How to build an investor shortlist that actually converts

The biggest silent killer of a raise is a bad list. Two hundred names exported from a database feel like progress, but every off-thesis email costs reply rate, sender reputation, and weeks of calendar. This guide is how Lunra thinks about building a bench worth your morning.

Score against the deal, not the category

Match evaluates every profile on the graph against your specific deal across five axes: thesis fit, stage fit, check size, capital freshness, and reachability. The difference between "consumer investor" and "writes $1-5M seed checks into consumer brands and raised a fresh fund last year" is the difference between a maybe and a meeting.

Respect the tier bar

Tiers are calibrated so only on-thesis investors can hold one. Tier A means every axis lines up. Tier B is worth a look when the A bench thins. Everything below is deliberately not shown by default: the cost of pitching the wrong investor is higher than the cost of a shorter list.

Check the evidence badge

Every row carries a verification badge: Verified (identity and email confirmed), Contact on file, or SEC-filed (the claim traces to a filing). Reachability tells you whether a path to a real inbox exists before you spend a stage on them.

Go long-tail with sub-verticals

Beyond the eight canonical sectors, the graph carries 1,000+ sub-vertical tags: CPG, functional beverage, dev tools, climate hardware, and the rest of the long tail. Sub-vertical filters are how a coffee brand finds the fourteen investors who have actually written functional-beverage checks, instead of pitching "consumer" generally.

Thin bench? Grow it on demand

When a segment looks thin, Discovery can source that exact slice into the graph on demand, and saved views keep your working segments current as the graph grows weekly.

The test before any name leaves the bench

One sentence: why this investor, for this deal, now. If the sentence writes itself from the profile (thesis, fresh fund, right check, warm path), they advance. If it does not, cut them and your future reply rate will thank you. Then take the shortlist into the stage-by-stage raise process.