Investor Target List Template
Three documents and three sheets, including the register that dates every fund's last cheque at the size you are raising.
Free download · No account needed
Every fund's site states which stages it invests at, in the present tense, and the sentence carries no date. So there is nothing to check. What is dated is the filing: an issuer selling under Regulation D must file a notice of sales no later than 15 calendar days after the first sale. Nearly every priced round leaves a dated public record with an amount attached, filed by the company rather than by the fund. That is a different kind of evidence.
Halyard Freight is an invented company selling dispatch software to freight brokers, raising two and a half million at seed off the records already assembled for its startup data room checklist. Its starting list ran to 118 names. Thirty-one came off for a stale stage claim, twenty-two for dormancy, nine for a portfolio conflict, leaving 56 with a dated cheque at the right size. Those 31 funds had 89 dated investments between them across eighteen months, and 4 were at seed.
The second half is the paths, and the useful question is not whether you know somebody at a given fund. It is which conversations produce the most introductions, which means the map is keyed by connector rather than by target. Of the 56 qualified funds, 34 had a warm path through 19 connectors, and the top four reached 21 of them between them. Four conversations. The map also records whether a connector has ever actually made an introduction.
What's in the pack
Investor Register
One row per fund with the stage the fund claims beside the date of its most recent cheque at your raise size, the company that cheque went into, and the amount. A fund that cannot be dated reads unverified and stays out of the outreach queue.
Intro Path Map
Keyed by connector rather than by target, with a column for whether that person has ever actually made an introduction. That is the field normally left blank, and it reorders the asks.
Pipeline Tracker
A dated next action and a named owner on every open row, with days since last movement rather than stage as the headline column. Stage flatters a pipeline and elapsed silence does not.
Dating a Fund's Last Cheque
The method: why a portfolio page is a list of leads rather than an answer, why the offering amount is a better stage proxy than any label, and why an absent filing is a blank rather than a no.
Outreach Angles
Four sources of angle ranked by strength, the three openings to delete on sight, and the four things every message carries including an ask answerable in four words.
Warm Intro Requests
The two-block request that hands the connector a forwardable paragraph already written, plus the explicit exit that stops a reluctant connector going quiet on you.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or download it
Take the blank Word and CSV files with no account, or install the pack in River and have the agent date your own list against your own raise size.
- 2
Date the register before anything else
Every later step depends on it. Where a date cannot be found, the row says unverified rather than guessing, and it does not get contacted.
- 3
Run the three filters in order
Stale stage, then dormant, then conflict. Each removed row keeps its reason, because dormant may reverse next quarter and wrong stage will not.
- 4
Then export your own network
Contacts, advisors, existing investors, and the founders you know well enough to ask a favour of. This is the input people skip and the map needs it.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. Three documents and three sheets download as Word and CSV files with no signup and no credit card. Edit with AI is the optional path where the agent dates your own list and builds the map from your own network. The rest of the library is at the template index.
What format are the downloaded files?
Word documents (.docx) for the method note, the outreach angles and the intro request patterns, and CSV (.csv) for the Investor Register, Intro Path Map and Pipeline Tracker. They open in Word, Pages, Google Docs, Excel, Numbers and Sheets with no conversion step.
Why not just buy a list?
You can, and this pack takes one as input. The problem is that the stage column on a bought list is the fund's own self-description refreshed on the vendor's cadence, not a dated fact. In the worked example that column was wrong for 31 of 118 names.
Where does the date on each fund come from?
A public notice of sales filed by the portfolio company, not by the fund. Rule 503 sets the deadline at 15 calendar days after the first sale in the offering, and the notice carries a date and a total offering amount, which is a better stage proxy than any label.
Can I email a large list of investors directly?
Ask counsel before you do. Rule 502(c) bars an issuer relying on the relevant exemptions from offering securities by any form of general solicitation or general advertising, outside two carve-outs. Which exemption your round uses decides what is available to you.
What if a qualified fund has no warm path at all?
Twenty-two of the 56 did not, in the worked example. The pack leaves those rows empty rather than inventing a weak path, and the cold version leads with the hardest number available instead of a thesis restatement. An unreachable count is a real finding.
What should I have ready before starting?
The raise amount, a paragraph on the company, and your network export. A reconciled cap table and a pitch narrative whose numbers trace to a source make the meetings that follow far shorter, and the term sheet explainer handles what arrives afterwards.
Find out how many names on your list have a date
Download the blank pack as Word and CSV files, or open it in River and send the list you already have. It dates each fund's last cheque at your size.
Edit with AI