What do CEE VCs ask on a first pitch call?
Mostly about the product and how you will sell it. In more than a hundred first calls between founders and BADideas, the investor side asked about the product in 66% of calls and about how the company finds and wins customers in 60%. Business model, traction and what stops others copying you each came up in about half.
The figures
| What investors asked about on a first call | Share of first calls |
|---|---|
| The product: what it does and how it works | 66% |
| How you find and win customers | 60% |
| Business model and pricing | 55% |
| Traction so far | 55% |
| What stops others copying you | 51% |
| Competitors and large incumbents | 50% |
| Who exactly the customer is | 45% |
| Evidence that customers want it | 40% |
| Why this amount, and what it buys | 39% |
| The team and its background | 35% |
| Who leads the round, and what is committed | 27% |
| Hiring plans | 25% |
A typical first call held about 10 substantive questions from the investor side. In BADideas founder calls, valuation and terms come up in only about a third of first calls (34%), against 62% of later diligence and term calls.
What is changing
| First calls where the investor asked who leads the round | 2025 | 2026 (to date) |
|---|---|---|
| Share of first calls | 24% | 30% |
The questions are otherwise much the same in 2025 and 2026: product, customers and defensibility lead in both years.
What it means for you
- Prepare the customer story more than the product demo. Who buys, how you reach them and why they stay is asked as often as what the product does.
- Have one clear answer on defensibility. About half of first calls ask what stops a competitor or a large company doing the same.
- Know your numbers before the call. Traction is asked in about half of calls; a founder who has to look a number up loses the thread of the conversation.
- Expect terms later. Most first calls are about the business; valuation tends to wait for the next meeting.
- Say who else is in the round. Investors increasingly ask who leads and what is committed.
Related questions
What do investors ask in due diligence calls?
The same themes, with more weight on money: why this amount and what it buys came up in 62% of diligence and term calls, and the business model in 57%. Diligence is where valuation, the cap table and the plan to the next round are worked through.
How many questions does an investor ask on a first call?
About 10 substantive questions on a typical first call, most of them about the product, customers and traction.
How we measured it
- Source: applications founders sent to BADideas, plus public information where we found it.
- Limits: only early-stage companies that applied to a single fund.
- On this page: A theme counts once per call when the investor side asks a substantive question on it. Calls are those of one fund; other investors weigh the same themes differently.
- Updated: 13 October 2026.
BADideas.fund, "What do CEE VCs ask on a first pitch call?", updated 13 October 2026. https://badideas.fund/answers/first-call-investor-questions-cee
Read next
- What do CEE founders ask VCs on first calls?
- How do CEE founders run a first VC call?
- How do CEE founders settle VC concerns?
- Is an MVP with no revenue too early in CEE?
Who we are
We are a pre-seed and seed fund for founders in Central and Eastern Europe. We have built and sold companies ourselves, and since 2022 we have backed more than 40.
We back founders who see something about their market that others do not see yet. They want to change how a whole industry works, and they start small.
Good founders rarely fail on the idea or the product. They fail on selling it. We give your company hands-on help from go-to-market operators who grew Zendesk, Square and Scale AI.