Venture Capital Deal Flow Sequence

This sequence is built for Venture Capital partners, associates, and platform leads. Use it to initiate conversations with high-potential founders who aren't actively fundraising, establishing your fund as a valuable partner long before a formal process begins.

This is a relationship-focused sequence that prioritizes credibility and value over volume. It's designed to feel thoughtful, not automated.

1. Steps: 6
2. Duration: 21–28 days
3. Channels: Email + LinkedIn

Each step is designed to build on the last, establishing credibility before asking for time.

Step 1: The Hyper-Personalized Email

1. Timing: Day 1
2. Channel: Email
3. Objective: Open with a credible, specific reason for reaching out that proves you've done your homework.
4. Example:
   Subject: [Your Fund] + [Their Company]
   Body: Saw your recent launch on Product Hunt, the approach to [specific problem] is smart. We invested in [relevant portfolio co] and saw a similar pattern.

Step 2: The LinkedIn Connection

1. Timing: Day 3
2. Channel: LinkedIn
3. Objective: Add social proof and a face to the name.
4. Example:
   Note: {{firstName}} - sent you a note via email. Big fan of what you're building at {{companyName}}.

Step 3: The Value-Add Email

1. Timing: Day 7
2. Channel: Email
3. Objective: Follow up with something genuinely useful, not a generic "just checking in."
4. Example:
   Subject: Re: [Original Subject]
   Body: Thought this market map our team put together on [relevant space] might be useful as you think about GTM.

Step 4: The LinkedIn Engagement

1. Timing: Day 14
2. Channel: LinkedIn
3. Objective: A light touch to stay top of mind without sending another email.
4. Action: Find a recent post from the founder and leave a thoughtful comment or like. No message needed.

Step 5: The Soft Bump

1. Timing: Day 21
2. Channel: Email
3. Objective: A final, low-pressure attempt to get a response.
4. Example:
   Subject: Re: [Original Subject]
   Body: {{firstName}}, just checking in. Any thoughts on the above?

Step 6: The Professional Breakup

1. Timing: Day 28
2. Channel: Email
3. Objective: Gracefully end the sequence while leaving the door open for future contact.
4. Example:
   Subject: Re: [Original Subject]
   Body: Assuming now isn't the right time. Will keep following your progress. Let me know if you ever want to chat about [your thesis area].

For VCs, personalization is everything. Your reputation is on the line with every email. This sequence fails without deep, manual research.

What to personalize:

1. The opening line must be unique to the founder. Reference a podcast they were on, a specific product feature, a recent hire, or a unique insight about their market.
2. The value-add step must be relevant to their company and stage. A generic article won't work.

The goal is not to get 100 replies; it's to start one meaningful conversation. The structure is the template, but the content must be bespoke.

Even with high personalization, you need infrastructure to manage deal flow outreach consistently without destroying your fund's reputation.

VCs typically send to founder inboxes (@gmail.com, @company.com), which have varying levels of spam filtering. Sending from your primary domain is a massive risk—once Google or Microsoft flags yourfund.com, your entire firm's deliverability suffers, including internal communications and portfolio support.

This is why sophisticated funds use dedicated secondary domains ([fund]-ventures.com) and rotate through multiple inboxes to protect the core brand. Sending 25-50 highly personalized emails per day from a warmed-up, rotated inbox is safe. Sending 200 from your main partner account is not.

Tools like SuperSend exist to handle this infra and orchestration—domain rotation, inbox warmup, and multi-channel sequencing—so your team can focus on finding great companies, not managing DNS records.