On this page12
- Where coverage shows up in an investor's process
- What investors actually look for when they read your coverage
- The "explanation" job: coverage as a second pitch
- What two funding announcements show about the payoff
- A pre-raise media check you can run yourself
- When coverage won't help a raise at all
- How to use the coverage you have during a raise
- FAQ
- Should I do PR during a fundraise or wait until it closes?
- Do investors care which outlets covered us?
- Can bad press stop a raise?
- Is a press release on a wire service enough to show credibility?
Media coverage helps a fundraise indirectly. It won't get you a term sheet, and no serious investor writes a cheque because of an article. What it does is shorten the trust-building part of the process: investors search you before the first call, check whether credible third parties describe you the way your deck does, and use your coverage to explain the deal to their own partners. Coverage that's earned, consistent and on-narrative helps at each of those steps. Coverage that's paid, thin or off-message can quietly hurt.
Where coverage shows up in an investor's process
I've worked on funding announcements for founders across Web3 and AI, and I've sat in a lot of conversations about what happens before and after those announcements. Coverage touches a raise at five specific points, and it does a different job at each.
| Stage | What the investor is doing | What coverage does here | What it can't do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before the first call | Searching your name and the founders' names | Shows you exist outside your own channels | Make a weak deck look strong |
| First meeting | Testing whether you can explain the business | Gives them context so the call starts further along | Replace the founder's own clarity |
| Diligence | Checking claims, references, market position | Third-party confirmation of traction, partners and category | Verify numbers it never checked |
| Partner or IC discussion | Explaining the deal to colleagues who never met you | A link the champion can forward to make the case | Win the vote |
| After the close | Announcing, recruiting, supporting the portfolio | Turns the round into proof for customers, hires and the next round | Make up for a quiet year after |
The row people forget is the fourth one. The partner who loves your company isn't the only person deciding. They have to explain you to people who've never heard your pitch, and a credible article does part of that explaining for them.
What investors actually look for when they read your coverage
They aren't counting logos. From what founders have told me about their diligence calls, and from how I'd read coverage in an investor's seat, the questions are rarely "how many outlets." They're closer to these:
- Does the coverage describe the company the same way the deck does? If your deck says AI infrastructure and every article calls you a trading app, that's a question.
- Is the founder quoted as an expert, or only as a company spokesperson? Commentary on category news signals that reporters trust the founder's judgment.
- Is it earned or paid? Sponsored posts and wire-service pickups are easy to spot. They don't count against you by themselves, but they don't count for much either.
- How recent is it? One strong piece from two years ago and nothing since reads like a company that went quiet.
- Does anything negative come up? Investors will find it. Better you address it before they do.
VC's don't bet on products, they bet on people! Shilika Jain on X, 29 Sep 2022
That's why founder coverage matters more than product coverage in a raise. An investor reading a founder op-ed or a long-form interview is assessing the person, which is exactly what they're trying to do in diligence anyway.
The "explanation" job: coverage as a second pitch
Most early-stage companies I talk to don't struggle because the technology is weak. They struggle because nobody outside the team can explain it in two sentences.
Most crypto companies don't have a product problem, but they have an explanation problem. Brilliant crypto products struggle to gain traction, not because the technology isn't good enough, but because the value isn't communicated clearly enough to customers, investors, and the media! Shilika Jain on X, 19 Jun 2026
A good article is a second pitch, written by someone with no stake in your round. When a reporter at a trade outlet explains why your category matters and where you fit, the investor reads a version of your story that's been through an editor. That carries a different weight than your own blog.
This is also why the narrative work comes before the coverage. If you can't explain the company crisply, no reporter will do it for you. I go through how I build that in the founder profiling work.
What two funding announcements show about the payoff
Two raises from my own client work show the after-the-close side of this, which is the part I can speak to directly.
MANTRA Chain, $11M (March 2024). The raise was for RWA tokenization, and it ran with a Middle East angle. CoinDesk covered it as a raise "with Middle East tint", and it was picked up by CryptoDaily UK and CryptoPotato, plus a Cointelegraph interview with CEO John Mullin and a Milk Road Daily feature. The lesson I took from it: funding news travels further when it carries a regional angle and a category word reporters are already covering. The full story is in the MANTRA Chain case study.
Bullieverse, $4M (February 2022). An Indian-founded metaverse gaming team. The raise ran in Economic Times, Inc42, Entrackr, YourStory, VCCircle and Tech in Asia, alongside crypto and tech outlets. One detail I'm always upfront about: the CoinDesk placement on that campaign was sponsored content, not earned, and it was a mix of organic pitching and some sponsored placements. The lesson: for an Indian team, a raise is a mainstream business story at home, not only a crypto story. More in the Bullieverse case study.
What I'd point out for this question: in both cases the coverage came after the money was committed. Funding coverage doesn't help you raise this round. It helps you hire, sell, partner and, eventually, raise the next one, because the next investor will search you and find a credible record.
A pre-raise media check you can run yourself
Before you start a round, run this check. Score each line 0 (no), 1 (partly) or 2 (yes).
- Searching the company name brings up at least three third-party pieces in the first page of results.
- Searching each founder's name brings up something they said, not only their LinkedIn.
- The coverage describes the company in roughly the same words as your deck.
- At least one piece is from the last six months.
- Your coverage is mostly earned, and anything sponsored is clearly labelled.
- Any negative story that comes up has a clear, factual answer you can give in one sentence.
- You have a credible piece you'd happily forward to an investor's partner.
A score of 10 or more: your footprint will help. Six to nine: fix the gaps in the months before the raise, not during it. Below six: your coverage is unlikely to do much for this round, so spend your energy on the deck, the data and the references. Building a footprint ahead of a raise is a separate project, and it's covered in building a media footprint in the six months before a raise.
When coverage won't help a raise at all
There are rounds where I'd tell a founder not to think about media at all.
- Very early rounds from angels who already know you. They're backing you personally. An article adds little.
- Rounds that hinge on hard metrics. If an investor's decision rests on revenue, usage or retention, coverage is noise next to the data room.
- When the story would get ahead of the product. Coverage that promises more than the product delivers gets checked in diligence, and the gap becomes the conversation.
easiest way to raise funds in a web2/web3 market: - build a solid product in a saturated niche - provide 2x value by building coolest features, intuitive experience, low fees etc - show adoption in the first 6 months of initial launch Shilika Jain on X, 19 Nov 2024
Product and adoption come first in that list for a reason. Coverage makes a good story easier to believe. It can't make a missing one appear.
How to use the coverage you have during a raise
If you already have decent coverage, use it on purpose instead of hoping investors stumble onto it.
- Put two or three links in the follow-up email after a first meeting, each chosen to answer a question the investor asked.
- Add a short "as covered in" line to the deck only if the outlets mean something to that investor's partners.
- Give your champion a forwardable piece that explains the category, not just your company.
- Avoid announcing anything mid-raise that you'd later have to walk back.
And once the round closes, plan the announcement properly. The four-week sequence I use is in the Web3 funding announcement sprint.
FAQ
Should I do PR during a fundraise or wait until it closes?
Keep steady, low-risk activity going, like founder commentary and op-eds, but hold major announcements until the round closes. Announcing partnerships or metrics mid-raise invites questions you may not want to answer yet. The funding announcement itself should wait until the money is committed and the lead investor agrees on timing.
Do investors care which outlets covered us?
They care more about whether the outlets are credible to their own partners and LPs. A crypto-native fund will recognise CoinDesk, The Block and Decrypt. A generalist fund may give more weight to mainstream business press in your home market. Match your footprint to the investors you're targeting.
Can bad press stop a raise?
It can slow one down, especially if it raises questions about the founders or the product that you haven't answered. Investors will find it during diligence. The best approach is to raise it yourself, early, with a factual answer and evidence.
Is a press release on a wire service enough to show credibility?
No. Wire pickups show that you paid to distribute an announcement. They're useful for indexing and for some regional markets, but investors don't read them as third-party validation. Earned coverage, where an editor chose to run the story, is what does that job.
Raising in the next two quarters? Talk to me for 30 minutes and I'll run the pre-raise media check on your company with you.
