91探花

Written by Dirk Bischof, Partner at Korra Ventures

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Over the last few months, I鈥檝e been reviewing more than a hundred startup decks and had numerous screening calls with startup founders, together with my two partners Tania Rahman and Dr Thomas Schreiber.听

Korra Ventures, our angel syndicate, was created to back founders who are often overlooked by traditional venture capital, women, ethnic-minority founders, and those building impact-driven ventures without access to the usual investor networks. Together, we鈥檙e building a community that connects diverse-led, purpose-driven startups with investors who want to see both financial and societal returns.

What we鈥檙e already seeing from this early deal flow is encouraging, but also revealing. Too many founders still struggle to present their numbers clearly, often citing lifetime revenues without context, or showing totals without indicating whether growth is accelerating or stalling. This makes our job hard to figure out whether to speak to and invite founders.听 Others focus on vast market sizes without articulating the niche they鈥檙e actually in, or how their product is already showing signs of early product鈥搈arket fit.

At Korra, we look for founders who can communicate clarity, those who deeply understand their customers and the problems they鈥檙e helping them solve. We want to work with founders who know their numbers, and can articulate the specific edge that sets them apart. Having invested into some 40 companies across our 3 partners, we wanted to share some more thoughts around how founders can cut through the noise and get investor attention. We also want to share some core lessons we鈥檝e learned from reviewing recent pitch decks and what founders can do to stand out in an increasingly competitive landscape.

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The Two-Part Filter Every VC Uses

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Every day, VCs wade through an ocean of pitches. Most drown in sameness, another AI platform, another revolution promised, another founder convinced their vision alone will change everything. But what VCs are actually hunting for isn鈥檛 vision. It鈥檚 signal. The game has two parts: first, the unfair advantage, an actual structural edge that makes you the inevitable winner. Second, the tectonic shift, a moment in time when the world is moving in your direction, whether it knows it yet or not.

One founder says they鈥檙e 鈥�building an AI platform to revolutionise healthcare鈥�. Another says they鈥檙e 鈥渇ormer radiologists building the compliance layer for AI diagnostics, with exclusive hospital partnerships鈥� creating the exact training data moat to differentiate themselves. Same space. Entirely different signal strength.

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Pre-Seed: Articulate Your Secret

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At the earliest stage, you have almost nothing tangible. No revenue, barely a product, maybe just a prototype and a theory. What you do have, what you must have, is a secret. Some contrarian understanding of the market that you鈥檝e earned through direct experience (ideally), that gives you a perspective others simply cannot access.

VCs aren鈥檛 betting on your idea. They鈥檙e betting that your unique vantage point or experience lets you see a truth the market hasn鈥檛 priced in yet. Your job is to articulate that secret with precision: 鈥淓veryone believes the problem is X, but our time at previous company showed us it鈥檚 actually Y 鈥� and here鈥檚 the data.鈥� This is where founder-market fit becomes existential.

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Pre-Seed: Build Strategically in Public

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Share the technical problems you鈥檙e solving, the non-obvious hurdles you鈥檝e discovered. A detailed thread about data challenges in your niche signals deep expertise in ways a launch announcement never could.

Don鈥檛 just post vanity metrics. Write about 鈥�3 Non-Obvious Data Hurdles in Building Your Niche AI Tool鈥� to demonstrate you鈥檙e solving real, complex problems. This type of strategic public building separates founders with genuine domain expertise from those simply chasing trends. It鈥檚 not about being loud, it鈥檚 about broadcasting credible technical signal that VCs recognize as authentic.

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Pre-Seed: Secure Anchor Advisors

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Get a domain expert whose credibility transfers to you, a Chief of Radiology for a health tech startup, a technical luminary for a developer tool. Suddenly your secret has external validation. This isn鈥檛 about collecting impressive names.

It鈥檚 about demonstrating that people who actually understand your space believe in your insight. When a recognised expert in your domain is willing to attach their reputation to your vision, it transforms your contrarian insight from hypothesis to validated thesis in the eyes of investors.

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Pre-Seed: Leverage Your Unconventional Background

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For founders from unconventional backgrounds, your experience isn鈥檛 a diversity checkbox, it鈥檚 proprietary market intelligence. Frame it that way. Your narrative becomes: 鈥淢y years in this overlooked space gave me direct access to a problem worth billions that Silicon Valley founders can鈥檛 even see. We鈥檙e not asking for a chance. We鈥檙e offering you access to a market you鈥檇 otherwise miss entirely.鈥�

Your unique perspective is a massive signal, not noise. The VC industry in 2025 is actively seeking diversity of thought because it uncovers untapped markets that traditional founders simply cannot access.

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Seed Stage: Show Your Magic Metric

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Now you have customers. The question shifts from 鈥淒o you understand something others don鈥檛?鈥� to 鈥淗ave you built a machine that can scale?鈥� Show your magic metric, maybe it鈥檚 120% net revenue retention, proof that customers don鈥檛 just stay, they expand. Maybe it鈥檚 30% month-over-month organic growth, evidence of built-in virality. This is about systematically demonstrating that you鈥檝e peeled away product risk.

VCs need tangible proof that you鈥檝e found product-market fit and a repeatable motion. The magic metric is your clearest signal that customers genuinely love what you鈥檝e built.

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Seed Stage: Prove Scalable Go-To-Market

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Show your scalable go-to-market motion. In 2025, that means product-led sales: using AI to identify high-intent users from your free tier and routing them seamlessly into a sales process. Prove your CAC payback is under twelve months.

This demonstrates you鈥檝e peeled away market risk, you know how to acquire customers efficiently and repeatably. VCs want to see that growth won鈥檛 require burning absurd amounts of cash. The hybrid approach of product-led growth combined with strategic sales is the 2025 standard for demonstrating a scalable, capital-efficient engine.

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Seed Stage: Present Your Scaling Plan

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Show how you鈥檒l hire your first 10 engineers or 5 account executives. Demonstrate you鈥檝e thought about culture and systems, not just headcount.

This peels away team scaling risk, proving you understand that scaling isn鈥檛 just about throwing money at hiring, but about building organizational infrastructure that can handle growth. VCs want to see that you鈥檝e thought through the operational challenges ahead and have a methodical plan for building the team that will execute your vision.

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For Bootstrapped Founders: Frame Efficiency as Strength

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Every dollar/GBP you didn鈥檛 raise is a signal of discipline. Structure your story around the risks you鈥檝e already eliminated: 鈥淲e鈥檝e reached $50k MRR without external capital, systematically de-risking product and initial market.

The funding we鈥檙e raising now is exclusively to de-risk the scaling layer the sales team and paid channels we鈥檝e already validated the unit economics for.鈥� This isn鈥檛 scrappiness. It鈥檚 proof of capital efficiency and grit. You鈥檝e demonstrated the ability to build and validate without external pressure, and now you鈥檙e ready to pour fuel on a fire that鈥檚 already proven it can burn.

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AI Must Be Core Architecture, Not a Feature

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The 2025 landscape has shifted. AI isn鈥檛 a feature anymore; it鈥檚 either your core architecture or it鈥檚 noise. VCs can spot the difference instantly. They鈥檙e not impressed by 鈥渨e use AI.鈥� They鈥檙e looking for businesses where AI enables a step-function improvement in a workflow that literally couldn鈥檛 exist before.

The signal is that AI is the fundamental architectural principle of your product, creating capabilities that weren鈥檛 possible with previous technology. This is the difference between bolting AI onto an existing solution and building something genuinely new from the ground up.

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Capital Efficiency Is Non-Negotiable

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In a world of higher interest rates, the path to profitability isn鈥檛 optional, it鈥檚 the signal. Understanding unit economics from day one isn鈥檛 founder homework; it鈥檚 the price of entry. VCs prize founders who can articulate their model for efficient growth and demonstrate discipline in how they deploy capital.

Show you know exactly how much it costs to acquire a customer, how long until you recoup that investment, and what the lifetime value looks like. This level of financial rigor signals that you鈥檙e building a sustainable business, not just chasing growth at any cost.

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Build an Unassailable Data Moat

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The new moat isn鈥檛 intellectual property. It鈥檚 data. Proprietary, compounding, unassailable data that makes your product smarter with every customer interaction, building a defensive wall no competitor can scale. In 2025, the most compelling signal is your plan to build a data asset that becomes more valuable over time.

Every customer interaction should feed a flywheel that makes your core product better, creating a compounding advantage that entrenches your position and makes it exponentially harder for competitors to catch up.

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Systematic Risk Elimination

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Your goal isn鈥檛 perfection. It鈥檚 clarity. The founders who win in 2025 are the ones who can demonstrate, with tangible evidence, that they understand exactly which risks threaten their business and have a ruthless, methodical plan to eliminate them one by one.

Think of your startup as an onion with layers of risk, product, market, team, scaling. Your strategy isn鈥檛 to tackle everything at once. It鈥檚 to show VCs that you鈥檝e systematically peeled away the core risks and know precisely which layer to attack next with their capital. That鈥檚 the signal VCs are listening for. Everything else is just noise.