Judge funds by their actions, not their claims. Almost every multi-stage fund will tell you they do pre-seed. Their portfolio tells you the truth: if they've written two pre-seed cheques in three years and twenty Series A cheques, they are not a pre-seed fund, whatever the partner says over coffee. Building your target list on what funds say, rather than what they do, is the most common way founders waste a fundraise.

How many investors should be on the list?

Sixty to seventy. Europe alone has thousands of active early-stage investors; your job is to filter down to the 70 most likely to invest in your round. Ten names is wishful thinking dressed as a plan: founders who approach five or ten investors they happen to know and expect a round routinely stall out with nowhere left to go.

The four filters

Narrow the universe on:

• Stage, proven by portfolio. Has this fund written a first cheque at your stage, in your geography, in the last 18 months? Not "do they say they do pre-seed", have they done it, repeatedly, recently?

• Sector. A fund with three fintech investments has a thesis and reference points. A fund with none either doesn't believe in the space or is about to make you their education.

• Cheque size. A £250k round is invisible to a fund that deploys £5m minimums; a £2m round is too rich for most angels. Match the raise to what they actually write.

• Geography. Funds overwhelmingly back companies where they have presence and networks, whatever their website says about being global.

Then add the newer capital that most lists miss: solo GPs and micro funds. Europe now has a deep bench of operators-turned-investors and single-partner funds who can make a decision in an hour rather than a month. For first cheques, they're often faster and more conviction-driven than institutional funds.

Research the partner, not just the fund

You take money from a fund, but you work with a partner, and the same firm can house both your future biggest supporter and someone founders privately warn each other about. For each target fund, identify the specific partner who covers your sector and stage, and reference-check them with founders in the portfolio. Aim your introduction at that person, as senior as you can reach.

Practical structure for the sheet: fund, partner, their thesis and recent deals, cheque size, who you know that can introduce you, and how strong that connection is. Then share it with your investors, angels and founder friends to fill the gaps, the mapping exercise works far better crowdsourced.

AI tools have collapsed the research time here: portfolio analysis, recent cheque history and partner coverage per fund is now hours of work, not weeks. There's no longer an excuse for a list built on guesswork.

The test before you launch

For every fund on your final list you should be able to answer: have they written a cheque like mine before, who writes it, and who gets me to that person? If any of the three is blank, either fill it or cut the fund. A tight list of 70 qualified targets beats 150 names harvested from a directory, the funnel maths only works when the top of the funnel is real.

Aether Raise handles the legal side of the round your list is built for, at aetherlegals.com.