Series A PR Checklist: What Founders Should Prepare Before Fundraising

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that nearly half of chief communications officers now report directly to their CEOs, up from 37% in 2015. Companies including Gap, Peloton, Reddit, and Chanel have all hired their first-ever CCOs in the past year. The case for this is that investor memos, press releases, social media, and AI chatbot results have all bled together into one narrative surface, and the cost of getting it wrong has never been higher. The same logic applies to a startup heading into a Series A.

According to Crunchbase, the transition from seed to scale has become substantially harder. For the 2022 cohort, only 20% of seeded companies graduated to their next round, a steep drop from the 51-61% seen in prior years. The median ARR investors now expect sits around $3 million, with round sizes typically running between $5-$15 million. At that bar, metrics alone don't close rounds. The difference, more often than not, comes down to how well a company has prepared its communications before the round opens. 

Here's a checklist of seven things to prepare before you start fundraising.

#1: Build your narrative six to twelve months before the round opens

The story an investor hears in a first meeting should not be under construction. By the time a founder is in active fundraising mode, the narrative needs to be tested, tight, and credible - which means starting well before it feels necessary.

A strong Series A narrative answers four things: what the company does and for whom, why this moment is the right one for this category, why this team is the right one to build it, and what the path from current traction to a large outcome looks like. 

Each of those answers has to connect. Investors aren't evaluating the parts in isolation, they're looking for a coherent whole.

We recommend pressure-testing this with advisors, angels, and operators six to twelve months out. They will tell you exactly where it breaks. By the time you're pitching, the story should have been told enough times that all of its rough edges are completely gone.

#2: Get into the publications investors actually read

Investors research founders long before meetings, and what they find shapes how much conviction they bring into the room. A founder quoted in TechCrunch, Business Insider, or a relevant sector trade outlet arrives with a level of credibility no pitch deck can replicate. Conversely, a founder with no media presence walks in with far more to prove.

One well-placed article in a publication investors actually read is worth more than five pieces they don't. Map your target investors and identify where they consume content, whether it is in the form of newsletters, trade press, or podcasts. Then, let that drive your media targeting strategy rather than a generic list of tech publications.

Thought leadership pieces and contributed columns are often easier to land than news coverage, and they still carry comparable weight. An op-ed in a relevant trade publication, a quoted perspective in a sector deep-dive, or a guest post on an industry newsletter put you on record as someone who understands the market before you ever walk into a pitch meeting.

This was the case for FlyFeed, a Tallinn-based agtech startup that came to Mindset needing to build investor visibility ahead of a new funding round. We crafted a sustainability-led narrative and ran targeted media relations across agtech, sustainability, and business outlets in Europe and the US. FlyFeed secured coverage in TechCrunch, Euronews, The Next Web, and EU-Startups, among others, and the founder was appointed to the Forbes Council, reinforcing executive credibility with the investor audience. The result: $3 million raised and over $10 million in pre-contracts signed with leading EU companies. Investors had already seen the story told independently - not just in a pitch deck.

#3: Lock down your founder's LinkedIn presence

LinkedIn is one of the first places an investor goes after seeing a company name, and it remains one of the most overlooked surfaces in pre-fundraise preparation. The profile needs to be current and specific: what the company does, what problem it solves, and what traction looks like without giving away anything confidential. The headline and about section do more work than most founders realize - they're often what an investor skims in 30 seconds before deciding whether to read further.

A track record of posts about your sector builds up over months into something investors find when they search your name. It doesn't require posting every day; consistent and well-reasoned content is far more useful than frequent and generic updates.

When Globe7, a London-based invitation-only luxury travel atelier, came to Mindset, the founder had genuine expertise but almost no media presence. We built a narrative around emerging luxury travel trends and placed it with tier-1 global media. Within three months, the founder was on the front page of the Financial Times European print edition, appeared as a live commentator on CNN prime time, and was invited onto BBC Radio, all without a single company news announcement. Over 40 publications now dominate Google search results for relevant queries, and the LinkedIn presence built in parallel generated more than 5,000 impressions per post. None of that would have been available to pull forward into a fundraising narrative if we had waited until there was a round to announce.

#4: Run disciplined investor updates before you need anything

Investors who know your story, metrics, and trajectory before the fundraising round opens aren't strangers you need to convert. They are, effectively, warm relationships you need to close. The vehicle for building those relationships is a regular investor update. This must be sent consistently to angels, advisors, and target VCs in the months preceding the round.

Regular updates demonstrate operational discipline, build a factual track record investors can verify independently, and create a cadence of contact that makes the fundraise conversation feel like a continuation rather than a cold approach. 

Format matters less than consistency. A concise update covering key metrics, recent wins, what isn't working, and what help you need tells investors substantially more than a polished deck sent once. It also gives future lead investors a file of evidence they can use to convince their partnership without you in the room.

#5: Prepare your PR materials before the announcement, not after

Most founders think about PR when the round closes. That is already too late. The press release, executive bio, company boilerplate, key messages, and list of target journalists should all be finalized before term sheets are signed.

As noted earlier, all corporate communications channels have bled into a single narrative surface. For a startup, that surface is even more exposed. A journalist, an investor, and a potential customer may all be looking at your company for the first time on the exact same day, and what they find must be consistent.

At Mindset, every fundraising campaign starts with strategy and analysis, not a press release. Before drafting a single line of copy, we map two audiences: the investors who need to see this company as a credible opportunity, and the journalists who need a reason to write about it. These two audiences consume information differently, trust different sources and credibility indicators, and operate on different timelines, so the messaging has to work for both. 

That means all materials, such as the press release, the founder bio, the company boilerplate, the spokesperson quotes, and the supporting data, are built against the media agenda, not just the company's internal narrative. 

Some of the questions we consider include: What are journalists in this sector covering right now? Where does this announcement connect to a conversation reporters are already having? We prepare answers to those questions before the announcement goes out, so the moment coverage lands, everything is already in place.

Offering exclusives or first-look access to specific journalists increases the likelihood of meaningful coverage rather than a brief mention in a funding roundup. However, that requires knowing which journalists cover your sector and having a relationship with at least some of them before the announcement.

#6: Time your PR push to the fundraising calendar, not the other way around

A well-timed piece of coverage can accelerate a round; a poorly timed one can complicate it. The sequence matters more than most founders realize.

Thought leadership and background coverage should run in the months before active fundraising begins. The announcement of the round itself should be timed for maximum impact, not dropped in a slow news cycle unless the story is strong enough to stand on its own. Otherwise, it may end up buried, especially if it is released in a period when investors are distracted by conference season or year-end.

Coverage during diligence serves a purpose, too. A feature that drops while a lead investor is evaluating the deal adds social proof at exactly the right moment. But that's not accidental. It requires the PR strategy and the fundraising timeline to be coordinated, and the communications infrastructure to be ready to move fast.

#7: Build journalist relationships before you have a story to pitch

A reporter who has never heard of you is being asked to do a lot of work on faith. One who already knows you, understands the sector, and has a sense of why the company matters is being asked to do much less. That difference shows up in response rates, coverage quality, and the depth of the story.

Journalist relationships don't compress to fit a fundraising timeline. They build through consistent, low-key engagement: responding when reporters put out calls for expert comment, offering background when they are covering your sector, showing up at events they attend, and sharing useful data occasionally without pitching anything. By the time the announcement is ready, the journalists who matter should already know your name.

Final thoughts

Series A investors aren't just buying a business - they are buying into a founder's ability to tell a story that attracts talent, customers, and future capital. The communications work that happens before the round opens is part of what they are assessing, whether they say so or not.

Founders who arrive at Series A with a tested narrative, media presence in the right outlets, consistent investor updates behind them, and journalist relationships built over time have already done most of the heavy lifting. The pitch is simply the last step.

Treating PR as a post-close administrative activity makes an already difficult job significantly harder. And in a market where the conversion rate from seed to Series A has been cut in half, that distinction shows.