Reflex Capital → Blog → How to approach an investor
Recently, I spotted a founder on social media lamenting that the majority of VC funds he contacted didn’t even reply to the email where he introduced his project. Underneath, there were plenty of comments about how typical this is—that VCs whine about having nothing to invest in, yet they don’t reply to emails. Ugh.
I don’t know if the person in question sent an email to us as well (I actually checked my inbox and didn’t find him), but I thought it would be fitting to write down the perspective from the other side :).
An investor is not obligated to reply to every email.
Just as you don’t reply to every unsolicited offer—and likely don’t even read all the stuff that lands in your inbox—it is the same for investors. Our inbox is flooded with unsolicited emails like “3x exited founder is raising 1m” or “Ondrej, 300k AI opportunity here”.
From my point of view, this is spam—emails sent in bulk to a database scraped from somewhere, only slightly personalized, usually automatically. I don’t read these at all, and I definitely don’t reply to them. If I did, I wouldn’t do anything else all day. Hundreds of pieces of this junk arrive daily.
Of course, it is far better if you put in the effort and write me a personal, addressed email. The probability that I won’t overlook such an email is very high. However, even that isn’t optimal. It is, after all, still a “cold mail.” Furthermore, in the recent era of advanced LLMs, it is becoming hard to distinguish a truly personal email. I understand that there are many investors and little time, but automating your outreach really doesn’t pay off.
Recommendation
Find a connection to the investor or a recommendation. A founder from their portfolio, someone they have in their LinkedIn contacts, etc., who can make an introduction. When I see an email from someone I know, I will definitely read it. I get a “warm intro,” and I already know who will be writing to me.
December 15th, 2025 • Ondřej Fryc
Recently, I spotted a founder on social media lamenting that the majority of VC funds he contacted didn’t even reply to the email where he introduced his project. Underneath, there were plenty of comments about how typical this is—that VCs whine about having nothing to invest in, yet they don’t reply to emails. Ugh.
November 26th, 2024 • Zdena Macháčková
April 29th, 2024 • Ondřej Fryc
I’m not gonna pretend anything, I was trapped too. It felt good to have our company and myself in the media! It boosted my ego, which grew. There are some people who don’t have that, but I see it in most founders around the age of 30 and let’s be honest – everyone is a bit of a narcissist.
April 20th, 2024 • Eduard Míka
It is said that creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship are the engines of economic development and the future prosperity of any country depends on them. In all neighboring countries, this seems to be the case, but not here.
