The seed fundraising environment in 2025 is more complex than at any point in the last decade — simultaneously more capital-rich and more demanding than founders often expect. More capital has been raised by seed funds in the last three years than in any comparable period in venture history, yet the bar for what constitutes a fundable seed round has risen in parallel, driven by higher expectations around early traction, product definition, and founder quality. Understanding how to navigate this environment is critical for any founder contemplating a seed raise.
This guide is drawn from our experience at Leveiir Capital reviewing hundreds of pitches annually, closing 28 seed investments across 16 countries, and following our founders through their Series A processes. It is not a generic overview — there is no shortage of those. It is our specific, practical view of what works in 2025, what does not, and where founders most consistently make mistakes that are entirely avoidable with the right preparation.
Before You Raise: The Pre-Work That Determines Everything
The most consequential preparation for a seed round happens six to twelve months before you speak to your first investor. The founders who raise the fastest, at the best terms, and from the most value-additive investors are almost always those who have done this pre-work thoroughly. The founders who struggle typically lack preparation that no amount of pitch practice can substitute for.
Build the Narrative Before You Build the Deck
The most common mistake we see in seed pitch preparation is starting with the slide format rather than the story. A pitch deck is a vehicle for communicating a narrative — it is not the narrative itself. Founders who build their deck before they have a clear, compelling, intellectually coherent narrative produce slides that are visually polished but intellectually incoherent: the market slide and the product slide do not connect, the traction slide does not support the ask, the team slide does not explain why this team is uniquely positioned to win.
The narrative you need is deceptively simple: why does this problem exist and why has it not been solved before, why is this the right moment to solve it, what is the insight at the core of your solution that others have missed, and why are you and your team the right people to execute? Every slide in your deck should serve one of these narrative threads. If you cannot explain why a slide is in the deck in terms of one of these four questions, it probably should not be in the deck.
Know Your Metrics Cold
There are a small number of metrics that every seed-stage investor will ask about, and the quality of your answers to these questions signals something important about you as an operator — regardless of what the numbers actually are. The metrics every B2B SaaS founder should know cold: total ARR and MRR, month-over-month growth rate for the last six months, gross revenue retention, net revenue retention, average contract value, sales cycle length, CAC, and the number of paying customers broken down by size tier. Consumer founders should know their MAU/DAU ratio, engagement depth, retention cohorts at 30/60/90 days, and unit economics at current scale.
Knowing these numbers cold does not mean having perfect numbers — seed-stage companies rarely do. What it means is understanding your business well enough to quote these figures without hesitation, to explain what they mean in context, and to describe the specific initiatives that will move them. An investor who asks about your retention rate and gets a confident, specific answer followed by "here is what is driving it and here is what we are doing to improve it" will form a very different impression than one who gets "well, it depends on how you define retention — let me get back to you on that."
Prepare Customer References
Warm references from paying customers are the most credible signal available to a seed investor. Before you start your fundraising process, identify three to five customers who are genuinely enthusiastic about your product, who have seen real value from it, and who are willing to speak to investors on your behalf. Brief them before you name them as references — tell them you are fundraising, what you have told investors about the customer relationship, and what aspects of the product they should emphasize. A customer reference conversation that confirms specific claims from your pitch deck is worth more than any slide you can build.
Building Your Investor Target List
Most founders approach investor targeting too narrowly — they focus on the top five to ten "brand name" funds and neglect the broader ecosystem of seed investors who might be excellent partners. A well-constructed investor target list for a seed round typically has 40-60 names across three tiers.
Tier 1 is your highest-priority targets: the 8-10 funds whose portfolio focus, typical check size, and value-add profile make them the ideal lead for your round. These are the investors who will work hardest for your reference network, board composition, and Series A introduction. Spend more time on warm intros to Tier 1 investors and do not shortcut the relationship-building work — a cold email to a Tier 1 fund is rarely the right approach, even if you have an exceptional company.
Tier 2 is your realistic leads: 15-20 funds who might lead or contribute a meaningful check, but who are not your ideal-case partner for one of several reasons (partial portfolio overlap, different typical check size, less relevant domain expertise). These are valid targets who deserve a genuine pitch, but should not be your first calls.
Tier 3 is your co-investors and angels: 20-30 individuals and small funds who might contribute $100K-$500K each to fill out the round once you have a lead. Building relationships with well-connected angels in your sector early is valuable both for their capital and for the introductions they can provide to Tier 1 and Tier 2 lead candidates.
The Warm Introduction Is Still King
Despite the existence of cold email, LinkedIn, and various founder-to-investor platforms, the warm introduction remains by far the most effective way to get a first meeting with a seed investor. This is not snobbery — it is signal. When a founder I trust reaches out and says "I met this founder, they are working on something interesting, and you should take a meeting," the information content of that message is much higher than an unsolicited email, regardless of how well-crafted the email is. The introduction provides social proof that someone knowledgeable has already done a first pass of diligence.
The best sources of warm introductions to seed investors are: other portfolio founders (the single most credible source — build genuine relationships with founders in the funds' portfolios before you are raising); customers and advisors who have relationships with investors; and investors in your current round who can introduce you to the next round.
The Pitch Meeting
Seed pitch meetings with experienced investors follow a reasonably predictable structure, and understanding that structure allows you to prepare intelligently rather than generically. The first five minutes are usually a brief orientation — the investor wants to understand what the company does before the formal presentation begins, which means your one-sentence description of the company needs to be clear, specific, and jargon-free. If you cannot describe your company in one sentence that any intelligent person would understand, you have a clarity problem that will compound through every subsequent interaction.
The next ten to fifteen minutes are typically the founder-led pitch — walking through your deck at a pace that signals confidence (too fast means you are not leaving room for questions; too slow means you have not prepared for a 45-minute meeting). The remaining thirty minutes are the conversation, which is where the real evaluation happens. The best pitches are the ones where the conversation takes over from the deck by minute twenty — where the investor is asking substantive, specific questions that take the conversation deeper rather than broader.
One piece of advice that sounds obvious but is frequently ignored: listen in pitch meetings. The questions an investor asks are telling you what they care about, what concerns them, and what they want to understand better. Founders who respond to every question with a pivot back to their prepared narrative are not listening — and investors notice. The best pitch conversations are genuinely dialogic: you are both learning from each other.
Understanding and Negotiating Term Sheets
The seed term sheet is simpler than the Series A term sheet, but it contains several provisions that have significant implications for the future of the company. The things that matter most are: valuation (which determines the equity you are giving up and sets the benchmark for your Series A); pro-rata rights (which determine whether your seed investors have the right to participate in future rounds, which affects your ability to bring in new investors at Series A and beyond); information rights (what financial and operational reporting you owe investors — standard is quarterly financials and an annual audit, and anything more demanding than this at the seed stage deserves scrutiny); and board composition (for a pre-Series A company, a typical board is the two co-founders plus one investor seat — be thoughtful about granting a board seat to a seed investor, as this structure persists into the growth stage).
On valuation: the temptation to optimize for the highest possible seed valuation is understandable but often counterproductive. A seed valuation that is significantly above the market rate for your stage and sector creates an expectation anchor for your Series A that can make raising the next round difficult if your growth between seed and Series A does not support the step-up. The right seed valuation is the one that is fair to both parties and creates a realistic path to a good Series A outcome — not the highest number you can get an investor to sign.
Specific Advice for International Founders Raising from US Investors
International founders — particularly those based in Europe, Asia, or Latin America — face a specific set of challenges when raising from US-based seed funds that are worth addressing explicitly. The most significant is entity structure: most US institutional seed investors require that the entity they are investing in be a Delaware C-Corporation. This does not mean you need to relocate your entire company to the US — it means you need to restructure such that a Delaware C-Corp is at the top of your entity stack, with your existing operating entity as a wholly-owned subsidiary. This restructuring is relatively straightforward and can typically be completed in four to six weeks with the right legal counsel.
The second challenge is time zone and relationship management. Building trust with US investors from a base in Berlin or Singapore requires more intentional effort than it does from San Francisco. Plan your fundraising timeline to include at least two trips to the major US VC hubs — one early in the process for relationship-building, one at the end for final meetings and close. The investors who will back you from outside the US are those who have made the commitment to evaluate global founders, but even they benefit from in-person time before they commit capital.
The third challenge is framing your international background as a feature, not a liability. The default assumption in US VC circles is that Silicon Valley companies have a structural advantage in the US market — which is usually true. The counter-narrative you need to tell is why your market position outside the US is a moat, why global distribution is a competitive advantage rather than a complexity, and why the company you are building could only have been built from where you are building it. This narrative, told compellingly, transforms the perception of international origin from a risk factor to a differentiator.
After You Close: Maintaining Momentum
The period immediately following a seed close is one of the most consequential in a company's life — and one of the least well-navigated. The capital raise generates visibility and momentum that can be converted into customer introductions, recruitment pipeline, and press coverage if handled well, and that dissipates quickly if not. The best founders treat the close announcement as a business development event, not just a PR moment.
Within 48 hours of close, send personalized notes to every person who declined to invest in your round. The note should be gracious, brief, and should leave the door open for future conversations. Some of the best Series A investors we know made their decision based on how founders treated them when they passed on the seed round — the quality of character revealed in those interactions matters more than people expect.
Set your first 90-day post-close operating plan before you close the round, not after. The months immediately following a seed close are the highest-velocity period in a company's life — you have capital, momentum, and visibility, and the decisions you make about hiring, product priorities, and market focus in this window have disproportionate consequences for the next 18-24 months. Do not let the energy of the close evaporate into planning paralysis.
Fundraising is a skill, and like all skills, it improves with practice and honest self-evaluation. The founders who raise best are not those with the most glamorous companies — they are those who have prepared most thoroughly, who have thought most carefully about what different investors are actually looking for, and who have been most honest with themselves about where their business and their narrative are strongest. That is always within your control.