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Fundraising, decoded.

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David Rakusan·June 15, 2026

Legal Due Diligence Checklist for Startups (2026)

Legal due diligence is where investors confirm your startup actually owns its equity, its IP, and its contracts. Most founders meet it as a surprise when the term sheet is already signed and a missing contractor assignment stalls the round. This checklist walks through all nine workstreams counsel reviews, from Delaware incorporation and the 83(b) 30-day clock to 409A valuations and the IP assignments that kill the most deals, plus a pre-fundraise readiness routine and a quick-reference table.

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David Rakusan·June 15, 2026

How to Build an Investor Target List (2026)

Most founders treat an investor target list as a contact dump, then wonder why the deck disappears. A target list is really a proof-routing problem: which investors have the thesis, stage, check size, and capital to act on your startup, and how do you get each one proof without repeating yourself fifty times. Here is the five-criteria method to build a fit-matched list in 2026, how big it should be, how to tier it, and the tools that source it.

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David Rakusan·June 8, 2026

How to Value a Pre-Revenue Startup (2026)

A pre-revenue startup has no sales to multiply, so no formula sets its value. This guide explains the methods investors actually use, the Berkus, Scorecard, Risk Factor Summation, and Venture Capital methods, how each one really prices risk, why your number is usually a SAFE cap rather than a calculated price, and the three forces that decide it: your team, the market cycle, and the proof you bring before the conversation starts.

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David Rakusan·June 8, 2026

Due Diligence for Angel Investors: What to Check Before You Write the Check

Angel due diligence is the work that tells you whether a startup is real before you wire money. The largest study of angel returns found investors who spent more than 20 hours on diligence earned 5.9 times their money, versus 1.1 times for those who spent less. Here is what to check before you write the check: founders, market, traction, terms, and references, and how an individual angel's process differs from an institutional fund's.

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David Rakusan·June 5, 2026

Investor Matching Platforms Compared (2026): What They Find, What They Cost, and Where They Stop

OpenVC, Angel Match, AngelList, Gust, Signal, Evalyze, and SeedForge compared side by side: database sizes, matching logic, real costs, and the conversion data on what actually works. Cold lists reply at 1% to 5%. Warm paths convert at 58%. And the part every comparison skips: the match gets you two seconds of attention, proof decides what happens next. A practical framework for choosing your stack in 2026.

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David Rakusan·June 1, 2026

AI in Venture Capital: How Investors Use AI for Deal Evaluation in 2026

By 2026, 85% of private capital dealmakers use AI for daily tasks, and AI now reads most decks before a human partner does. But AI screens have not replaced VC judgment. They have changed the surface form your evidence needs to take. Here is what VCs actually do with AI in deal evaluation, where AI is still bad, and the pre-fundraise checklist that gets a founder past both the AI screen and the partner read.

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David Rakusan·June 1, 2026

Where to Find Pre-Seed Investors in Europe (and How to Get Warm Intros That Convert)

The European pre-seed map has roughly 80 active funds, four major accelerators, and a continent-wide angel network. The hard part is not the list. It is getting into the room and converting the meeting. This article maps the active European pre-seed channels in 2026, shows how the market differs from the US, and explains how founders who close fast bring proof to every warm intro.

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David Rakusan·May 28, 2026

Investor Pitch Deck Template: 10 Slides That Actually Work in 2026

Most pitch deck templates give you a structure but not an argument. This 10-slide investor pitch deck template for 2026 walks slide by slide through what to put on each slide, the proof signal each one should carry, the most common 2026 mistake, and the test for whether the slide is doing its job. Built on the team-weighting research from 885 institutional VCs and DocSend's 2024 behavioral data on how investors read decks.

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David Rakusan·May 28, 2026

How Pattern Matching Shapes Seed Decisions (and What Founders Can Do About It)

Pattern matching is the dominant shortcut VCs use to decide who to fund. It is also the reason the same VCs missed Airbnb, missed Brian Chesky, and continue to misallocate billions to founders who look like past winners. Seven years on the investor side, plus the actual academic data, shows why this happens and how founders who do not fit the template can produce a counter-signal that gets read.

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David Rakusan·May 26, 2026

Cap Table Management for Startups (Without Hiring a Lawyer)

A clean cap table is a proof artifact. Investors read it during diligence to decide whether the founder ran a real ownership process. This guide walks through what belongs on a cap table, the math behind dilution, the four mistakes that cost founders the most equity, vesting and 83(b) basics, when to move off a spreadsheet to software, and the 10-item pre-fundraise checklist that closes rounds faster.

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