Whether you’re an emerging or established fund manager, the principles of LP sourcing remain the same. Your first investor will help define your fund—and time is of the essence to find them. Differentiation matters and your fund’s strategy needs to be easy to understand and remember. Finally, relationships and warm introductions are critical, which raises the question of how well you know and can utilize your network.

Prioritize finding your cornerstone

When it comes to fundraising, time is an incredibly valuable resource. Securing your cornerstone investor can be the toughest–and most timely–stage of raising a fund. This is the investor who commits to a certain amount of investment in advance. General partners (GPs) have shared that it’s common to hear “Let’s chat when you have your cornerstone” as they begin their fundraising journey.

Joe Schorge, Founder and Managing Partner at Isomer Capital, notes, “If I can find someone who will put that first money up, who will really cornerstone [the fund] and be a reference point, [then] we can do a few deals and show other investors, [and] get some traction.”

The challenge is that it can be hard to know who will be your cornerstone because there’s not much information out there on their ticket sizes in other funds. To make the most of the information your team can gather, automate how you collect fundraising data in your customer relationship management platform (CRM)—and include communication activity and enriched data fields to make more informed decisions about which LPs to pursue.  

Communicate a strategy that is clear and differentiated

There’s no doubt that the continued economic uncertainties make it more difficult to raise capital. Interest rates are not falling as fast as they rose, exits are stalled, and many firms are struggling to prove value on their current portfolios (the most commonly cited challenge in Affinity's 2025 predictions report). But as Speedinvest’s Fundraising Manager, Katharina Porenta puts it, “The more chaotic it is out there, the more important [it] is actually to have this really good plan and strategy and to be able to communicate it to LPs.” 

PitchBook outlines the attributes that LPs seek when assessing this competitive edge, highlighting “a differentiated point of view, access to a unique network, relevant industry experience, and personality attributes.” All should be present when conducting LP outreach.

For firms moving beyond their first fundraise, this focus on differentiation matters throughout the fund’s lifecycle. The story of a fund’s unique success is built over time and should be communicated as such. Porenta says, “In the end the fundraiser is the result, not really of the last 12 months but of the last 12 years.”

Lead with warm introductions to open doors and increase diversity

While data from European Women in VC suggests that the majority of VC-LP interactions right now are male, strides are being taken to change this. Warm introductions are the key to expanding your network and sourcing more diverse LPs. Speaking at a recent roundtable, one female VC reported: “LPs convince other LPs, and so if you start with more women, they’ll bring in more women.” 

Starting close to home is critical. Speedinvest’s Porenta advises: “You always want to start with your local network”—meaning that you begin by sourcing LPs from a first-degree network of founders and referrals. Even after twelve years in business, about a third of Speedinvest’s LPs are domestic (the firm is headquartered in Vienna, Austria). Porenta recommends fundraising managers make the most of their home networks before venturing further afield. 

Tailor communications based on geography and culture

Email newsletters are one of the most popular forms of communication with potential and current LPs, helping to keep interested parties informed about a fund’s progress and performance. But there’s a science to making newsletters an effective channel.

Isomer Capital’s Joe Schorge notes that there’s a balance between keeping prospective investors informed and inundating them with information. He says, “LPs want sharp, relevant news that's of interest to them. Let them know when you’ve closed a deal, when you’ve hired someone. All of that is welcome news, whereas the same news weekly—just raising something to the top of someone’s inbox—is when it gets repetitive.”

Firms should also consider adapting their approach depending on LP location.This is because the pace and velocity of your pitch will be very different with LPs in the U.S. compared to other regions. Even in markets where the same language is spoken—Australia and the U.S. for example—the marketing approach should be tailored to the audience. 

For regions like the Middle East, where more firms are looking in pursuit of capital, narratives are important. What’s the actual impact of your investment strategy? Returns are important, but so is being purpose-driven and being able to tie your thesis to regional interests. All this should inform your communications plan with current and prospective LPs.

Finally, segmentation is critical to an effective newsletter strategy. Another GP explains, “We have a monthly newsletter that provides high-level news around the fund, but then we also have more specific newsletters to certain groups.” By optimizing relevance for each group of LPs, firms are more likely to see steady open and engagement rates from their email communications. 

Be systematic about how you keep in touch

As alluded to on earlier by Speedinvest, a successful raise begins with long-term thinking. The team at Buoyant Ventures closed their first fund in early 2023 and, since then, have taken a data-driven approach to tracking and collecting information on prospective deals as well as portfolio companies.

This approach helps them enhance the LP experience by tracking communication and engagement with their Fund II. Co-founder Amy Francetic explains, “These are folks who didn't invest in Fund I but who said they were interested in following us. So we try, in a very organized way, to give them updates, just like we're recommending with our portfolio companies. We stay engaged with them, so that when we’re ready to go out for the next fund, they've been getting regular updates from us already.”

Similarly, Future Planet Capital works from a ‘Dunbar list’ of the firm’s top current and prospective LPs. Peter Mitchell, Data Scientist at the University of Oxford and Head of Origination at Future Planet Capital explains, "We built an analytics dashboard to ensure that people that are on that list have regular contact, and we’ve highlighted dormant accounts so that we can push reminders for people that need to meet their respective contacts. That's been really, really helpful."