How Holloway Solutions timed founder intake to investor availability
Curated 1:1 pitch sessions between active investors and pre-vetted founders.
What wasn’t working
A two-sided marketplace only works when both sides show up the same week. Cold founder lists were a mess of post-raise companies and tire-kickers, and matching them to investor availability was nearly impossible.
What they changed
Saava monitors the venture and fundraising LinkedIn ecosystem: accelerator partners, term-sheet coaches and VC associates. The founders engaging with that content are by definition raising right now. Each lands scored against Holloway's stage and sector criteria with contact attached.
How it played out
Two-sided marketplaces collapse on timing
We could line up the investor side, but the founder side was always either too late or wrong-stage. Cold sourcing made the problem worse, not better.
Raising is a behavior, not a checkbox
Saava reads founders' fundraising behavior off LinkedIn engagement in real time, the same signal a partner reads in a meeting. We onboard them while they're still iterating on the deck.
The match rate is what matters
71% of intent-sourced founders matched the stage and sector filter our investors set. That's the number that decides whether the marketplace runs hot or starves.
“Marketplaces only work when both sides arrive the same week. Saava timed our founder intake to investor availability. That's the thing nobody else solved.”
The steps, if you want to try this
- 01Line up the side of the marketplace you can schedule first. For Holloway, that was investors.
- 02Track the fundraising voices founders follow, so founders arrive while they are still raising.
- 03Filter every new founder by the stage and sector your investors asked for.
- 04Watch the match rate: it decides whether a two-sided marketplace runs hot or stalls.
