How does Lenz know how a firm takes pitches?

When research runs in a fundraising project, it doesn't stop at the investor. For each firm it finds, Lenz reads the firm's own site: how it takes pitches, its thesis, the stages and checks it states, and what it won't fund. Each firm gets a row in Firms, linked to its partners in Investors.

How to pitch

Every firm gets one of five:

• Form: the firm links a pitch form or asks for pitches through one.
• Email: it gives an address for pitches.
• Warm intro only: it says it doesn't take cold pitches.
• Office hours: it runs open office hours with a booking link.
• Not stated: its site doesn't say.

Lenz only picks one when the firm's own words back it up, and it shows you those words with the page they came from. Open a firm to see them. If the words didn't quite say it, the firm is marked Needs check and How to pitch stays empty for you to set.

The views across the top of Firms are just filters: Form 6, Email 8 and so on.

What happens next

The next step for each partner follows their firm:

• Fill the form: Lenz drafts an answer to each of the form's questions from your project and files, with a Copy button on each. You paste them in yourself; nothing is emailed. If Lenz can't read the form's questions (some forms live on another site or only load in a browser), it drafts the usual ones and says so. Click Mark as submitted when you've sent it: the partner moves to the next stage and gets a follow-up date, from the firm's own reply time if it gives one, otherwise two weeks out.
• Draft intro: Lenz drafts an intro to the address the firm gives. It waits in Approvals, as always.
• Find who can introduce you: Lenz quotes the firm, asks who you know, then drafts a short note to that person with a blurb they can forward. That one waits in Approvals too.
• Book office hours: a link to the firm's booking page. No draft.
• Add how to reach them: no draft until you add an address. Lenz never guesses one.

Lenz won't cold-email a firm that said no

If a firm takes pitches by form or only through warm intros, Lenz won't draft an intro to it or its partners, and it tells you why in the firm's own words. That's checked every time a draft is made, not only on the button.

Know better? Change the firm's How to pitch and the next step changes with it.

Partners

A firm's partners show in its panel, the ones who fit what you're looking for first. If an older page names someone and the current team page doesn't, they're kept and marked Needs check: Not on the current team page. Click Mark as checked once you've looked.

A partner's Email stays blank: research never guesses one. When the firm takes pitches by form, their Email says so: "Not needed: Northwind takes pitches by form."