You build the list the way everyone does.
Export a database. Filter by stage. Filter by sector. Sort by the names you recognise.
Four hundred rows. You start sending emails.
Six weeks later: “a bit early for us.” “Not quite our stage.” Mostly silence.
There is nothing wrong with your deck. You are emailing firms that have not led a round like yours in two years.
The only investor list worth having is one made of firms that wrote a cheque recently, at your stage, in your sector.
So we built it. Every pre-seed, seed and Series A announced between 1 June and 31 August 2026, logged only where the source named who led it.
162 rounds. 169 firms. Ninety days.
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The Names You Haven’t Been Emailing
Here is what the last quarter actually looked like, by the thing you are raising.
AI infrastructure, seed. Atomico led Callosum’s $100M round in August. Decibel led Ent’s $100M in June. Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital co-led Enigma’s $71M in July.
Defence, Series A. Air Street Capital led Alta Ares’ €50M in June. Blossom Capital led Comand AI’s €32M. At seed, J2 Ventures led Arkenstone Defense’s $35M.
Fintech, seed. Haun Ventures led River Markets’ $8.5M. Paradigm led M1X Global’s $5.5M. Highland Capital Partners led F2 AI’s $14M in New York.
Health. ARCH Venture Partners led Trase’s $107M seed. Menlo Ventures led Cheiron’s $8M seed. Healthy.Capital led Clementine’s €1.7M seed in Maastricht.
Climate. Azolla Ventures led Mafix’s $5.4M pre-seed. Energize Capital led Axle Energy’s €21M Series A in London.
UK and European seed. SuperSeed led HIVE’s £11.2M. AlbionVC led geoSurge’s $12M. Newion led Nopan’s €7.2M in Amsterdam. Playfair Capital led Zerolook’s pre-seed in Zug.
Now count how many of those were on your list.
That is the whole problem. A typical list is twenty famous names plus three hundred and eighty firms that once appeared in a database. The firms above are neither. They priced a round, wrote a term sheet and took a board seat, in the last ninety days, in a category you can point at.
A firm that led a round six weeks ago has fresh capital, an open mandate and a partner who has just proved they can get a deal through their own investment committee. Nothing else on your list comes close to that.
The Website Says Early Stage. The Behaviour Says Otherwise.
Index Ventures led five rounds this summer. Every one was a seed.
Blossom Capital led three. All three were Series A.
Both firms describe themselves as early-stage investors. If you were raising a Series A in July, one of them was a live lead and the other was not, and no website would have told you which.
This is the norm, not the exception. Of the 169 firms, only 11 led at more than one stage in three months.
None of this means a firm that led three seeds will never do a Series A. It means that when you have thirty good emails in you, you spend them on proof rather than on a mandate page.
Why the Old List Stopped Working
It used to be a reasonable shortcut. A big database, a stage filter, and enough names that some of them would be live.
That stopped being true.
CB Insights counted 10,000 active investors globally in Q1 2026, the lowest since Q3 2020. In the US the number fell to 3,500, from a peak of 5,600 in Q1 2022.
Your database still lists every one of them. It records who has invested. It has no column for who is investing.
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How to Use a List Like This
1. Filter to your stage, your sector, your region. A firm that led a seed in industrial AI in Europe is a different target from one that led a Series A in US fintech. Both are on the list. Only one is yours.
2. Email the partner, not the firm. Find the person who led that specific round. The brand does not read your email; someone does.
3. Open with the round. “You led HIVE’s seed in July, and we’re building the layer underneath that” gets read. “I saw you invest in early-stage software” does not. The file writes that line for you on every row, using the firm’s own most recent deal, so all you add is what you’re building and what you’re raising.
4. Ask the money question on the first call. When did you last lead a round at our stage, and how much of the current fund is set aside for new companies? A firm that can lead answers in one breath. A firm that cannot will tell you about its thesis.
“You are not looking for an investor who likes your space. You are looking for one who has signed a term sheet in it recently, and can do it again.”
The Bottom Line
Founders build the list from logos and then blame the deck.
They pitch mandates instead of behaviour.
They spend the best three weeks of a raise on firms that have not led anything in a year.
The fix is small: pitch the firms that led a round like yours in the last ninety days, email the partner who did it, and name the round in your first line.
Do it before you send anything, not after the pipeline has gone quiet.
The file is waiting below.
Download The Active Lead List — 169 Firms, 162 Rounds 👇
Everything above is yours: the names, the stage trap, the four steps. Run them by hand and you will pitch better than most founders raising this quarter.
Below the paywall is the whole list, already built.
Exactly what you’re downloading:
✅ 169 firms, one row each. Every firm that led or co-led a pre-seed, seed or Series A announced between 1 June and 31 August 2026, with the companies they backed, the stage, and the month of their most recent lead.
✅ All 162 rounds. Company, country, sector, stage, amount, date, who led, who followed, and a link to the source announcement on every row, so you can name the deal in your first line of outreach.
✅ Fund data on 40 firms. Latest fund, size, close date and source, flagged as fresh capital or not, so you know who raised since 2023 before you spend a meeting finding out.
✅ Filters for your raise. Pre-seed, seed or Series A. Twelve sector groups from AI and fintech to defence, climate and health. US, UK, Europe, Israel, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.
✅ A first line written for you, on every row. Each of the 169 firms comes with a subject line and an opening line built from the round that firm actually led: the company, the size, the month, and the partner’s first name where we have it. Each of the 162 rounds carries its own version. Fill two brackets and it is ready to send.
✅ A tier score and partner columns. Every firm pre-scored, with the partner named wherever an announcement gave one, and space for your team to finish the job.
Filter to your stage and sector, take the top twenty, edit the brackets in the opening line, and send those emails this week.
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✅ 60+ additional tools across every stage of fundraising and company building: investor research, pitch deck screening, meeting prep, term sheet analysis, financial models, and the full investor database library.
