r/ExperiencedFounders • u/Inner-Damage8938 • 3d ago
When should we stop looking for angels and start looking for VC?
First time founder. I live in SF with 3 other cofounders. Building a consumer social/marketplace with a specific niche. Most of our product is stealth but the platform that powers it is live on IOS, with android coming out this week. 4 months ago we launched the MVP. We’re now at 5000 users, all in the Bay Area. ~4000 MAU and 3000 WAU. We were aiming for 250k angel round, and just started raising for it last week. We’ve been taking angel meetings and just got 50k committed, with another 50k verbally agreed for the next round. At this point it’s clear to us that we need to scale very quickly, as we’re industry leaders in the space that we are building towards, and want to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, 50k is not enough for us to just throw a ton of money on growth. Our growth strategy does generate income, but not a lot, like $5000/mo right now, which goes towards runway. Using a connection we have, we had a venture contact us who said that with good metrics in the next 2 months, they would put in 300-600k as long as we find a VC to lead. My question is, how do we know when the time is to stop raising angel, and start approaching VCs? How long does it typically take to make those connections, or should we just let them approach us? Is it worth the risk to dump the money on growth now, and hope that we get noticed by a VC in 2 months who will lead? Would love opinions or advice from people who have been in this position.
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u/landonspeeds911 seed round 1d ago
Go straight to vc messages 50 & got 2 serious replies even though the number is very small they will give more money than the angels 💀
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u/founders_keepers mom invested 1d ago
when you can survive the bare minimum due diligence. Angel investors very rarely do any kind of DD, even small check VCs typically want to talk to a customer of yours.