A founder came to me last year, about 11 months into what he called his “fundraising process.”

He and his team had the basics covered - great presentation, good story, strong science, a team that had seen success in an adjacent space.

But - no advanced conversations, no term sheet. Not even a partner meeting in the last four months.

When I asked him to walk me through his process, here’s what I heard:

He’d had a great first meeting with a fund back in the spring. They’d asked for monthly updates. He’d been sending them. He was “building the relationship.”

He’d taken an intro to a family office that a mutual contact had offered. The conversation went well. They’d said they’d love to reconnect “when the data matures a bit.”

He’d had maybe 20 conversations in 11 months. Each one carefully sequenced. Each one treated as a long-term relationship investment.

I asked him: when did you officially launch the round?

He paused. “I mean… I’ve been raising since last April.”

That was the problem. He’d been warming up for 11 months and never flipped the switch.

His fundraise was open without having a defined window, a specific ask, and a target close date.

To investors, the opportunity felt evergreen.

So we redesigned his approach. We organized his contacts into a priority list. Mapped out who had warm intro paths. Set a 10-week window to run the actual campaign.

Within six weeks of launching properly, he was having serious conversations with fund partners, with two progressing to real due diligence.

The science didn’t change. The investors didn’t change. Most of them were already in his network.

The process did.

That’s what we’re going to break down today.

The current state of fundraising

Let’s start by acknowledging what you probably already know: biotech fundraising takes a long time, and it’s been taking longer over the past several years than in the ZIRP days of 2020-2021.

The median time between rounds in healthcare is also more prolonged - now around 760 days (about 2.1 years), according to Carta. Investors are raising bigger funds but writing fewer checks.

As a result, decision cycles are longer. If your raise is taking more time than you expected, that’s not always a reflection of your company. We are in a genuinely challenging environment, and that needs to be accounted for.

But here’s what the data doesn’t show you: a well-run raise still takes 9-15 months. The raises dragging on for 18-24+ months usually have a common root cause - either they started prematurely, or, more likely, they are not organized in phases.

Most founders think of fundraising as one continuous activity. It isn’t. A well-run raise has three distinct phases with different objectives, different activities, and very different timelines. Collapsing them into one murky “fundraising mode” is exactly what turns a 12-month raise into a 24-month one.

Phase 1: The warm-up

This is where you build the relationship capital. You attend conferences, pursue warm intros, have exploratory conversations over coffee. You’re letting investors watch you make progress before you ever make an ask.

The key move: be explicit that you’re not raising yet.

“We’re planning to open our round in Q[X] - I wanted to connect now so you have context before we’re live.”

That one sentence plants a seed and sets up Phase 2 in a clean and organic way.

The trap: never leaving Phase 1. Staying in warm-up mode indefinitely feels safe - no risk of rejection. But there’s also no path to a close. At some point, you have to flip the switch.

Phase 2: The campaign window

This is the round and the “live” campaign.

This is where you flip the switch and go from exploring to executing.

The defining feature: conversations run in parallel, not sequentially. Many founders, especially those running their first fundraise, talk to one investor at a time, waiting to hear back before moving to the next.

This is the single biggest time killer. No parallel pipeline means no momentum, no cross-signal, no leverage. You’re always waiting.

In a well-run campaign window:

The window creates honest urgency. Not manufactured pressure - just the reality of a founder who’s running a real process.

Phase 3: Diligence & Close (6-10 weeks from first term sheet)

This involves legal, due diligence, cap table review, and final negotiations. This phase may be largely out of your control in terms of pace.

However, what IS in your control is how prepared you walk in.

A clean data room, an organized cap table, and a clear use-of-funds narrative tied to milestones can compress this phase significantly.

Founders who go in unprepared routinely add 4-6 weeks to their close - and occasionally watch deals fall apart in that gap.

Add it up: a well-run raise takes 9-15 months

The difference almost always comes down to one thing: whether the founder ever actually entered Phase 2.

I’ve talked about this before, but I keep bringing it up because I’m genuinely surprised by how few founders actually do it - especially during a live fundraise.

This update is not for your existing investors; it’s for your prospective ones.

Here’s how you can execute on this:

During Phase 1, when you’re in relationship-building mode, ask the investor a simple question before you wrap up:

“Would you mind if I kept you posted on our progress as we build toward our raise?”

Almost everyone says yes. You’re not asking for anything. You’re offering something.

Then you add them to a short monthly email. Keep it to 150–250 words.

Here’s what to include:

During Phase 1 (company updates):

During Phase 2 (fundraise updates):

You’re not pressuring anyone. You’re keeping them informed - which is exactly what a good investor communication looks like.

The obvious benefit is momentum. By the time you officially ask for a meeting in Phase 2, they’ve been watching you execute for months. The ask feels natural, not cold.

But the less obvious benefit is what it signals about you as a founder. If you’re this disciplined about keeping prospective investors informed when you don’t even have their money yet, what does that tell them about how you’ll communicate once they do invest?

You’re showing them that you’re the kind of founder who does what they say they’ll do. In a world full of founders who disappear between meetings, that alone is memorable.

One note on format: send it from your personal email, not a bulk email tool, even if that means setting aside a few hours on the weekend to send the updates. Remember - the goal is to build real, authentic, human relationships with individuals and funds that may be with you for the life of your company.

The goal here is not marketing campaign efficiency, its old school human authenticity.

An added bonus

90% of these updates should be just that - updates, with no ask attached.

But since you're essentially building a warm rolodex of people who know your work, once in a while it's completely appropriate to include a gentle ask.

Looking for a specific hire? A connection at a BD team inside a large pharma? A distributor in a new market?

These are exactly the kinds of things your prospective investor network can help with - and asking makes you more human, not less professional.

Now that I shared the perfect fundraising template, I want to recognize something - fundraising rarely happens in a perfect template, of any kind 🙂

If you’re reading this, you probably already know - fundraising is messy.

It rarely follows a clean three-phase arc.

Investors go dark. Or they just go to the Maldives.

Data readouts shift timelines.

Key intro paths fall through. Life happens.

And this is especially true right now. All in all, it’s a genuinely difficult environment to raise in, and we certainly shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

So this framework isn’t here to make you feel like you’ve failed if your raise doesn’t follow a clean template. And it’s definitely not a checklist to grade yourself against.

What I’ve found is that an aspirational plan gives you a picture of what “good” looks like.

And when the inevitable chaos hits, that picture becomes a north star.

It gives you something to navigate back toward, rather than just reacting to whatever comes next.

So, know that you don’t have to run a perfect campaign. You just need enough structure to know when you’ve drifted too far from one - and what to do about it.

At the end of the day - it’s better to have a plan that’s aspirational than no plan at all.

I’m pretty sure it was someone famous that said this? :)

If you've ever stared at a follow-up draft wondering whether it sounds too pushy or too passive, I hope this can serve as a helpful starting point.

Here’s my challenge for you this week:

Figure out which phase you’re actually in. Be honest.

If you're still in early planning mode - that's not a bad thing.

Now you have a roadmap. You know what the phases look like, what to do in each one, and what gears to move through from zero to term sheet.

You can start Phase 1 with intention instead of stumbling into it.

If you've been “fundraising” for more than six months without a defined window, a parallel pipeline, and a soft close target - you're in Phase 1. And that's okay. Now you know.

The question is: when are you flipping the switch? And what do you need to progress to Phase 2?

Hit reply - I'd love to hear where you are in the process and what's holding you back. These replies genuinely help me figure out what to cover next.

See you next Sunday!

- Vadim

PS: When you’re ready, here’s how I can help: