Drive Business Value with Funding News

You’re an early-stage growth company that just secured funding. Congrats! Time to knock out a press release and post it in your newsroom - everyone will want to hear (and write) about this. Right? Not so fast.

In 2022, even after a 35% decline from the year prior, Crunchbase data shows global venture funding reached $445 billion. In the U.S. alone, there were 16,464 venture deals in 2022. Only a tiny fraction of these deals get mentioned, let alone complete stories, in important outlets like TechCrunch, Axios and Forbes.

Funding is a pivotal moment for your company, and a well-executed funding announcement can serve as the foundation of a strategic narrative that amplifies your reputation, enhances credibility and sets the stage for future momentum and success. It’s much bigger than just a press release.

To ensure it breaks out from the crowd and gets the broader attention it deserves requires careful planning and a coordinated effort with your communications team.

Assess News Value

It’s increasingly difficult to secure earned media coverage today. A funding announcement is one of the few news moments in the life of a young startup that can earn outsized coverage and either launch or reset your company narrative. Still, we regularly encounter new clients that either miss the opportunity prior to enlisting a communications firm or that have an unrealistic view of their coverage opportunities.

Knowing how to deploy your news and which outlets are most likely to be interested requires an objective assessment of the overall funding environment, the size of your funding round, and your company’s history or awareness level. For large or interesting funding rounds, we recommend offering exclusives to top-tier media outlets like the Wall Street Journal, Reuters or TechCrunch. An exclusive story here creates more buzz and can lead to follow-on coverage from other relevant media outlets, including influential trades.

Establish a Realistic Timeline

Coordination and timing are crucial in the lead-up to the announcement. Companies often overlook how much time is needed to secure approvals, including from investors, and to pre-pitch media.

Most companies should begin working on a funding announcement at least six weeks before a planned launch date. This gives you roughly two weeks to craft and edit the announcement internally, two weeks for partner and investor approvals, and then two weeks to pre-pitch media.

This general timeline will change depending on the number of partners involved, the current state of your messaging, and your media pitching strategy. Keep in mind too that funding does not have to be announced once a deal closes - we’ve had clients wait up to a year to announce because of industry or macro-economic factors.

Engage Media

There is a long list of startup CEOs that were confident their funding round deserved front page coverage in the New York Times. The reality is anything but.

It’s not a reporter’s job to cover every news announcement. They’re also humans working in a business environment - they and their editors gravitate to stories that are most interesting and that will generate the most clicks.

Your comms team can help establish reasonable targets to start. Part of this is research into what reporters normally cover your space, who might have a personal interest in your type of business, and which are aligned with your funding levels.

Once you begin pitching, know that media coverage is a negotiation process. Well established relationships with journalists, nurtured over time, help in securing placement. Levers like an exclusive or limited access to investors can encourage reluctant reporters to cover a story. It’s then key to use that momentum to secure additional coverage from other targeted media channels.

Enlist Partners for Support

Investors, partners and customers are important credibility factors for young startups - use them to elevate interest in your funding announcement. Engage with these stakeholders early in the decision-making process to enlist their aid in the press release and to amplify resulting news. Key investors should be quoted in your release and ideally available for interviews with media outlets.

Be sure that everyone understands the messages you want to convey and which channels are most important, including personal and social media accounts. Oftentimes, your investors will have PR teams that can assist in contacting hard-to-reach partners or to maximize your budget. And coordinating amplification on launch day or once coverage rolls in can also broaden your impact.

Just make sure you clearly communicate timing and expectations so that no one lets the news slip early!

Maintain Momentum

Lastly, companies should avoid the dreaded black hole of communications: going dark after a funding announcement. If you’ve done all the hard work to maximize news of your investment, then capitalize on it by creating follow-on news, content and media opportunities in its wake.

Communications is a momentum game and going quiet for long periods resets your credibility and awareness factor to zero. We work with clients before they even begin crafting their funding announcement to know what will follow. Ideally, that’s a strong piece of thought leadership or new customer or partner wins to demonstrate traction within the first few weeks.