Table of Contents

• 👉🏻 Introduction

• 💰 Deals done this week

• Today's Deep Dive: 🧠 Why Your First Post-Raise H …

• Want some 121 time with me?

  • Preseed Now

• 🤖 AI in fundraising

• Interesting Things I Read

• Founders’ Guidelines

• About Raise Like a Pro

👉🏻 Introduction

As we have previously addressed here on Raise Like A Pro, there is one slide that is absolutely critical in every deck—the ‘ask’ slide. Here you have to articulate how much you're raising, what you're going to spend it on, and what commercial milestone you will be at when that money is spent.

When you're articulating what you're going to spend it on, it might feel a bit fanciful (a bit like spending someone else's money and a really high-quality problem to have). In reality though, investors really want to see your thinking. And particularly, increasingly more and more, they want to see product-driven businesses—even, product-led growth (PLG) businesses where the product can sell itself and can onboard customers itself without somebody on your team having to get on a call.

Even more practically, they want to see you are absolutely dialled in to delivering benefit for your customers and not just features. Benefit means representing the voice of the customer in your internal backlog conversations, and for that you need an experienced product person (and not a CTO or other tech role).

Read the deep dive below to see how we unpack why a senior product person should the first main hire you make post-raise.

💰 Deals done this week

• Smart Pension (UK) — Secured €69.4M credit facility from CIBC Innovation Banking to scale its workplace retirement savings platform Keystone, serving 1.5M+ savers. Strategic move to capitalise on UK pension market consolidation. (Read)

• Plancraft (Germany) — Raised €38M Series B led by Headline to build AI-first tools for tradespeople, tackling Europe’s skilled labour shortages and construction CO₂ impact. Now serving 20k+ customers in 11 countries. (Read)

• Marktlink Capital (Netherlands) — Closed €520M across two funds (€440M PE, €80M VC) to back top-tier PE/VC managers in Europe and North America. Focus on AI, biotech, and cybersecurity plays. (Read)

• VentriJect (Denmark) — Landed €1.7M to expand Seismofit, a non-exercise VO₂ max measurement device, into EU and US healthcare/fitness markets. Spinout from Aalborg University. (Read)

• TILKI (UK) — Closed €1.8M pre-seed led by Twin Path Ventures for its no-code, AI-powered game creation platform enabling dynamic, player-driven storylines. Beta launch in six months. (Read)

Today's Deep Dive: 🧠 Why Your First Post-Raise Hire Shouldn’t Be a CTO

When you’re raising the deck needs an “ask” slide. The bit where you spell out how much you want, what you’ll spend it on, and what shape the business will be in when the cash is gone. It’s a slide founders often treat like an afterthought — a pie chart here, a few bullet points there. Job done.

It can be too easy to think it’s a high-quality problem and spending someone else’s money. But it’s not. It’s one of the most revealing slides in your entire deck, because it shows how you prioritise. You’re not just telling investors what you’ll buy, you’re showing them what you think will get you to the next stage the fastest.

Today I want to focus on one specific item that I think doesn’t get nearly enough attention, and which I’ve seen be the difference between companies that find product-market fit quickly and those that burn through their runway chasing the wrong things. I’m talking about hiring an experienced senior product manager as one of your very first post-raise hires — before you bring in a CTO, before you start stacking up developers, and certainly before you start building features just because they look cool in a demo.

The Default Mistake

Something I’ve seen time and time again; the money hits the bank and the founder’s first instinct is to “get building.” So they hire a CTO, thinking they need “technical leadership,” and then a couple of developers to ship faster. Within a few months, they’ve got a bigger codebase, more features, and more burn — but they’re no closer to knowing if they’re building the right thing.

The assumption here is that speed is the goal. But speed in the wrong direction doesn’t get you anywhere — it just means you get lost faster.

Why Product Should Come First

A senior product manager’s job is not to write code. Their job is to make sure the right code gets written in the first place. They bring discipline to the chaos. They turn “we think users want this” into “we know users want this, and here’s the data to prove it.” They’re the ones who stop you from building a mountain of features that no one uses, and instead focus the team on solving the right problems in the right order.

The best product leads are also translators. They take what customers say, extract what they actually mean, and turn that into a roadmap the engineering team can act on. They create feedback loops so you’re making decisions based on reality, not assumptions. And crucially, they understand how to bake growth into the product from day one, so you’re not entirely dependent on hiring a massive sales team to scale.

This is especially important if you’re aiming for a product-led growth model, where the product itself drives acquisition, activation, retention and expansion. That’s not something you stumble into — it’s designed.

“But Isn’t That the CTO’s Job?”

In theory, maybe. In reality, most CTOs are hired for their technical chops and leadership skills, not their ability to do customer discovery or build a go-to-market engine inside the product. That’s not a criticism — it’s just a different skill set.

The truth is, until you’ve nailed product-market fit, you don’t need a big technical leadership structure. You need someone who can work closely with you to figure out exactly what you’re building, why, and for whom — and then keep everyone aligned and focused on that. You can always bring in a heavyweight CTO when you’re scaling the engineering org, dealing with complex architecture, or building for massive technical scale. But doing it before you’ve nailed the product is like hiring a ship’s captain before you know where the port is.

Why Investors Love This Move

Putting a senior product hire front and centre in your use-of-funds tells investors you’re serious about building the right thing, not just building faster. It tells them you’re focused on reaching the next commercial inflection point — that moment when the market proves you’re on the right track — rather than just burning runway on headcount. And it signals that you’re thinking about growth from day one, not bolting it on later when things get desperate.

Investors have seen enough decks to know when a founder’s hiring plan is just boilerplate. If yours shows that you’ve thought deeply about who you need to get to the next stage, it stands out.

The Bottom Line

When the funding lands, the clock starts ticking. Every hire is either a lever or a liability. And while it’s tempting to throw money at engineering firepower, if you don’t have someone steering the product with precision, you’ll end up with a bigger, shinier version of what you already have — but no closer to your next milestone.

So when you build your ask slide, put “senior product manager” right at the top. Not buried in a list, not an afterthought. Because if you get product wrong, nothing else matters.

Want some 121 time with me?

I've recently been taking a whole bunch of calls from founders all over the world where either I don’t have the time to work fully on their raise—or just need some specific targeted advice around different areas of their fundraising campaign, be it GTM, market sizing, pitch deck, or whatever.

I've now opened up additional slots, which you can book here.

Preseed Now

Keep track of the early-stage tech startup scene across the UK with PreSeed Now, your look at exciting new companies and technologies as they emerge.

PreSeed Now digs into brand new startups, so you can understand how they fit into what’s happening in the wider world and ecosystem, and profiles the investors backing them. And it covers them EARLY: subscribe to the newsletter that covered GenAI unicorn ElevenLabs before ChatGPT was even released. Subscribe

🤖 AI in fundraising

Fundraising is undeniably time-intensive and often pulls focus from the critical work of building your business. The good news? The landscape of AI tools is rapidly evolving, offering increasingly sophisticated ways to save precious time – whether you're summarising investor requests, meticulously preparing for meetings, or streamlining the management of due diligence materials.

This week, I've been diving into a few platforms that have truly impressed me with their potential to be game-changers for any fundraising effort:

EasyVC.ai acts as an AI-powered assistant that intelligently matches founders with over 50,000 VCs or angels who fit your stage and vertical; no more manual searching.

CapitalReach.ai helps you surface relevant investor matches and automate highly personalized outreach, scaling your outreach without compromising quality or tone.

Foundersuite is a multifunctional fundraising CRM: manage contacts, automate updates, sequence outreach, and even integrate ChatGPT to help craft compelling investor-ready decks and pitches.

Lucid Financials automates your fundraising financials with AI-generated multiple-scenario plans, benchmarks, metrics tracking, and investor-friendly report formats, empowering you to share polished, data-backed updates.

Interesting Things I Read

AI Cutting Fundraising Costs by 80% at Seed Stage
Jon McNeill argues that AI tools are enabling startups to reach Series A with up to 80% less seed capital, reshaping traditional fundraising math and potentially reducing founder dilution. (Read)

VCs Are Hiring Cybersecurity Experts to Vet Deals
Investors are increasingly bringing in cybersecurity specialists to assess AI and data-heavy startups, signaling a rising premium on security due diligence in VC deals. (Read)

VC Capital Still Flowing—but Focus Only on Winners
Pilot’s Q2 data shows VC deal value jumped ~40% YoY, driven by AI mega-rounds. But deal volume dropped 13%; capital is increasingly concentrated in fewer, higher-conviction winners. (Read)

Generative AI VC Funding Hits Record $49B in H1 2025
EY reports that generative AI alone captured $49.2 billion in VC deals, surpassing all of 2024, with average late-stage deal size tripling to $1.55 billion. (Read)

Founders’ Guidelines

• The 6 Types of VC Investors — and Which One’s Right for You
  Not all venture capital is created equal. From institutional VCs to corporate venture arms and micro-funds, each comes with different check sizes, networks, and growth expectations. Choosing the wrong fit can derail your company’s trajectory; choosing the right one can supercharge it.
  Read the breakdown →

• 8 Fundraising Frameworks Used by Top Founders
  Forget hacks; the best fundraisers use mental models to navigate chaos. From the YC Pitch Deck Framework to the “Why Now” urgency story, these frameworks help structure your pitch, manage your CRM, and handle tough investor questions.
  See all 8 frameworks →

• Term Sheet 101 — A Cheat Sheet for Founders
  Liquidation preferences, vesting cliffs, no-shop clauses; term sheets can feel like a foreign language. This glossary of 30 essential VC terms will help you know what’s negotiable and avoid nasty surprises later.
  Get the cheat sheet →

• Sam Altman’s Startup Playbook
  Before OpenAI, Sam Altman built a no-BS guide for early-stage founders. Years later, most of the advice still holds, from market selection to building a world-class team.
  Read the playbook →

• The Founder’s Guide to Startup Funding
  Stage-by-stage funding roadmap, from seed to Series C and beyond; plus how to combine equity with non-dilutive sources like grants and R&D tax incentives. Includes a pre-fundraising checklist every founder should run through.
  Explore the guide →

• Fixing a Broken Cap Table Before It Kills Your Round
  Messy cap tables scare off VCs. Learn how to clean up dead equity, re-vest founder shares, and model dilution like a pro before raising your next round. Includes an Excel template for Series A/B simulations.
  Access the guide →

About Raise Like a Pro

Raising a funding round isn’t rocket science. It’s not even brain surgery. But it's incredibly time-consuming, HARD and emotionally challenging.

As a founder, your time is better spent building product, finding product-market fit, signing up customers, and building your team. Yet fundraising demands an enormous amount of your attention and energy.

I've witnessed countless founders struggle with this balance. They get stuck in the cycle of endless pitch meetings, confusing feedback, and the dreaded "no's" that seem to pile up without explanation. Even successful companies like Canva, now valued at $25.5 billion, started with their CEO Melanie Perkins hearing "no" over 100 times before getting that crucial first "yes."

My promise to you

Every piece of advice in this newsletter comes from actual experience: deals I've closed, terms I've negotiated, and strategies I've refined through real-world application.

I'm not here to give you startup platitudes or generic advice. Instead, you'll get practical, actionable tactics that you can implement immediately in your fundraising journey. This is the playbook I use each and every day to help founders all over the world raise money from investors all over the world.

The type of things we have and will continue to cover:

• The actual processes I use to close deals.

• Step-by-step morning routines for effective fundraising.

• Real email templates that get responses.

• Meeting scripts that convert to term sheets.

• Pipeline management techniques that close deals.

• The stuff you really need to know so you don’t get screwed by investors.

The goal? To help you raise money faster, at better valuations, while protecting your interests and your time.

– David

Raise like a Pro is what David Levine does every single day though this business Glenluna Ventures. An exited founder, he raises money each and every day for founders all over the world from investors all over the world.