Oper’s Fundraising Framework: Why Your Investors Should Be Helpful Before They’re on Your Cap Table

Most founders approach fundraising backwards. They build a product, gain traction, then start reaching out to VCs when they need money. The pitch becomes transactional: here’s our deck, here’s our traction, give us your money.

Geert Van Kerckhoven did something different. Two years ago, he joined an angel fund as a small investor. Not to deploy capital at scale. Not to build a portfolio. But to see how the other side actually works.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Geert Van Kerckhoven, CEO and Co-Founder of Oper, explained what he learned from sitting in investment committees and reading deal memos—and how that experience fundamentally changed how he approaches fundraising for his $15M mortgage tech platform.

The Perspective Shift

“Two years ago I joined angel fund as a small angel investor and suddenly I was involved in ics, investment committees, etcetera,” Geert explains. “And suddenly I started seeing how investment memos are written, how VC’s think about deal flow.”

This wasn’t casual observation. Geert was participating in the actual mechanics of investment decisions. Reading memos. Hearing pitches. Watching how investors evaluate companies. Seeing what convinced committees to say yes—and what made them pass.

“It’s really helped me for myself and opera as well to see how does it work on the other side,” he says. “I know that’s often advice that VC’s give founders like hey, how do we think about returns, how do we need to present you?”

But there’s a difference between VCs telling you how they think and actually sitting in the room watching how they decide.

Reverse Engineering the Memo

The insight that changed everything for Geert was understanding investment memos—not just their existence, but their function.

When a VC hears your pitch, they don’t just decide yes or no. They write a memo. That memo has to convince their partners, their investment committee, sometimes their LPs. The memo is where your pitch becomes their argument.

Most founders never see these memos. They pitch, they answer questions, they wait for a decision. They never know how their company was presented internally, what arguments carried weight, what concerns needed addressing.

Geert figured out something crucial: “How they write memos, what memos they would write about you and reverse engineer your pitch in your USP like that.”

Read that again. Reverse engineer your pitch based on the memo they would write about you.

Not: here’s what we’re building. But: here’s what would need to be true in an investment memo for you to say yes to us.

The Relationship-First Approach

This insight connects to a broader principle: fundraising is about relationships, not transactions.

“Investors that are helpful when they are not on your cap table will still be very helpful when they’re on your cap table and vice versa,” Geert says. “So really qualify early on because there are people you will be working with in the good times and the bad times.”

An investor who’s helpful before they invest—who makes intros, gives feedback, shares insights—will be helpful after. An investor who’s transactional before the check clears will be transactional after.

The pre-investment relationship isn’t fundraising theater. It’s a real signal of the long-term partnership.

Plan Your Fundraising Journey

Geert’s other key insight from Techstars: “Plan your way through fundraising.”

Most founders optimize for individual rounds. Get the best terms this seed. Maximize valuation in Series A. Each round becomes its own project.

But Geert learned to think about fundraising as a journey. “You know you don’t have to optimize for your doing the best seed or the best angel round or the best a round. I think you really need to think it through.”

“I mean fundraising, I mean you’re raising funds to invest your money to achieve certain goals,” Geert says. “Sometimes I have the feeling that not everybody has that mindset.”

The trap is treating fundraising as the goal rather than a means to achieve goals.

The Enterprise Sales Parallel

Geert’s approach to fundraising mirrors his approach to enterprise sales. In both cases, he prioritizes relationships over transactions.

For customer sales, founders stay deeply involved with major accounts. For fundraising, it means treating investors like long-term partners from day one.

The parallel makes sense. Enterprise sales and fundraising both involve long decision cycles, multiple stakeholders, and high-value relationships where continuity matters more than efficiency.

If you’re building an enterprise company, you already know relationship-based selling. Apply that framework to fundraising.

The Qualification Process

Geert’s emphasis on qualifying investors early is crucial. Most founders focus on getting any investor interested without thinking carefully about whether they actually want that investor.

But if helpful investors before investment stay helpful after, then qualifying investors is as important as qualifying customers.

Key signals: Are they making introductions before they invest? Do they respond thoughtfully? Do they understand your market? These matter because “there are people you will be working with in the good times and the bad times.”

The Practical Application

How do you actually apply this framework?

Start building investor relationships before you need money. Take meetings when you’re not fundraising. Get feedback. See who’s actually helpful.

Understand how investors think about deal flow and memos. What arguments would they need to make internally to justify investing? What concerns would partners raise?

Treat fundraising like enterprise sales: long relationship cycles, careful qualification, personal connections that matter.

Plan your fundraising journey. Don’t optimize for individual rounds at the expense of long-term business building.

The Meta-Lesson

The deepest insight in Geert’s approach: understanding how the other side actually works changes everything.

Most founders operate on assumptions about how VCs think. They’ve read blog posts and absorbed conventional wisdom. But few have sat in investment committees and seen real decision-making.

Geert did. “Suddenly I started seeing how investment memos are written, how VC’s think about deal flow”—that experience gave him an edge that’s hard to replicate through secondhand knowledge.

The application goes beyond fundraising. Want to close enterprise deals better? Work in enterprise sales. Want to understand product-market fit? Talk to customers who didn’t buy.

Understanding how the other side actually works, not how you assume it works, creates advantages no advice can replicate.