FundraisingTips
How Long Does a Series A Actually Take? The Real Timeline from Strategy to Wire
The real timeline and conversion rates for closing a Series A fundraise, backed by data from an actual round.
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Discover exactly what to share with an investor, and what sensitive documents you must avoid sending prematurely.
Ariana Amirkhanian
The first meeting with a potential investor is a high-stakes moment. Your primary goal is to shift the conversation from a basic intro to a valuable discussion on strategy, traction, and fit. To do that, the investor needs to arrive aware of what company they're meeting with.
Don't let your most valuable time together be wasted covering information that could have been reviewed asynchronously. This guide outlines the critical documents to share pre-meeting – and the sensitive materials you must hold back.
The most critical preparation you can do is sending key materials that give the investor a focused, high-level overview of your business. This is about making their pre-read efficient and ensuring they know who you are at a glance.
The one-pager is your anchor document. It's built for rapid consumption. It should cover:
By providing a well-structured one-pager, you ensure the investor comes to the call pre-aware. This allows you to immediately dive into the deeper questions they have, maximizing the time you have together.
The short answer: No.
Founders, especially early-stage ones, often use one massive master deck for everything. But overwhelming an investor with a 30-page document, full of repetitive product screenshots or minute details, is a mistake. It causes information fatigue and distracts from your core narrative.
Share a shrunk version of your presentation. This version must distill the main points and clearly showcase your core features or offerings without excessive slides. Even if your master deck is already lean, the version you send for pre-reading should be shorter still. Focus on clarity and impact.
💡 Flowlie Pro-Tip: Consolidate Your Share with FlowLink
Stop sending multiple attachments. Founders using Flowlie can leverage FlowLink to share their One-Pager and the Pitch Deck through a single, clean, trackable link. This professional presentation ensures all your required materials are organized in one place for easy investor access.
Transparency is essential, but timing is everything. Sharing the wrong documents too soon can risk your business or derail the process.
This is the golden rule: Do not share sensitive, confidential information, especially your Data Room, before establishing mutual interest.
The Data Room holds your most confidential operational, financial, and legal documents. Sharing it prematurely is a massive security risk and simply unnecessary. The early meeting is for validating fit, not for deep due diligence.
Save it for following calls. The right time to grant access is in later-stage diligence after the investor has committed to a serious process.
🔒 Flowlie Security Note
Flowlie lets you store a link to your Data Room alongside your other documents, accessible through the same FlowLink. However, this link is password-protected and inaccessible to an investor until you share the password with them. You remain in complete control over when to unlock your most sensitive files.
The primary risk is that the investor will skim or skip the dense document, defeating the purpose of sending it. Moreover, too much detail can lead them to focus on minor details rather than the big picture of your product and market opportunity. Keep the focus on the strength of your core pitch.
A successful investor meeting is about efficiency. Send a concise one-pager and a straight-to-the-point pitch deck to respect the investor’s time and make sure they know what you're discussing. Most importantly, keep your Data Room safe and use it only when the time is right to maintain security and control the diligence process.
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