Investor storytelling in a more selective funding market
More than 25,000 firms in the UK entered insolvency last year according to the UK Insolvency Service. They were not only early-stage start-ups. The average age of a company that closed or dissolved was 4.5 years with a significant number being established businesses with traction and meaningful revenue.
Investors are still backing companies. They are just backing fewer of them and asking harder questions first. Financial performance determines whether you are in the room but in a competitive funding market how you articulate risk, strategy and judgement often influences whether capital is committed.
This was a recurring theme when our team was invited to run workshops at the Blue Earth Ventures Forum, hosted by HSBC Innovation, alongside the Blue Earth Summit team. In conversations with founders, investors and advisers, a theme that surfaced is that investors are listening more carefully to how leadership teams talk about risk and strategy.
We were not there to advise sophisticated founders on how to structure an investment memorandum or refine an elevator pitch. The room did not need that.
The conversation was about what rarely gets written down.
Investors back leaders before they back models
In later-stage rounds, the financial model clears the first hurdle. The leadership team determines whether conviction follows.
Once fundamentals are broadly comparable, investors are underwriting judgement. They look closely at the senior team and ask questions that go well beyond performance metrics:
- Does the personal brand of the leaders align with the business brand?
- Are they credible individuals in the market they are selling into?
- How is that credibility projected publicly?
- Does their social media presence reinforce the company’s positioning or expose it to unnecessary risk?
The most effective leadership profiles track closely with the business narrative. They show authority, market understanding and restraint. They do not drift into commentary or causes that create reputational drag.
When funding is selective, investors pick up quickly on any disconnect between the founder’s profile and the company’s story.
Storytelling matters. Credibility matters more.
A short video can create excitement. A well-timed announcement can generate attention. But sophisticated investors separate noise from substance quickly.
Reputation tends to build quietly through execution. Over time, investors look for evidence that leaders do what they say they will do and that milestones are met without unnecessary noise. In more selective markets, that steady pattern of delivery carries real weight. Publicity may create visibility, but confidence is built through consistency.
When to bring in communications counsel
Many private companies assume they should appoint a PR firm once a round has closed, when there is funding to announce. In reality, the more strategic question is about readiness, not publicity.
As we have written previously on when to appoint a PR firm, the trigger is not size but complexity. When scrutiny increases, when leadership visibility rises, and when the narrative needs to withstand investor due diligence, communications shifts from execution to counsel.
At that stage, the value is not just media coverage, it is pressure-testing the leadership narrative, aligning personal and corporate positioning, and identifying reputational risk before investors do.
Waiting until after the raise often means reacting to scrutiny rather than preparing for it.
Front up the hard questions
In selective markets, difficult questions cannot be deferred.
Investors listen carefully to how leaders frame uncertainty. Do they acknowledge constraints? Are they realistic about execution risk? Can they explain trade-offs without defensiveness?
Over-claiming can undermine confidence, but so can excessive caution. The most credible investor narratives are not polished to perfection. They recognise complexity and demonstrate that risk has been understood and managed. That balance usually reflects a leadership team that is aligned and comfortable with scrutiny.
Do not neglect the wider ecosystem
Investors rarely assess a business on the pitch alone. They form a view from multiple signals, including how aligned the wider organisation appears.
If internal teams are unclear on strategy, or if partners and suppliers tell a slightly different version of the story, that inconsistency tends to surface.
Employees and close stakeholders are frequently the most credible advocates a company has. When they understand and believe the direction of travel, that confidence reinforces what leadership is saying in the room. When they do not, the gap becomes visible.
For that reason, investor storytelling works best when it sits within a coherent corporate narrative. It should feel like an extension of how the company already communicates, not a temporary layer applied for the purposes of a raise.
Beyond the round
Capital raising is intense, but it is not an isolated event. Companies that treat investor communications as a short-term exercise often find themselves rewriting the story under pressure. Those that approach it as part of a wider reputation strategy are better prepared.
In a more selective funding market, numbers will always matter first. However, when multiple businesses present similar fundamentals, leadership credibility and narrative discipline can influence who ultimately secures the capital and who does not.
