How to raise your first investment: a pre-seed guide for Brazilian founders
The question I hear most often from early-stage founders is always some variation of: how do I raise my first check? There are a lot of myths around this subject, and many people waste time preparing the wrong things. Here I will try to explain, in practical terms, how raising pre-seed investment works in Brazil.
What is a pre-seed round?
Pre-seed is the first real money coming into a startup, usually before the company has meaningful revenue, or sometimes even before it has a finished product. It is the capital that buys you time to turn a validated idea into something that works. Since almost everything is still uncertain at this stage, the investor is not buying numbers; they are buying your ability to figure out the path forward.
That completely changes what you need to have ready. A founder who spends three months building a spreadsheet with five-year projections is solving the wrong problem. Nobody believes that spreadsheet, and neither should you.
When is the right time to raise?
The right time is not when you need the money; it is when you have a convincing story of progress. Investors like to join something already moving, rather than give a stationary car its first push. Before you start fundraising, it is worth having at least one of these signals:
- Concrete validation that the problem exists and people care about it.
- A prototype or early version showing that you can build.
- Some first users or customers, even a few, signaling that it is gaining traction.
- Absolute clarity on why you are the right person to solve this problem.
If you do not have any of these signals yet, the best use of your time is to keep building until you do, rather than fundraising.
How much should you ask for in a pre-seed round?
The honest answer is: enough to reach the next meaningful milestone, with some breathing room. Do not think about how much you can raise; think about how much you need to prove the business's next major hypothesis. Raising too much dilutes you too early and creates pressure to spend. Raising too little leaves you running out of steam halfway through.
A practical way to calculate it: your monthly operating cost, multiplied by the number of months until you reach a milestone that justifies a larger round, plus a reserve for the unexpected. That number is your ask.
What makes an investor say yes at pre-seed?
Because the business is still uncertain, the weight falls on the founder and their understanding of the problem. In my experience, what matters most is a real obsession with the problem, clarity of thought, speed of learning and honesty about what is not working yet. A founder who hides weaknesses in the pitch is more concerning than the weaknesses themselves.
On the practical side, have a short, direct presentation ready: what the problem is, why now, what your solution is, why you, what progress has already happened and how much you are raising. That fits into a few slides. The rest is conversation.
What mistakes derail a pre-seed raise?
The most common ones I see: padding the deck with meaningless vanity metrics, promising absurd projections nobody believes, being unable to explain your own business in one sentence, and treating the investor conversation as an exam rather than a dialogue. An experienced investor spots hidden weaknesses immediately, and that undermines trust, which is precisely the most valuable asset at this stage.
At pre-seed, you do not raise money for the company you have. You raise it for the company the investor believes you are capable of building.
That is the logic behind Entrypoint, NewHack's investment arm, entering startups early. We look first at the founder and their understanding of the problem, and we stay close, because at an early stage capital without close involvement delivers little. If you are building something and want an honest conversation about fundraising, founders like you are the reason we exist.