Sample · Part 4 of 4 · Execution layer
Cellar Investor Target List
$8–15M Series A. Who to call, in what order, how to get the meeting, how to run it, and how to advance each fund to the next step.
You've read how to raise and how investors think. This is the execution layer. It assumes the thesis, the mispricing, and the custody tell from the first two documents; it does not re-argue them. Where a profile says "lead with the flywheel," the reasoning lives in the Partner Memo.
One operating rule sits under everything below: run a consumer-marketplace lane and an alt-asset/strategic lane in parallel from week one, and never let the faster lane close the round alone. Everything that follows is built to execute that.
What this list is and isn't
A sequencing plan, not a directory. The value is knowing which names to call, in what order, and how each one moves.
Built for: an $8–15M Series A, led, closed in a focused window, one or two checks carrying the round. Not a rolling SAFE or a 30-angel party round. You're hunting a lead.
Excludes, on purpose: pure fintech funds that will force a fractional-investing pivot, growth shops, generalist seed funds that can't lead this size, hobbyist wine angels. The Avoid section names them so you don't rediscover them mid-raise.
Fund sizes, check ranges, and portfolio examples are point-in- time and illustrative. Confirm before you reach out; funds raise, pivot, and change stage focus.
How to run it
Two lanes, week one. The consumer-marketplace funds set your price and your signal; the alt-asset and strategic funds add capital and credibility. Open both, but never let the strategic lane close the round first, or you back into a niche-collectible framing that caps your next raise.
Hunt leads, not meetings. A Series A is one or two checks. Tier 1 is the lead hunt; Tier 2 is signal and parallel pressure; Tier 3 is fill once a lead is circling. Progress is funds leaning in, not funds contacted. Twenty first meetings with no seconds is a treadmill; five with two in diligence is a round forming.
Order by conviction times comprehension. Front-load the funds most likely to lead and fastest to grasp the custody moat without translation, then spend their interest as leverage on the slower names.
What a successful round looks like
Anchor your expectations here so you can tell in real time whether it's working.
- Lead: one consumer-marketplace fund at $5–7M with real conviction, not a party-round aggregation. Most likely Forerunner or a16z consumer; arguably as good if it's another brand-name consumer lead.
- Mix on $12M: ~$5–7M lead, one ~$3M institutional check, the rest across smaller checks and one or two strategics from the wine/collectibles world.
- Cap table: eight to twelve names. Clean, but deep enough to seed your next round.
- Balance: the lead is a recognizable consumer fund, not an alt-asset fund. That's the line between "a marketplace the smart consumer funds backed" and "a wine-investing niche play."
- The real signal: the round is led by a fund that understood custody as a moat, not by a fund that liked wine. How you got the money determines who shows up next time.
Suggested outreach sequence
Week 1 · open both lanes with your four highest-conviction lead candidates
Forerunner and a16z consumer (marketplace lane), Lightspeed and Thrive (the broad consumer-growth names that can also lead). These are the four most likely to lead and fastest to grasp the custody flywheel. Opening all four the same week means no single fund believes it's your only option, which preserves leverage. Line up warm intros before you send anything.
Success after Week 1: all four intros landed, at least three first meetings booked, and at least one fund asking about the custody cohort data, which means they're engaging with the real thesis.
Week 2 · add the specialists and the momentum-builders
Bessemer (marketplace/infra depth), FJ Labs (fastest marketplace pattern-match), and the alt-asset/strategic names (a collectibles-focused fund, a wine-industry strategic). These deepen a lane or create early signal. By now one Week 1 name should be leaning; use it to make these hotter.
Success after Week 2: a Week 1 fund in or near a data request, both lanes alive, and an early soft yes from FJ Labs or a strategic you can reference as momentum.
Week 3+ · work the rest of Tier 2 and open Tier 3 on momentum
The fill names come in once a lead is circling and you have interest to reference. Opening them earlier wastes them; their value is that they move faster when a round is visibly happening.
If no one moves to diligence
Stop adding names. It's not volume, it's the custody- economics answer or the repeat-buyer breadth not landing. Sharpen both, then re-engage the funds that went quiet with the specific data they'd have asked for, not a nudge.
If only alt-asset funds engage
You're being read as a niche collectible play. Hold that lane warm but slow, and pour effort into reframing Forerunner and the consumer names around the custody flywheel and repeat- buyer breadth, using the alt-asset interest as social proof. A strategic check you sit on for two weeks to land a consumer co-lead beats the same check signed fast and alone.
If only consumer funds engage but stall on size
The category-frequency worry is biting. Bring the custody cohort data that shows stored collectors transacting more often, and consider widening the raise band downward to make the round easy to close around a strong consumer lead.
What you need ready before contacting Tier 1
Do not open a Tier 1 meeting without the Must-Haves. These funds are the sharpest on the list, and a soft answer is what turns your best meeting into a quiet pass. The Nice-to-Haves strengthen the round but aren't gating.
Must have
If you can't show custody-cohort separation yet: don't fake the premium. Lead with the strongest proxy you have (repeat rate among stored collectors, even rough) and name the gap. A clean proxy plus "here's what we're instrumenting" survives diligence; a premium that doesn't hold up ends it.
Nice to have
- A signed or in-progress supply deal with an estate, restaurant group, or distributor.
- A wine-industry advisor or strategic already on board.
- Insurance and custody-partner terms that show the warehouse model is locked.
- Cohort data on the investment-buyer segment, if you're telling that story at all.
Next 10 actions
Do these before you send a single investor email. Then read the profiles.
- Build the custody cohort slide: stored vs. unstored retention over time. Nothing else starts until this exists.
- Build the repeat-buyer breadth slide: head count widening, not just GMV share.
- Write the two-number custody-economics answer and rehearse it out loud.
- Lock the round: target number inside $8–15M, structure, and the price you'll defend.
- Reorder the deck to open on the custody flywheel, category romance as texture, not headline.
- Draft two opening emails: consumer-marketplace version (flywheel, switching cost) and strategic/alt-asset version (category, supply, credibility).
- Map the warm intro path to Forerunner (a consumer founder in their portfolio).
- Map the warm intro path to a16z consumer (a marketplace operator in their network).
- Map warm paths to Lightspeed and Thrive so all four Week 1 names open together.
- Set up the Dashboard and book your first check-in for the end of Week 1.
Tier 1 · must contact immediately
The funds most likely to grasp the custody moat, underwrite a consumer marketplace, write a real check, and lead.
Forerunner
Lead candidate · Lead Likelihood: High · Strategic Value: High
Role: Lead candidate. The most important meeting in the raise.
Why they matter: A defining consumer-tech fund (Chime, Glossier, Warby Parker, The Farmer's Dog), leads seed and Series A, with a recent ~$1B fundraise that includes growth capital. Their check reframes you from "wine thing" to "real consumer company" for everyone behind it.
What they're actually underwriting: Whether Cellar redefines a consumer experience in a category stuck in old behavior. They'll see the brand and the repeat-buyer loyalty fastest, and they're the rare fund that will pay up for a defensible consumer wedge.
Likely pushback: Category frequency: do collectors transact often enough to compound. Whether the repeat-buyer strength is breadth or a few whales.
Best angle: The custody flywheel and the repeat-buyer curve widening. The founder pairing (StockX authentication plus Sotheby's provenance) as once-in-a-category fit.
Avoid: Leading with "wine investing." It trips the niche reflex and loses the consumer framing.
After the room: "Strong founder fit, a real wedge in a category nobody's cracked, and the brand instinct is there. The question is frequency and whether the loyalty is broad. If the cohort data shows stored collectors transacting more and the base widening, this is a marketplace we'd want to lead." Bear case is category size; bull case is the custody switching cost.
Meeting plan: Open on the custody flywheel and the repeat-buyer breadth slide in the first three minutes; do not let it start on the romance of wine. Expect the frequency objection: counter with the custody cohort showing stored collectors transacting more often. The advance you want is a partner meeting and the cohort-data request; if they ask for stored- vs-unstored behavior, you're winning. They move with conviction once in, so be ready to keep pace.
Best introduction source: A consumer founder in their portfolio; a warm founder intro matters more here than anywhere else on the list.
Founder note: Your single most important meeting. Get a portfolio founder to make the intro; a cold approach wastes your best shot.
a16z (Consumer)
Lead candidate · Lead Likelihood: Medium · Strategic Value: High
Role: Lead candidate. The other fund that can set the round.
Why they matter: The consumer practice backs category-defining marketplaces and has the capital and brand to lead and follow on through later rounds. Their name does enormous signal work with every fund behind them.
What they're actually underwriting: Whether this becomes the category-defining platform, not just a good business. They think in winner-take-most terms, so they want to believe Cellar ends up owning wine authentication the way StockX owns sneakers.
Likely pushback: Is the prize big enough; they index on outcomes that can return a large fund. Defensibility once a deep-pocketed incumbent notices.
Best angle: The category-ownership story: custody plus grading becomes the standard, and standards consolidate. The comparison to how authentication consolidated sneakers and cards.
Avoid: Modesty about the prize. With a16z, thinking small is the fastest way to lose the room.
After the room: "If they own wine authentication, the custody data compounds into a real moat and the category is bigger than it looks. The question is whether wine trades often enough to be venture-scale, and whether the moat survives an incumbent. Worth a partner meeting."
Meeting plan: Open on category ownership, not current GMV; frame Cellar as the standard wine authentication consolidates around. Expect "is this big enough": answer with the size of the category in dollars and the take-rate-plus-custody monetization, not transaction count alone. The advance you want is a second meeting with the partner who owns consumer marketplaces. They can move slowly through the partnership, so don't read process for disinterest.
Best introduction source: A marketplace operator in their network, or a founder they've backed.
Founder note: The most prestigious lead. Worth the longer cycle; their name de-risks the whole round.
Lightspeed
Lead candidate · Lead Likelihood: Medium · Strategic Value: High
Role: Lead candidate (broad consumer-growth).
Why they matter: Backs marketplaces and consumer platforms across stages (Faire, Affirm, StockX-adjacent commerce), leads large rounds, and can keep funding you into growth. A credible primary anchor in its own right.
What they're actually underwriting: The marketplace mechanics and the path to scale. They want to see the flywheel and a credible route to a much larger GMV, and they're comfortable underwriting growth ahead of profit.
Likely pushback: They need to believe this gets large; a beautiful small marketplace won't clear their bar. They'll probe whether custody scales operationally without eating the margin.
Best angle: The flywheel plus the route to category scale: every adjacent collectible (whisky, then watches) sits on the same custody-and-grading rails. The team's experience scaling authentication operations.
Avoid: Treating wine as the whole market. Show the platform extends to adjacent high-value categories.
Meeting plan: Open on the flywheel and the scale path; the expansion story (wine to spirits to adjacent collectibles on the same rails) is the part that unlocks them. Expect "does this get big enough": answer with the platform-extension thesis, not just the wine TAM. The advance you want is engagement on the scale model and a second meeting; they can lead if convinced the ceiling is high.
Best introduction source: A commerce or marketplace founder in their portfolio.
Founder note: The fund most likely to fund your next round too. Frame the long game, not just this one.
Thrive Capital
Lead candidate / high-signal participant · Lead Likelihood: Medium · Strategic Value: High
Why they matter: A concentrated, high-conviction fund that backs category leaders and whose participation is a strong signal to everyone else. They write large checks and move decisively when they like a deal.
What they're actually underwriting: Whether this is a category winner led by exceptional founders. They make fewer, bigger bets, so they're underwriting the team and the inevitability of the category as much as the metrics.
Likely pushback: High bar; they may decide the category is too small for their concentration model. They'll want conviction the founders are the ones to own the category.
Best angle: The founder-market fit and the category-ownership inevitability. The compounding custody data as a widening moat.
Avoid: A diffuse pitch. Thrive rewards a sharp, confident, category-defining narrative.
Meeting plan: Open on why this team owns this category and why custody makes the lead durable. Expect the size objection; meet it with conviction and the expansion path. The advance you want is direct partner engagement; when Thrive leans in, it moves fast, so have your data room ready.
Best introduction source: A founder they've backed, or a mutual investor from your existing cap table.
Founder note: High risk, high reward meeting. Their yes pulls the whole round; don't walk in without the cohort data.
Tier 2 · high priority
Strong fits less likely to lead, but adding real signal, real capital, or both. Lighter profiles by design.
Bessemer Venture Partners
Lead Likelihood: Medium · Strategic Value: High
Deep marketplace and infrastructure experience, and they'll model custody as a real business faster than most. They want the unit economics to work, not just the flywheel. Best angle: custody as durable, compounding infrastructure with defensible margins at scale. After the room: "The custody moat is real if the economics hold; we'd want to see storage at or above breakeven. Strong team. Could co-lead behind a consumer name." Bull: they grasp the infrastructure thesis. Bear: they'll be the toughest on custody margins. Best intro: a marketplace or infra founder in their portfolio. Can co-lead or write a large check behind a consumer lead.
FJ Labs
Lead Likelihood: Low · Strategic Value: Medium
More marketplace deals than anyone alive; instant pattern recognition on two-sided liquidity. Won't lead, writes smaller checks, but a fast yes and real credibility in marketplace circles. Best angle: the supply-demand flywheel and take-rate durability. After the room: "Clean marketplace mechanics, we get it immediately. We won't lead but we'll move fast and our name travels with marketplace investors." Bull: fastest conviction on the list. Bear: small check, follower posture. Best intro: direct; they're accessible and marketplace-fluent. Good early momentum-builder.
Burgundy / Collectibles-Focused Fund (alt-asset lane)
Lead Likelihood: Low · Strategic Value: Medium
A fund that invests around collectibles and alternative assets understands the category value instantly and brings credibility with collectors. The risk is they frame you as an asset play, not a marketplace. Best angle: the category depth and the authentication standard. Avoid: letting them define you as fractional investing. After the room: "We know this category and the demand is real; the question is whether it's a marketplace or a fund. We'd participate, not lead the consumer framing." Bull: category credibility and collector access. Bear: wrong-framing risk if they anchor the round. Best intro: a collector or auction-world connector. Useful capital and credibility; keep them off the lead.
Wine-Industry Strategic
Distributor / major retailer / auction veteran · Lead Likelihood: Low · Strategic Value: High
A strategic from the wine world brings supply, credibility, and distribution no financial fund can. They won't price or lead, but an intro to an estate or a distributor is worth more than the check. Best angle: the supply and credibility they unlock; position XP-style rails as complementary, not competitive, to their business. After the room: "This could be a channel and a supply source for us; the tech is interesting. We'd put in a small strategic check and open doors." Bull: real supply and credibility. Bear: slow, strategic-process pace; not a financial lead. Best intro: an industry advisor or board connection. Worth pursuing for what it unlocks beyond capital.
Lerer Hippeau
Lead Likelihood: Low · Strategic Value: Medium
Strong consumer and commerce brand-builder, NYC-centric, good at the brand and community side of a consumer marketplace. Likelier to participate than lead at this size. Best angle: the brand and community flywheel among collectors. After the room: "Lovely brand potential and a real community wedge; we'd come in behind a lead." Bull: brand and community expertise. Bear: check size and lead capacity at Series A. Best intro: a consumer founder in their portfolio. A credible consumer co-investor.
Tier 3 · fill the round
Useful once a lead is circled and the round is visibly happening. Each entry: best use, when to open, what not to expect.
- Index Ventures: world-class consumer and marketplace track record. Best use: a brand-name co-investor that can fund the next round. When to open: once a lead is circling. Don't expect: a fast yes at this size without strong momentum.
- Greylock: deep network-effects pedigree. Best use: a credibility check with conviction on defensibility. When to open: after the custody moat is proven in the data. Don't expect: early conviction on a category they see as niche.
- NEA: large multistage fund, can write big and follow on. Best use: a scale check once growth is visible. When to open: mid-process on momentum. Don't expect: a lead on the consumer-marketplace framing this early.
- Construct Capital: backs supply-chain and physical-world platforms. Best use: a thesis- aligned co-investor on the custody/logistics angle. When to open: alongside the marketplace lane. Don't expect: a consumer-brand lens.
- Female Founders Fund / category angels: relevant operator angels in commerce and collectibles. Best use: fill and domain credibility. When to open: any time once a lead exists. Don't expect: a lead or a large check.
- High-net-worth collector angels: serious collectors who believe in the category. Best use: supply, credibility, and fill. When to open: late, to round out the allocation. Don't expect: speed or institutional discipline; cap their share.
Avoid
Each of these costs you the scarcest thing in a raise: time and momentum. Don't open them, and don't reopen them when a warm intro tempts you.
- Pure fintech / fractional-investing funds. They'll push you toward a wine-as-securities pivot you don't want, and that framing narrows your next raise. A guaranteed detour.
- Growth and late-stage funds. Need scale you don't have; won't take an early meeting seriously. Revisit in two rounds.
- Generalist seed funds that can't lead $8–15M. Even enthusiastic, they can't anchor the round, and they slow your timeline.
- Hobbyist wine angels with no operating value. Small, slow, no signal, a mid-raise distraction. Maybe one strategic name after close, never during.
Fundraising dashboard
Track these weekly. Not vanity counts, the numbers that tell you whether the round is forming. Update it every Friday and read it honestly.
- Intro requests sent: are you feeding the funnel through warm paths, not cold blasts.
- First meetings held: necessary but not progress on their own.
- Second meetings booked: the first real signal; where a polite no quietly disappears.
- Diligence / data requests: the metric that matters most. A fund asking for the custody cohort is a fund leaning in.
- Funds discussing internally: anyone who's said "I'm taking this to my partners." Track who and when.
- Lead candidates: funds with both the capacity and the apparent intent to lead. Zero after Week 2 is your alarm.
- Consumer-lane health: green/yellow/red. Are the marketplace funds progressing, stalled, or quiet.
- Strategic-lane health: same, tracked separately. The risk here is the opposite, that it moves too fast and tries to define the round.
High first-meeting count with near-zero diligence requests is the treadmill. It means positioning, not volume, is broken.
The most valuable outcomes
When you have a choice between offers, this is the order to prefer them, ranked by what each does for the next round, not by dollars today.
- Forerunner or a16z lead + a marketplace specialist (Bessemer) participating. The target outcome. A brand-name consumer lead that reframes the category, plus an investor who validated the custody economics. Prices well now, opens the most doors next.
- Lightspeed or Thrive lead. A strong consumer lead with the capital to fund your growth rounds; reads as a category bet by a serious fund.
- Bessemer co-lead + a consumer name. Stamps the custody-as-infrastructure thesis; powerful for later infra and growth investors.
- A consumer lead + a wine-industry strategic. Clean and strong: the marketplace signal plus real supply and credibility.
- Alt-asset fund lead, consumer participation. Closes the round, but watch the framing; if it tips to "wine investing" you inherit the next-round burden of proving you're a real marketplace.
- Strategic / collector-heavy round. The floor. Funds you, but signals niche, and makes the Series B harder. Take it only if the alternative is not closing.
If two term sheets land, this ranking is your tiebreaker: take the one higher on this list even at a lower number, within reason.
Common founder mistakes during this raise
Specific to Cellar, specific to this process. Each one has cost a comparable company a round.
- Selling the romance. The moment you spend ten minutes on the beauty of wine, a consumer fund files you as a hobby, not a marketplace. The romance is texture. Lead with the flywheel and the custody data.
- Defending GMV. If you're justifying the absolute number, you've lost the frame. The bet is the custody switching cost and the widening repeat-buyer base. Redirect there every time.
- Letting the alt-asset lane set the price. A fast strategic or fractional-investing check feels like progress and quietly reframes you as a niche. Protect the consumer lane; it's the one that determines your next round.
- Treating first meetings as progress. A full calendar of firsts feels like momentum and isn't. The only progress metrics are second meetings and diligence requests.
- Hiding the custody economics. If storage runs near breakeven, say so and explain why it's still the moat. A fund that discovers it themselves assumes you were hiding it.
- Opening Tier 3 too early. Those names exist to fill behind a lead and move faster on momentum. Cold-open them in Week 1 and you waste their one advantage.
If I were running this raise
The single page I'd tape to the wall.
Where I'd spend my time
Almost all of it on four meetings: Forerunner, a16z consumer, Lightspeed, Thrive. One of those leads this round, and which one tells you what kind of company you're becoming. I'd put my best preparation, my warmest intros, and my sharpest version of the story into those rooms and treat everything else as supporting fire. Bessemer gets my next-best energy, because passing their custody-economics diligence is a credential I can carry into every other room.
Where I would not spend time
The Avoid list, obviously, but more importantly: I would not let a fractional-investing fund talk me into a securities pivot, and I would not let a fast strategic check close the round before a consumer name has engaged. And I would not take a third meeting with a fund that loved the wine but never asked about stored-versus-unstored retention, because a fund that doesn't get to the custody question isn't serious, they're being polite.
Which investors matter most
Forerunner and a16z, disproportionately, and not only for the check. They're the names that reframe you from niche to category. The strategic capital is useful; the consumer lead is what determines your valuation and your next raise. Run both lanes, but protect the consumer lane with your life.
Which diligence requests matter most
Exactly one is non-negotiable before you start: the stored- versus-unstored custody cohort comparison. The custody unit economics are second. The authentication-and-loss trace is third. With those three clean, I can walk into any room on this list. Without the first, I shouldn't be in the rooms yet.
Reading the signals
It's working when funds move to a data request without being chased, when the custody-cohort question comes up early and your answer lands, and when an investor volunteers an intro to another fund. It's broken when first meetings never convert, when funds describe you back as "a nicer wine auction site" (the reframe isn't landing, fix the opening, not the list), or when only alt-asset funds engage (you're being read as a niche). The quiet one: if showing the custody cohort data makes funds less interested, the switching cost isn't what you hoped, and no process fixes that.
Whichever lane moves first, the meeting that decides the raise is the one where the stored-versus-unstored cohort data goes on the table. Have it ready, and the hardest room becomes the one that closes you.