Updated
Why a round is when compliance gets a deadline
Investors fund growth, and for many startups growth means larger customers. Larger customers come with procurement: security questionnaires, vendor reviews and, often, a request for a certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001 before a contract is signed.
A team that has just raised has both the budget and the reason to start. Reaching it in the weeks after the announcement puts you in front of the founder or CTO before a stalled deal makes the case for you.
Who to contact
- CTO or VP Engineering: usually owns security in startups without a dedicated team.
- Founder or CEO: feels every deal that stalls on a security review.
- Head of Security or the first security hire, if there is one.
- COO or Head of Operations, who often runs vendor and policy work.
What to say
Connect the round to the customers it is meant to win. A short message about what enterprise buyers will ask for, how a team their size gets ready and what your product does to shorten the path is more useful than a list of features.
Avoid fear: no founder wants to hear their company is insecure. Talk about winning larger deals sooner.
How Coolie finds them
Let your ICP aim the signal
Funding takes no settings. Describe the startups you serve in your ICP, for example software companies in the sizes and countries you cover, and only their rounds come through.
Coolie surfaces the fresh rounds
Each round announced in the last 30 days by one of those companies becomes a lead, showing the round and its amount when known.
It finds the decision makers
At each company, Coolie looks for the people whose job titles match your ICP, and gives each lead a score.
It researches the leads you pick
For the leads you choose, Coolie writes a research brief (the company's news, the person, the reason to write now) and a personalized email and LinkedIn sequence.
It writes and sends from your own accounts
Email and LinkedIn steps go out from your own mailbox and LinkedIn account, spread over your working hours. You approve each message, or let the agent run on autopilot.
Signals to pair it with
A startup hiring its first security engineer or compliance manager is starting the work: the Hiring signal finds those posts. Tech Used finds the companies running the cloud platforms your product connects to. See all signals.
Example (fictional)
You sell compliance automation to software startups and set your ICP to software companies of 11 to 200 employees in North America.
Coolie finds Lanternfish Data, 60 employees in Canada, which announced a Series A two weeks ago.
Lanternfish's CTO and co-founder are the people found; once you pick them, Coolie drafts a message about the security reviews their first enterprise customers will send.
Every company and person in this example is invented.
Frequently asked questions
Why target startups right after a round rather than any startup?
Because the round often comes with a plan to sell to larger customers and the budget to prepare for their reviews. Before it, compliance tends to be a someday project; after it, it has a deadline.
Who decides on compliance software in a startup?
Usually the CTO, with the founder involved, until a security lead is hired. Put both titles in your ICP.
Does Coolie show how much they raised?
When the amount was announced, yes: the lead shows the round with its amount, or the round alone when the figure was not made public.