For founders raising seed money
You know your brand is worth backing. The investor across the table does not know that yet, and they will not take your word for it. This page is how seed money actually gets raised for a beverage, supplement or packaged-goods brand: what investors check, why they pass without telling you, how to find the right ones, and what to build first.
Written by Dr. Scott Kimball, who ran the commercial side of a nutrition manufacturer through its growth and its sale to private equity, then spent two years as Chief People Officer of the acquirer, integrating seven plants. He has sat on both sides of the table: the founder asking, and the investor deciding.
Every founder who ever raised money believed in the brand. Belief is the entry ticket, not the argument.
Here is what is happening on the other side of the table. An investor sees a hundred decks a month. Their job is not to share your conviction. Their job is to find the reason to say no, as fast as they can, so they can spend their time on the few companies where they cannot find one. They are not being cold. They are being paid to be careful with other people’s money.
So the question that decides your raise is not how much do you believe. It is how much can a stranger check. Who owns the company. Whether your numbers match the bank. Who makes your product and on what terms. What one bottle earns after everyone in the chain is paid. That is the file. The deck gets the meeting. The file gets the check.
Most founders do not know this because nobody tells them. The investor who passes says “keep us posted.” The real reason stays in the room. This page puts it on the table.
How a seed raise actually works
Founders usually do these backwards: deck first, investors second, numbers when someone asks. Do them in this order and the meetings go differently.
The file is the twelve things an investor can check without calling you: the cap table, every SAFE or note you have signed, financials that tie to the bank, the cost of one unit, sales per store, your real accounts, who makes the product, who owns the formula and the name, what the money buys, what went wrong so far, what you have promised, and any equity you have given away. Ten weeks, done calmly, before the first meeting. Not four weeks in a panic after it.
“How did you get that number?” ends more meetings than any other question. A valuation that came out of your file, from the last round, the run-rate and what your SAFEs turn into at three different caps, holds for the ninety seconds it takes to be tested. A number picked off a slide gets talked down, every time.
The right investor funds your category, at your stage, at your check size, and has done it in the last two years. That is a list of forty names, not four hundred. Most of your list will not fit, and every meeting with someone who does not fit costs you a warm introduction you could have spent well.
Alignment means the investor sees the same numbers you see and reaches the same conclusion on their own. That takes a one-page fact sheet that travels without you in the room, a deck where every claim points at a page in the file, and the discipline to name your weakest pages yourself in the first meeting. A fact you disclosed is a strength. A problem they found is a reason to pass.
A list, a tracker, a close date, and a written plan B. Without those, a raise runs on whoever replies fastest, and that is how founders take the first term sheet instead of the right one.
What investors actually check
Score yourself on these before an investor does. Each one is a page. Each page answers a question they will ask out loud.
A cap table that adds up, both before and after everything converts.
Every SAFE and note, and what each one turns into at the next round.
Twelve months of real cash in and out, and how many months you have left.
Through every channel, after the distributor, the retailer, freight and promotions are paid.
The number that turns “it is working” from your word into evidence.
Real accounts with status, not a wall of logos you are hoping for.
The co-packer, the minimum order, the lead time, the shelf life, the signed agreement.
The company, in writing. Not you personally, not the flavour house.
Five named lines with a date and an owner, and how many months of runway they add.
The only proof that your judgment has been tested with your own money.
Every investor, every side deal, every handshake, written down.
Every grant for advice, introductions or services, with vesting. These never come back.
The free check scores you on all of these in five minutes, in plain language, and tells you which three to build first.
Why investors pass, and do not tell you
“Keep us posted” means one of these. Every one of them is fixable before the meeting and expensive after it.
They asked how you got the number and the answer was a comparison to someone else’s round. A price you cannot derive is a price you cannot defend.
Your deck showed the margin at wholesale. They took off the distributor’s cut, the trade spend and the freight, and the number went to single digits.
The distribution slide showed retailers you are targeting as if they were shelves you are on. One phone call to a buyer settled it, and cost every other slide its credibility.
You did not name it, so they did, in the second meeting, in worse words than you would have used.
It was not the sum of named lines, so it read as what you wanted rather than what you need. That invites a counter, and the counter is always lower.
You told them how sure you are. They needed to see what they could check. Belief gets a meeting. Verification gets a wire.
The right investors
Founders treat these as one problem called “finding investors.” They are three, and each has a different fix.
Category, stage, check size, and a deal in the last two years. A fund that writes $2M checks into software will take the meeting and never write the check. Build the list of forty from who has actually done it, and stop spending introductions on everyone else.
Alignment is not enthusiasm. It is an investor reaching your conclusion from your evidence, on their own. That happens when the deck and the file say the same thing, when the price has a derivation, and when the weak pages are named before they are found.
A warm intro works when the person making it can forward one page that a stranger reads in five minutes and understands. Without that page, every introduction needs you in the room, and most of them stop at the first forward.
Where to start
Three ways in, from free to done-with-you. Start with the check; it tells you which one you need.
Prefer to do it yourself? The Seed File™ book and workbook, $399: twenty-two chapters and fifteen live templates, one for every line above. Read Part I free.
Questions founders ask
The sum of named lines, not a round number. Work out what the next eighteen months cost at plan and at a downside, add what the milestones that earn the next round cost, and that total is the ask. If the plan shows more losses than the raise covers, say so, and say what the next round is. An ask that is the sum of lines survives the room. An ask that is a wish invites a counter.
Model both before you decide. A post-money SAFE is faster and cheaper for a round of small checks; a priced round sets terms everyone can see. What matters is knowing exactly what each one turns into when it converts, at three different caps, before you sign anything. Engage counsel before offering either; that is not a formality.
About ten weeks to build the file properly, then three to six months from first meeting to wire. Founders who open outreach before the file exists usually add months, not save them, because the first meetings turn into a list of things they could not answer.
No, but move fast. Say so in the intake and the Review gets priority. The most useful thing you can do mid-raise is stop taking new first meetings until the file can answer the questions the last ones asked.
No. Scalewrights is an advisory firm, not a placement agent or a broker-dealer, and takes no success fee or equity. The work makes your company checkable so that your own introductions travel. Dr. Kimball also invests at seed through CLMB Ventures, and that is kept separate: a company is either a client or a prospective investment, never both.
That is where the experience is: the plants, the co-packers, the distributors, the shelf. The method works for any physical product a stranger can pick up. If your company is software, most of the twelve pages still apply and two of them do not; you will know which.
Five minutes, free
Fifteen plain questions, your score, your three weakest pages, and what to build first. Before it costs you a meeting.
Take the Seed Readiness Check →No spreadsheet needed. Your answers stay private.