Vedant Suri
252 posts

Vedant Suri
@vedantsuri
Investor @GeneralCatalyst. Prev @CapitalG, @BCG. Ever curious. Proud Canadian 🇨🇦














A line at the top of my LinkedIn biography says, "If you are a VC, please do not cold email me or cold LinkedIn message me." I added this because VCs that reach out cold are almost always not worth speaking to. The types of VCs that will reach out to you cold will usually fall into one of two categories: 1. More junior VCs -- Analysts, associates, or principals -- that do not have the authority to write checks. Their messages are often generic, don't show any understanding of what you actually do, and feel copy-pasted. They say something like, "I'm an investor at X fund that has $Y in AUM, and we've backed Z companies." When you see this, you should assume that this person is not worth talking to because they've done little or minimal research into what you're doing. 2. Senior VCs -- Partner and General Partner level -- that do have the authority to write checks. I've received inbound messages from senior VCs who send similarly generic messages, but in the past, I assumed that because they were senior, they'd be worth talking to. In almost all cases, I've been surprised to arrive at these calls and find that the VC has done almost zero research on us. This was initially very puzzling to me -- they should be busy too, so why are they wasting their own time showing up to a call unprepared? After speaking to a few VC friends, I realized that this behavior is relatively common for reasons I still can't explain. One of them, @vedantsuri , had a standard response for handling these situations. You ask them early on in the call, "So, what do you know about [your company]?" If they haven't done their homework, politely point it out and avoid spending more time on the call. The best VCs (regardless of seniority) will find a way to get a warm introduction to you, arrive well-informed about exactly what you do, and come prepared with specific talking points that convey some thoughtfulness. This has been the case with every investor we've allowed to invest in daydream. Another school of thought says that you should never take meetings with VCs unless you're in fundraising mode (whether through warm or cold intros), but I think this perspective also lacks some nuance. It may be worth the call if the person is exceptionally thoughtful in their outreach, is educated on your space, and has compelling talking points and questions about what you're doing. Whether they invest or not, it's rare to find people with genuine interest, passion, and enthusiasm for the very specific problem you've chosen to spend the next 5-10 years of your life on. However, this is very rare -- maybe 1/20 messages I receive meet this bar.















