart from super generic info about the business like the purpose of the company and the addressable market - I will not jump on a call. That is like being a car dealer saying you have a great car to sell asking potential clients to come to the car dealership without any additional info. It will not work. If you want to convert outreach into opportunity do the following: First you identify angels that invest in your space of which you think they could be a valuable addition to your captable. Second you write an email/message that contains the following: - Short intro about you as the founder (include your linkedin in footer) - Short description of the business (include website in footer) - A couple of sentences around traction - Information regarding the current round (size, valuation, which milestone will be reached with the money) - Info why you reached out to the angel/ why you think she or he will be a good addition - Include link to schedule a call I am sure by doing that and sending out 10 emails/messages you will create more opportunities than sending out 1.000 untargeted messages.

I see this all the time: founders blasting out generic emails to investors and wondering why nobody replies. The truth? Only the ones who do their homework get attention. This is what you should do: 1. Personalize the first line → Reference a deal they’ve done, a podcast they were on, or a thesis they’ve written. Show you know why you’re reaching out to them specifically. Capwave helps by giving you investor details pulled from their thesis, stage focus, and even preferences they’ve mentioned in socials/podcasts. 2. Keep the ask tight → One clear request: a 20–30 minute intro call. Don’t bury it in three paragraphs. Investors scan, they don’t read novels. 3. Use warm intros when you can → Founders in their portfolio are gold. Other VCs they co-invest with are second best. If you don’t know them, spend time making friends with the people who do. Capwave shows you their portfolio companies and highlights the ones most similar to yours, so you can scan your network for intros that actually make sense. 4. Nail the forwardable blurb → Make it ridiculously easy for someone to forward your note. 3 lines: what you do, traction, why now. If it’s too long, it won’t get sent. Capwave resources and masterclasses walk you through how to craft this blurb and prep for your first call so you don’t blow your shot. 5. Follow up like a pro → After the meeting, send a concise thank you with 2–3 bullet updates. If they pass, keep them on your update list. No today doesn’t mean no forever. Founders who do this get meetings. Founders who don’t get ignored. That’s why we built Capwave AI, so every founder can run this playbook with investor intelligence, warm intros, and call prep built in. Questions for you: → What’s the best cold email you’ve ever sent (or received)? → Do you track who could intro you to portfolio founders before outreach? → How do you handle follow-ups when investors go quiet? #fundraising #venturecapital #founders #startups #Capwave

We grew 3x in the last quarter compared to the previous year—and it all started with identifying what wasn’t working. Growing more than 3x in the last quarter was exciting, but it also highlighted something important: when everything is growing, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s actually working and what’s not. One major takeaway for us was email outreach. The old approach of sending lots of emails to large lists just isn’t working anymore—especially after the updates from Google and Outlook earlier this year. Most emails now either land in spam or promotions, which makes them less effective. So, we changed the way we think about email. Here’s what we learned: → Less is more. Instead of sending emails to 100 accounts and hoping for a couple of responses, we focused on just 12 or 13 accounts. These were companies that were clearly interested—they were visiting our website, engaging with LinkedIn ads, or checking out our category on G2. → Signals matter. We combined data from multiple places—website analytics, email engagement, social media interactions, and even third-party platforms—to identify accounts that were already aware of us and had a potential need. → Multi-channel works better. Email alone isn’t enough anymore. We paired it with personalized LinkedIn messages, connection requests, and even founder-led outreach to build a relationship across multiple touchpoints. By narrowing our focus and personalizing our approach, we got more responses and stronger leads with far fewer emails. It also made outreach feel more meaningful—both for us and the people we were reaching out to. Looking ahead to 2025, we’re excited to build on this approach and explore other channels, like calling, to make our outreach even stronger. If you’re rethinking your own approach to email or outreach, I’d be happy to chat about what’s worked for us! #marketing #sales #outreach