Email the VC who just wrote a check: how to find VCs actively investing right now
The best investor list you can build this week is the list of people who wired money in the last 14 days. Size has nothing to do with it.
Most founders build investor lists by thesis and stage. Who does fintech, who writes seed checks, who posted about your category last spring. That list feels smart. It is also stale the day you export it, because a thesis tells you what a fund likes. It says nothing about whether anyone there is writing checks this month.
So when a founder asks me how to find VCs who are actively investing, my answer is boring and specific. Sort by recency. Who closed a deal in the last two weeks? Email them first, and email them fast.
Six days, three yeses, and the urge to rewrite the copy
On January 27 we sat down with a Bitcoin infrastructure founder whose investor campaign was six days old. The scoreboard: three positive replies and a pile of out-of-office auto-responses. The founder wanted to know what was wrong.
Nothing was wrong. Six days is nothing. A campaign that young has barely touched its list, and Charles said as much. Three positive investor replies in the first week is a signal to add fuel, and the worst move at that point is to start fiddling with subject lines.
So we left the copy alone and changed who it was going to. Charles had a new campaign ready for review that day called "deployed capital." The list: VCs who had put money to work in the previous two weeks. The opener: a question about fit instead of a pitch.
Why recency beats thesis fit
A fund that just wrote a check is in market. The partners are meeting. Somebody on the team just finished diligence and has a fresh checklist open for the next one. Their attention is pointed at new deals right now, not at an LP report or a portfolio company on fire.
A fund that fits your thesis perfectly but has not done a deal in nine months might be between funds. It might be raising its own next fund. It might be quietly done. You cannot tell from the website, because the website says the same thing in all three cases.
The data people agree. Metal, which tracks investor activity, tells founders to filter for a minimum number of deals over the last three months, so you find investors who are writing checks rather than the ones whose marketing says they are. Dealroom built a most-active-investors view by market for the same reason. The information is public. Most founders just sort it by the wrong column.
How the deployed capital list gets built
The mechanics are simple enough to steal.
- Pull investors with a recorded deal in the last 14 days, in your sector or the one next to it.
- Keep the people who decide: partners and principals, not the whole team page.
- Open with a question about fit. Are they still looking at your category after that deal, or is the slot filled?
- Rebuild the list every two weeks, because the whole point is that it expires.
The question opener does two jobs. Investors like talking about the deal they just did, so it is easy to answer. And the answer qualifies them for you. "We just did our one bet in that space" is a no you get in one line instead of three meetings.
The sending math nobody puts on the slide
Here are the real numbers from that January call. The campaign ran on 60 active mailboxes, each sending about 10 emails a day, with no weekend sending. That is roughly 600 emails a sending day, or about 3,000 a week.
The lead database held about 13,000 prospects. Only about 4,000 were loaded into the sending system.
Run that forward. At 600 a day, the 4,000 loaded leads take almost seven sending days to reach. The full 13,000 takes more than four working weeks. Now think about what that does to a recency list. A VC who deployed capital 14 days ago is a six-week-old signal by the time a slow campaign gets to them. The edge you paid for has rotted in the queue.
So the agreed next step was to double the mailboxes to 120. At about 1,200 a day, the whole 13,000 gets touched in under 11 sending days. Same copy, same list logic. Half the time to reach everyone, which on a list that expires is the difference between catching investors in market and catching them after they have moved on.
You have a throughput problem, not a list problem
Founders love to tell me they need more investors on the list. In this case there were 9,000 prospects sitting unloaded. The constraint was never inventory. It was how many emails could go out a day without hurting deliverability, and that is a mailbox count question.
This is the part people skip because it is unglamorous. Warming mailboxes, spreading volume across domains, keeping each inbox at a sane daily number. It decides whether your recency list gets worked while it is fresh. Copy gets the attention. Capacity gets the meetings.
Where recency lists mislead you
I like this approach a lot. It still has holes, and you should know them before you bet a raise on it.
A fund deploying fast may be near the end of its budget. A burst of deals can mean a fund is finishing its allocation, not starting it. The question opener helps here, because a partner will often tell you straight that they are reserved for follow-ons.
A recent check into your direct competitor is usually a conflict, not an opening. Recency gets someone on the list. Fit still decides whether they stay there.
The announcement date is not the wire date. Rounds are often announced well after they close, so "last two weeks" in a database can mean last quarter in reality. Treat the date as a pointer, not proof.
And one deal does not make a lead investor. Plenty of funds follow in rounds they would never lead. If you need a lead, ask in the first exchange whether they lead at your stage.
None of this kills the idea. It just means recency works best as the first filter on a list you already believe in, followed by a human pass before anything sends.
What I would do this week
Take your current investor list. Mark everyone with a deal in the last 14 days. Email those people first, with a question, from enough mailboxes that you reach all of them inside a week. Then rebuild the list two weeks later and do it again.
It is a less exciting plan than a new deck. In my experience it books more first meetings than one, because it is aimed at the people who are already in the habit of saying yes this month.
If you want this run for you, list, mailboxes and follow-up included, see how we run investor campaigns.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if a VC is still actively investing?
Look at recorded deals, not the website. Filter for investors with deals in the last few months, and treat anyone with a deal in the last two weeks as in market. Then ask them directly in your first email whether they are still writing new checks at your stage.
Is it a bad sign to email a fund that just closed a deal?
Usually it is the best time. The partners are in deal mode and paying attention. The exception is a deal into your direct competitor, which is normally a conflict.
How many investors should be on a recency list?
As many as you can reach inside a week, because the signal fades fast. If your sending capacity cannot touch the whole list in about a week, add mailboxes before you add names.
Should I mention their recent investment in the email?
Yes, as a question about fit rather than flattery. Ask whether they are still looking at your category after that deal. It is easy to answer and it qualifies them in one reply.