prepare-fundraise

name	prepare-fundraise
description	Prepare a focused fundraising process with an evidence-backed story, qualified target investors, reviewable materials, and next actions.

Prepare a Fundraise

Help the founder prepare a credible fundraising process without inventing traction, market evidence, or investor fit.

1. Define the raise and first useful result

Establish the stage, amount, intended use of funds, runway, timing, and the decision the raise should unlock. Clarify the immediate audience, deadline, and result that would help most now: a fundraising brief, story review, first investor set, deck, evidence gap review, data-room plan, or near-term process.

Use the founder's existing process when one exists. Otherwise propose a concise approach covering the story, material evidence gaps, investor profile, research depth, first artifact, and review point. Resolve high-impact ambiguity before substantial research or artifact creation without turning the run into a setup exercise.

2. Build the evidence foundation

Use relevant approved context already available across the visible browser, connected apps, files, meetings, and company systems. Useful sources may include the latest board or investor deck, financial model and dashboards, cap table, prior investor conversations or pipeline, product and market research, customer evidence, team material, and an existing data room. These are possible sources, not prerequisites.

Reconcile financial and cap-table figures against their approved source systems. Treat any model-produced number as a draft until the founder has checked it. For every material claim, preserve the source and date, distinguish fact from inference, keep internal figures separate from outside benchmarks, and expose stale, low-confidence, missing, or contradictory evidence.

If the founder's writing style is not already clear, use the internal strawberry/general/learn-writing-style skill installed by the Strawberry harness with approved examples; it is not part of this public repository.

3. Shape the story and reviewable materials

Build a concise narrative around the problem, why now, product, market, traction, advantage, team, plan, and ask. Pressure-test it through the questions investors underwrite: market, team, traction, moat, economics, execution, and risk. Surface evidence that conflicts with the story instead of polishing over it.

Create only the materials needed for the accepted first run. These may include a fundraising brief, deck, financial appendix, data-room checklist, diligence-answer pack, or pipeline tracker. Use strawberry/research-analysis/create-beautiful-slide-deck when the approved material should become a finished deck rather than duplicating its presentation workflow.

Source extracted diligence answers and keep unresolved questions visible. Separate internal working material from anything intended for investors, and keep confidential files inside their approved destinations.

4. Build and calibrate the investor set

Define the target profile from the fundraise stage, thesis, geography, check size, relevant experience, trusted fit signals, and explicit exclusions. Use strawberry/research-analysis/map-a-market when the investor or ecosystem landscape itself needs to be mapped before list building.

Treat firms and relevant partners as separate entities where the distinction matters. Deduplicate against approved pipeline records and prior conversations. For each candidate, preserve current source links and dates, give a concise evidence-backed fit reason, and identify a partner or possible introduction path only when supported. Never imply a relationship, interest, or warm path that has not been verified.

Review a small, varied first set before expanding the research. Around ten investors can be enough for calibration, but adapt the size to the raise and evidence. Report coverage, borderline cases, stale or contradictory evidence, and meaningful gaps instead of padding the list.

5. Turn the accepted work into a process

Review the story, first investor set, evidence gaps, and one selected artifact with the founder. Carry their corrections into the remaining materials and research. Build a practical near-term plan with owners, next actions, dependencies, deadlines, and review points; use a two-week horizon when it matches the founder's process rather than treating it as mandatory.

When an approved contact list should become messages, use strawberry/sales/send-personalized-outreach; keep its research, drafting, verification, and send rules there. Use strawberry/operations/prepare-for-meetings for scheduled investor conversations and preserve decisions and commitments after a reliable record exists.

Deliver an evidence-backed fundraising brief, calibrated first investor set, practical process, and the reviewable artifact agreed with the founder. Do not present uncertain claims as fact or promise a fundraising outcome.

6. Keep sensitive actions scoped

Follow Strawberry's active scoped permission for every company system, investor source, account, destination, and action. Research, drafting, changing pipeline records, contacting investors, sharing materials, granting data-room access, changing access, and sending external artifacts are separate actions. Draft or ask when permission is insufficient, stop when identity, scope, impact, or sensitive-data handling changes, and verify completed external actions.

After the process proves useful, preserve the accepted story, evidence standard, investor criteria, source rules, artifact choices, and review points as a custom or team skill. Add a Routine only when the team has a real trigger or cadence, stable systems, a reviewable output, clear approval behavior, and stop conditions.