What help do pre-seed VCs give CEE founders?
Mostly help deciding what to focus on, and introductions. On calls between BADideas and the founders it backs, the fund side helped with strategy and priorities in 84% of calls and introduced experts or operators in 51%. Money is a smaller part: follow-on investment came up in 12% of calls.
The figures
| Help the fund gave or offered after investing | Share of calls |
|---|---|
| Strategy and prioritisation | 84% |
| Introductions to experts and operators | 51% |
| Work on the financial or growth model | 21% |
| Introductions to investors | 21% |
| Introductions to customers and partners | 20% |
| Help with hiring | 13% |
| Deck review | 13% |
| Follow-on money | 12% |
| Pitch rehearsal | 11% |
| Support through a hard moment | 10% |
In BADideas founder calls, introductions to investors and to customers each come up in about one call in five.
What founders ask for
| What founders asked about after the investment | Share of calls |
|---|---|
| Sales and finding customers | 30% |
| Raising the next round | 27% |
| Investors and the board | 18% |
| Product | 8% |
What it means for you
- Ask a prospective investor what they did last month for a portfolio company. Concrete examples tell you more than a list of services.
- Bring your hardest decision to the call. Most of the value in these calls is a second view on priorities.
- Ask for the introduction you need, by name or profile. Introductions are the most common concrete help; a specific ask gets a faster one.
- Do not count on follow-on money. It is discussed in a minority of calls; plan your next round as if you must find a new lead.
Related questions
What does a pre-seed VC actually do after investing?
Mostly strategy and priorities, then introductions to experts, investors and customers, and work on the financial model. Founders most often bring questions about sales and the next round.
Will my pre-seed investor help me raise the next round?
Usually with introductions and deck or pitch work: introductions to investors came up in 21% of calls and deck review in 13%.
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: Help counts once per call by kind, when the fund side gives or offers it on the call. One fund's calls; help given outside recorded calls (messages, introductions by email) is not counted.
- Updated: 13 October 2026.
BADideas.fund, "What help do pre-seed VCs give CEE founders?", updated 13 October 2026. https://badideas.fund/answers/vc-help-after-investment-cee
Read next
- What do CEE founders ask VCs on first calls?
- What goes wrong after a CEE pre-seed round?
- Local company or Delaware for CEE startups?
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.