We’re one week away from the longest day of the year, which also means that soon you will received a lot of out-of-office replies when you approach VCs. Summer just isn’t the best time to raise your round.

Of course, planning and preparation are key. Raising a significant Seed+ round can easily take 6 months or more. And if you start just before summer, it will most likely take even longer. So how to deal with this?

In our Startup Funding Book we give some examples of how to plan your fundraising process. Some best practices are:
– build relationships with investors early on
– try to build momentum in a round to create investor FOMO
– keep performing as a company

As Sunkanmi Ola, co-founder and CEO of our portfolio company Propel, puts it:
“We actually put a lot of work into identifying VCs that align with us. But no matter how long it takes, as a company you always have to keep growing, that is non-negotiable. It helps to keep the train moving! You essentially need to find a way to combine fundraising with growth. This also shows your ingenuity.”

VCs are almost real people – they also need a break during summer and spend time with their families. Many will take some weeks off, many of them are still available for their portfolio companies.

But getting new deals done? Not so much. Investment Committees that give the formal approval for a deal might not even come together in summer, so you will have to wait until everyone’s back.

On the other hand, VCs have less distractions during these summer months: less networking events, less panel discussions, less internal meetings and emails, etc. Íf they work, they are maybe less busy. In other words: there is also an opportunity to have some first meetings with VCs in this period.

So it will for sure be harder to get to a definite “yes” from a VCs but my advice would be to use summer to build or improve the relationships to eventually close your round later this year.

And of course read that ff’ing book to prepare yourself 😘

Read more insights in Startup Funding book, the book about investor readiness, fundraising and deal terms that I wrote together with venture capital lawyer Sjoerd Mol to help founders to nail their fundraising process. Order it via bol.com, Amazon or your local bookstore.