Tag Archive for: Capital Raising

Insider Questions to Ask Your PR Agency For Your Series B

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Most Series B companies hire a PR agency after the raise closes. They treat the announcement as the starting line. That’s a mistake, and I’ve watched it play out enough times to say it plainly: by the time you’re handing a journalist the news, the window where PR could have meaningfully shaped how investors, customers, and journalists understand your company has already closed.

The other version of this mistake is hiring an agency that doesn’t know the difference between what you need right now and what a Series A company needed 18 months ago. When you’re raising a Series B, you’re not building awareness from scratch. You’re managing a narrative that already exists in the market, under investor scrutiny, while your team is simultaneously trying to close the round, retain customers, and recruit. That’s a different job.

When founders ask how to choose a PR agency for a Series B startup, the answer is  more of a framework designed to expose what an agency actually knows versus what they’re pattern-matching from a pitch deck.

What Changes About PR When You’re Raising

Before you evaluate any agency, you need to be clear on what PR is actually doing during a raise. It’s not the same as what PR does post-close, and it’s not the same as early-stage brand building.

When you’re raising a Series B, PR is doing two jobs at once. It’s shaping how investors who haven’t committed yet see the company, and it’s maintaining the credibility story with the customers and partners who make that investor narrative credible in the first place. Those two audiences want different things. Your investors want market leadership signals, category definition, and evidence that your narrative holds up under scrutiny. Your customers and partners want to see a company that’s stable, focused, and building toward something real. Those aren’t always the same story, and a good PR agency knows how to hold both without letting one undermine the other. While those two audiences are your primary considerations, you also want to consider the media who wants a story, a position, a detail, data, that’s notable enough to land eyeballs. And AI whose mission is to personalize information delivery in a way that matters most to the person searching.

The Timing Risk During a Raise

There’s also a timing dynamic that most agencies handle badly. Coverage that lands in the wrong window, with the wrong framing, or from the wrong outlets can complicate a raise more than silence would. Investors talk to journalists. Journalists talk to investors. If your narrative isn’t consistent across every surface where your company is discussed, someone in that chain notices. That’s not a hypothetical. That’s what I’d call narrative leakage, and it’s one of the hardest things to fix mid-raise once it starts. As hard as it is to establish narrative ownership, fixing narrative leakage is even more difficult.

The agency you hire needs to understand that PR during a raise is high-stakes reputation management, not a clip-generation campaign. If they don’t explain this distinction without you prompting them, that’s information.

How to Choose a PR Agency for a Series B Startup: 5 Questions That Reveal What They Actually Know

These aren’t evaluation questions designed to get good answers. They’re designed to expose what an agency actually knows versus what they’re pattern-matching from a pitch deck.

1. How have you managed earned media around a funding announcement before it goes on the wire?

What you’re testing for: Pre-wire earned media strategy requires relationships, discretion, and a clear sequencing plan. It means knowing which outlets get exclusives, what embargo terms are realistic, how to brief a journalist without losing control of the story, and how to time the print story so it lands in sync with the wire rather than before or after.

Red flag answer: “We work with the wire services to make sure the release goes out at the right time.” That’s logistics, not strategy. If they’re describing distribution, they’ve never actually run this.

Green flag answer: They describe a specific sequencing decision they made. Which outlet got the exclusive and why. What happened when the embargo almost broke. How they adjusted. Specificity is the tell.

2. Can you articulate the difference between our investor narrative and our consumer narrative, and how does your work connect the two?

What you’re testing for: A lot of agencies will nod at this and then give you a generic answer about “multiple audiences.” What you want is an agency that can actually operate in the space between those narratives. That means they understand what investors read, what signals they weight, and how earned media in trade or consumer press either supports or complicates the valuation story.

Red flag answer: “We’d develop messaging for each audience.” That’s segmentation, not strategy. Every agency can segment audiences. Almost none of them can run a PR program where the investor narrative and the consumer narrative reinforce each other rather than creating confusion.

Green flag answer: They ask you questions back. What’s your current investor narrative? What does your lead investor care about that customers wouldn’t? Where are the tension points? An agency that starts asking these questions in the pitch meeting understands the complexity.

3. What happens to our PR strategy if our raise comes in at a lower valuation than expected?

What you’re testing for: Contingency thinking. Most PR agencies are built for good news. The ones worth hiring at this stage have thought through what happens when the news is complicated, and they’re willing to talk about it before you’re in the situation.

Red flag answer: Silence, a pivot to optimism, or “we’d reassess at that point.” That’s the answer of an agency that has never managed a difficult capital narrative.

Green flag answer: A concrete framework. Proactive narrative control before the news is public. Media briefing strategy that leads with what’s true and strong rather than what’s disappointing. Advice on what not to do. An agency that’s been in this situation will tell you exactly what they’ve seen work and what they’ve seen blow up.

4. Who specifically on your team will be working on our account in month four?

What you’re testing for: Staffing integrity. This is one of the most common failure modes at growth-stage companies with agency relationships. You meet the senior team in the pitch. You get the junior team in execution. By month four, the person who understood your business at the start has cycled to a new account.

Red flag answer: Vague references to “our team” or “a dedicated account lead” without naming anyone. Or naming a senior person and then hedging on how many hours they’ll actually be on the account.

Green flag answer: A name. A title. A description of how that person’s time is actually structured. At Avaans Media, I can tell you exactly who will be on your account and what their involvement looks like across the full engagement. If an agency can’t do the same in the pitch, that’s not because the structure doesn’t exist. It’s because it doesn’t favor them to show it to you.

5. Have you ever had to manage negative coverage around a portfolio company during a fundraise?

What you’re testing for: Experience under pressure. Not crisis management in the abstract. Actual experience managing a news cycle that was working against a company while they were simultaneously trying to close a round.

Red flag answer: They haven’t, and they don’t say so directly. Instead they talk about their crisis capabilities, their rapid response protocols, their media relationships. None of that is the same as having been in the situation.

Green flag answer: A specific story with the details that only come from having lived it. What the coverage was, what they did and didn’t do, and what the outcome looked like. They don’t need to name the client. But if they can walk you through the decision-making, you’ll know whether it’s real experience or borrowed vocabulary.

What This Looks Like in Practice

For any Series B startup choosing a PR agency, the first thing we do at Avaans Media is run the Fingerprint PR Strategy, our proprietary diagnostic that maps your current narrative against your raise objectives before we pitch a single journalist. That process exists because I’ve seen what happens when agencies skip it: misaligned coverage, investor questions that surface from the wrong angle, and a founder who’s managing perception problems while also trying to close a round. The Fingerprint process takes that off the table. It gives us a clear view of where your narrative is strong, where it has gaps, and what earned media actually needs to accomplish in the next 90 days. That clarity is what makes the difference between PR that supports the raise and PR that creates noise around it.

If you’re evaluating agencies right now and you want a direct conversation about what your PR strategy should look like before you close your Series B, start with an Assessment.

If you’d prefer a checklist, check out our 15 questions to ask.

 

The Invisible Asset, written by Avaans Media founder Tara Coomans, is the PR ROI framework that builds brand equity, drives valuation, attracts capital, and wins high-stakes moments. It’s built for CMOs defending budgets, CEOs preparing for a capital event, and operators in regulated categories. Get the book →

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How PR Impacts Venture Funding for Consumer Brands

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Most consumer brand founders think about PR in terms of product coverage. Get on the Today Show. Land a placement in a gift guide. Build some buzz before a retail launch. And honestly, that’s not wrong. Consumer PR absolutely does those things.

But if your ambition is a funding round, a PE acquisition, or an IPO, consumer PR is only half the job. The brands that successfully attract venture capital and private equity understand something most don’t: investor PR and consumer PR live under the same brand, but they are fundamentally different campaigns. Conflating them is one of the most expensive mistakes a growth-stage founder can make.

Start With the Valuation Gap, Not the Media Plan

When a founder comes to me saying they’re raising their Series B, the first questions I ask have nothing to do with media. What’s your target valuation? What’s your current valuation? Where’s the gap?

That gap is what PR has to close. Everything else, the strategy, the storylines, the target outlets, flows from that number. From there, we do a thorough marketplace, competitive, and media assessment to find where the white space is. And I’ll tell you: in my years of doing this, I’ve almost never worked with a brand that has truly exhausted its brand potential. Even in crowded categories, there is always space to create a category, redefine one, or claim leadership within one. The real work is identifying the white space that’s authentic to the brand and consistent with its audiences.

Two Audiences. Two Campaigns. One Brand.

Here’s what founders get wrong most often. They assume strong consumer coverage will attract investors. It can, but it’s not a strategy. It’s luck.

Consumers and investors want fundamentally different things from your brand story.

A consumer wants to understand the product, how it compares to alternatives, and whether the brand’s values align with their own. Their decision is emotional. They want to know how the product makes them feel. An investor takes a completely different perspective. They’re not moved by how a product makes consumers feel. They’re moved by evidence that consumers feel something. They want to understand the product’s positioning for growth, the value proposition that extends beyond revenue, and whether the brand has the authority and market presence to sustain that growth under scrutiny.

The consumer campaign builds desire. The investor campaign builds confidence. Both have to run at the same time.

That’s a completely different story, told in a completely different voice, to a completely different media landscape. Most consumer brands I talk to are running one campaign and hoping it does both jobs. It won’t.

The Authority Gap Is What Kills Funding Timelines

I see it constantly. A founder is 12 months out from a raise and they start thinking about PR. But what they’re really asking for is to close an authority gap that should have been built over years.

No brand becomes a category leader overnight. The ones that look like overnight successes? They took their reputation seriously from the beginning. They understood that authority mattered as much, if not more, than social media likes. They built the narrative before they needed it.

Some brands are happy to get on the shelf, and that’s a real achievement worth celebrating. But if the ambition is to sell, raise capital, or IPO, the path is longer and the authority required is deeper. The timeline follows accordingly.

We worked with a global wellness CPG brand in the hemp space that understood this from the start. Over 3 years, we built the kind of category authority that normalized their products with mainstream consumers while establishing the brand as an international CPG leader. The result was a 300% increase in stock price on an oversubscribed IPO. That didn’t happen because they got a few good placements. It happened because they invested in building the narrative years before they needed to cash it in.

What to Do If You’re 18 Months From a Raise

If you’re reading this and thinking you’re 18 months out from a funding round, here’s what I’d tell you to do first: get a candid, data-driven assessment of where you actually stand in the market. Not where you think you stand. Where you’re actually perceived, by consumers and by the investor community.

Start with your net promoter score. Then look at your share of voice. SOV is a leading indicator, and it’s a powerful piece of data during investor pitching because it shows both your current position and the opportunity you haven’t captured yet. What’s your baseline? Who owns the conversation in your category? Where are the gaps you can realistically close?

Then go back to the valuation question. What’s the target, and how far are you from it? At Avaans, we built a Brand Valuation Calculator specifically for this conversation. It maps your brand’s value across five methods, from royalty relief and price premium to share of voice versus market share and CAC efficiency, so your PR strategy is built against real numbers, not general ambitions.

The brands that win funding rounds don’t get there by accident. They get there because someone made a strategic decision, well in advance, to build authority in the right places with the right audiences for the right reasons.

Consumer PR builds desire. Investor PR builds confidence. The companies that understand they need both, and start building early, are the ones investors want to fund.

If you’re a consumer brand with venture ambitions, the time to start is before you need it. Schedule an assessment to find out where you stand.

 

The Invisible Asset, written by Avaans Media founder Tara Coomans, is the PR ROI framework that builds brand equity, drives valuation, attracts capital, and wins high-stakes moments. It’s built for CMOs defending budgets, CEOs preparing for a capital event, and operators in regulated categories. Get the book →

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Why Cleantech Thought Leadership Drives Capital, Not Just Visibility

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Key Takeaways

  • In cleantech, thought leadership directly reduces investor risk and accelerates capital flow.
    By clearly explaining complex technology, regulatory dynamics, and long-term viability, cleantech leaders use thought leadership to lower perceived risk and build the confidence investors need to commit capital.
  • Evidence-backed insight matters more than vision alone.
    Thought leadership that drives funding is grounded in data, third-party validation, and measurable impact—linking sustainability outcomes with financial performance to separate credible innovators from hype.
  • Consistent, well-timed thought leadership positions leaders as capital-ready operators.
    When cleantech executives align insight-driven content with funding cycles, policy shifts, and market inflection points, they shape investor expectations early—turning visibility into trust, and trust into investment.

Cleantech companies operate where innovation, investment, and global sustainability goals combine. In this environment, cleantech thought leadership does more than raise awareness. It drives capital, shapes investor confidence, and distinguishes leaders who can translate complex technology into real-world impact.

For cleantech leaders, effective cleantech PR is about strategy, evidence, and vision. It creates a deeper connection with capital providers, signals credibility, reduces uncertainty, and invites meaningful engagement from those positioned to fund growth.

This article explains why thought leadership drives capital in the cleantech sector. We explore how leadership content builds trust with investors, aligns with broader economic and environmental goals, and accelerates funding cycles.

What Is the Relationship Between Thought Leadership and Capital in Cleantech?

Investment in clean technology continues to grow as governments, corporations, and investors seek solutions to climate change and resource scarcity. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global clean energy investment has reached hundreds of billions of dollars annually and continues to rise.

However, capital does not flow automatically. Investors must understand complex technology, regulatory landscapes, and long-term viability. Cleantech companies that clearly articulate strategy and impact build trust that translates into investment.

This is where cleantech thought leadership becomes critical. It explains innovation, connects technical advances to investor priorities, and shapes how audiences perceive risk and growth potential.

How Does Thought Leadership Build Investor Confidence?

Investors focus on risk and return. Cleantech companies often face higher perceived risk due to technical uncertainty, policy variability, and long development cycles. Thought leadership helps investors understand underlying fundamentals.

Research shows that experts who communicate clearly about technical detail and market dynamics reduce perceived risk. When investors understand a leader’s reasoning, they are more likely to trust forecasts and strategic decisions.

For example, a company that explains how its technology reduces lifecycle emissions while maintaining competitive costs connects environmental and financial outcomes.

This aligns with broader ESG trends. According to the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance, sustainable investment assets continue to grow and now represent a significant share of global capital.

Thought leadership helps investors connect sustainability impact with financial performance. As a result, it drives deeper engagement from capital providers.

Why Do Evidence and Impact Matter in Cleantech Thought Leadership?

Thought leadership that drives capital must go beyond vision. It must provide evidence. Proof of impact builds credibility and differentiates serious companies from hype.

Cleantech companies strengthen thought leadership when they share:

  • Technical results from pilots or early deployments
  • Data on cost reductions or performance improvements
  • Third-party validation from research institutions
  • Forecasts grounded in trusted models

For example, referencing research from institutions like the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) adds scientific credibility. NREL data clarifies performance metrics for clean technologies, helping leaders ground claims in evidence.

In cleantech, impact matters. Investors want to see scalability, real-world application, and measurable outcomes. Evidence-driven thought leadership delivers that clarity.

How Does Thought Leadership Connect to Cleantech Investment Trends?

Investment in clean technology continues to rise as climate goals tighten and innovation accelerates. McKinsey estimates that decarbonization investments will reach trillions globally across infrastructure, materials, and mobility.

Investors evaluate opportunities by asking:

  • How does this technology align with decarbonization goals?
  • What is the path to cost competitiveness?
  • How ready is the technology for scale?
  • Can the team execute?

Thought leadership answers these questions in a public, credible format. It demonstrates readiness and shows that leaders understand both their technology and the broader market.

How Does Storytelling Bridge Technology and Value?

Investors invest in teams as much as technology. Thought leadership helps leaders connect innovation with value creation through clear narratives.

A strong narrative connects:

  • Vision – the long-term change pursued
  • Technology – how the solution works
  • Evidence – results supporting the claims
  • Growth – how capital drives impact and returns

Research shows that people rely on coherent narratives to reduce uncertainty. In cleantech, storytelling helps investors understand both impact and financial pathways.

How Do Public Platforms Amplify Trust in Cleantech Thought Leadership?

Thought leadership requires credible platforms. Conferences, bylines, and expert panels help leaders reach relevant audiences.

High-trust platforms amplify credibility. Events hosted by organizations like the World Economic Forum or Clean Energy Ministerial signal expertise and seriousness.

Publishing in respected outlets also strengthens trust. When leaders share insights on credible platforms, they accelerate capital conversations and expand reach.

Why Do Timing and Consistency Matter for Capital-Focused Thought Leadership?

Capital markets respond to timing. Thought leadership aligned with funding cycles, policy changes, or major announcements increases relevance and engagement.

Consistency builds trust over time. Repeated insights reinforce credibility and increase the likelihood that investors will remember—and act on—what they see.

This aligns with sustainable investment trends, where capital increasingly flows toward opportunities that balance impact and profitability.

Why Is Thought Leadership an Asset for Capital in Cleantech?

In cleantech, thought leadership transforms complex innovation into clear, credible insight. It reduces perceived risk, builds trust, and helps investors understand long-term potential.

Thought leadership in cleantech is not a checkbox. It is a strategic asset that shapes perception, informs capital flows, and connects innovation with investment.

When leaders combine evidence, narrative, and consistency, they position themselves as trusted voices. That trust ultimately drives capital.

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