We pitched a fake startup to 100 VCs last month to see how the funnel actually looks. Numbers here.

Confession to start: my co-founder and I made up a startup last month and pitched it to 100 venture capitalists. Realistic space, realistic team, realistic deck. We're not naming it because the point was the experiment, not the pitch. And before anyone panics, we politely declined to move forward with everyone, because, well, the company doesn't exist. Sorry for the noise to any VCs who might recognise themselves, hope we didn't offend anybody, and always happy to chat properly. The deck was decent though, in our humble opinion.

Why we did this: we tried to raise about a year ago for a different project, mostly cold because our network was thin. It was brutal. 60+ hours writing emails, second guessing every line, watching most of them go nowhere. We always wondered whether we just sucked at it, or whether the numbers really are that hard for everyone. We haven't seen many founders publicly share their actual funnel from cold VC outreach, so we figured we'd run it again properly and find out.

Same shape both times. 100 funds, sequence of 4 emails each (first email plus 3 follow ups), spread over roughly a month.

Our previous attempt, about a year ago:

• 100 funds contacted

• 2 replies to the initial email

• 6 total replies across the sequence

In practice we ran out of steam. Most funds only got 2 or 3 emails before we gave up, and only a handful got the full 4. Writing each one properly took 20-25 minutes and after the third week of that you start cutting corners whether you want to or not.

The fake startup run last month:

• 100 funds contacted

• 5 replies to the initial email

• 8 total replies across the sequence

Honestly the reply numbers aren't that different. Cold outreach is cold outreach and there's no magic. But two things genuinely surprised us.

First, follow ups did most of the work. Half the replies came from email 2 or 3 in the sequence. In our previous attempt we didn't have the stamina to send those for most funds, and that's where most of the gap between the two runs sits. Not better writing, just finishing the job.

Second, partner level targeting mattered way more than fund level. A few moments from the fake run that worked:

• Three emails went to associates who happened to share the fake founder's alma mater instead of going to senior partners. The associates replied at a much higher rate. They read their inbox, they advocate internally, senior partners often don't.

• Two partners had recently posted publicly about wanting more deals in a specific niche. We referenced what they'd written without sucking up, and it worked.

• One partner's last three investments were thematically adjacent to what we were "building" and connecting that in a single line got a response.

That kind of personalization is exactly the part you cut first when you're tired. It's also the part that actually moves the numbers.

Real takeaway from doing this twice: outreach is a numbers game and it's the same as applying for jobs. A warm intro is a referral, helps a lot. But if you actually want options you have to send your CV everywhere all at once. The difference is LinkedIn made job applications one click. In VC there's no one click apply, every email needs the right partner, a real reason, and ideally something showing you read their thesis. So most founders either don't do it, do a half hearted version, or burn a month of building time on it.

Genuinely curious how this compares to what others have run, because we couldn't find good public numbers anywhere. For founders who raised recently, what did your funnel actually look like? How many funds, what reply rate, how many first meetings? Did follow ups do most of the work for you too? For anyone who mixed cold and warm intros, how different were the conversion rates in practice?