How we raised our $5.5 million seed round in three weeks

Early Days, Pre-seed, and Our Pivot

“How are you going to build a product without a tech co-founder?” is what we heard from VCs when we were trying to raise our pre-seed. Assel (My Co-founder and CPO) and I managed to raise half a million based solely on the idea that we wanted to make legal immigration services easier with automation.

After raising the pre-seed funding, our initial strategy was to hire a couple of engineers and build out the minimum viable product (MVP), while we looked for a tech co-founder. Finding an amazing technical co-founder we wanted was not easy, so we didn’t want to rush into it. Meanwhile, we didn't want to lose the momentum on the product side either. Little did we know, our now CTO and Co-founder, Shuo, was right around the corner. As we built out the MVP and got early feedback from our initial customers, we started learning more about the space we were in.

We realized that Immigration wasn’t just a legal workflow problem; it was an end-to-end services problem. Could we go beyond empowering lawyers? Could we empower individuals navigating the immigration process themselves? That was our eureka moment!

We saw a massive untapped opportunity in the broader services space—a market often overlooked by VCs due to its labor-intensive nature and lack of scalability. But with advancements in large language models (LLMs) and natural language processing (NLP), we realized that services were finally ready for disruption. Scalable, high-margin solutions were suddenly possible.

It was an opportunity too big to ignore. That’s when we decided to actually pivot—from building legal tech for immigration law firms to becoming a legal tech company offering immigration services directly to individuals and companies.

Deciding to Raise Our Seed Round

When we pivoted to tackle a much bigger problem, it became clear that the product needed to be far more sophisticated. Our initial pre-seed funding, while instrumental in getting us started, wasn’t enough to build a truly transformative product. We needed the resources to assemble an engineering team capable of bringing our vision to life and creating something impactful.

The timing couldn’t have been better. Multiple top VCs started writing about their thesis in AI services or “service-as-a-software”, and it perfectly aligned with how we thought about our pivot. We started first conversations with VCs and understood we are on a right track

This perfect alignment of our timing to pivot, and market trend became the catalyst for our seed round.

How We Raised $5.5 Million

To be honest, it didn’t take us long to raise our seed funding—we received our first term sheet in about a week! I believe several key factors contributed to this success. But before diving into those, I want to share the process and preparation that made this fundraise possible. If you’re a founder looking to raise funding, keep reading—this might be helpful.

Preparing for the Fundraise

Fundraising can feel overwhelming, and while I’m not saying it’s easy, I believe the process itself isn’t overly complicated. In fact, there are just four critical things you need to prepare for, which I’ll explain shortly.

Pitch Deck

From my experience in consulting at McKinsey and previously raising a pre-seed round, I’ve learned that a pitch deck must be concise and impactful. Here's what worked for us:

• Keep it brief: Investors typically spend only a few minutes reviewing pitch decks, so limit yours to 10 slides.
• Prioritize clarity: Focus on the essentials—problem, solution, market size, team, and competitors. These are the slides that truly matter.
• Use an appendix: Include additional, complex details here so investors can review them at their leisure without crowding the main deck.
• Simplify your messaging: Avoid overcomplicating. The lead/title of each page has to concisely communicate what this page is about.
• Get early feedback: Engage with a few VCs and refine your deck based on their input before reaching out broadly.

The List of Investors

I was fortunate—my husband had raised funding for his own startup and shared his investor list with me (thanks, Chyngyz!). But regardless of how you get your list, strategy is key:

Here’s how we approached it:

• Segmenting the List: We divided investors into two waves. The first wave consisted of lower-priority VCs to refine our pitch, and the second included our ideal targets.

1. Wave 1: Start with an initial list of investors as a trial run. This helps you refine your pitch and approach before targeting your ideal investors.
2. Wave 2: After incorporating feedback from the first wave, approach your primary targets.

• Matching Interests: Another thing I did that I feel is super critical is to target VCs who have written theses in the space that you’re targeting. So, read their work, understand their perspective, and tailor your approach. This significantly increases the odds of securing a term sheet and bringing on investors who genuinely believe in your mission. If you want to get access to our list of investors in AI services - ping us at hello@tryalma.ai or request for it here.
• Right Angels: Raising capital is about bringing the right people who share your vision and can add value beyond dollars. One key insight we gained during our seed round is the unique advantage of engaging with angel investors who’ve walked a similar path. That’s why we curated a list of angel investors who are immigrant founders themselves and floated it within our VC network.
• Tracking Engagement: We maintained a tracker to monitor responses, follow-ups, and next steps. Staying organized was critical to managing momentum.

Introductions to VCs

Warm introductions are game-changers. In my experience, cold emailing investors rarely works (unless you bootstrapped a business to $1m in ARR) —it’s easy to get lost in their inboxes. Here’s what I recommend:

• Leverage founder connections: If you know other founders who have raised funding, request intros to their VCs. This seems to work best!
• Tap into your network: If you’ve raised before or know investors, ask for direct introductions. This is second preference.

Introductions carry weight. A recommendation from someone the VC trusts immediately boosts your credibility and speeds up the process.

The Data Room

Finally, your data room needs to demonstrate your expertise and commitment. Here’s what to include:

• Customer discovery calls: Showcasing authentic insights from potential customers demonstrates the depth of your research. Before conducting these - read “The Mom Test” book!
• Market analysis: Include a detailed bottom-up calculation of market size and projected revenue. Investors really prefer bottom-up market sizing vs. top-down!
• Competitor analysis: Go beyond surface-level research. Highlight competitor founders, their market share, investors, and key differences in your approach. Don’t hide any competitors!
• Product roadmap: Detail the product’s evolution, strategy, and workflows, if available.
• Hiring strategy: Showcase profiles of top-tier talent you aim to hire. Investors want to see if you know how to look for the right people and talent profiles.

When executed well, these elements tell a compelling story and leave investors confident in your ability to execute.

How to Accelerate the Fundraise

What helped us raise funding quickly wasn’t just streamlining the process—it was a combination of many smaller efforts that, together, made a bigger impact. Here’s a breakdown of what worked for us, and hopefully, this advice can help other founders looking to raise funds.

Leverage Your Experience

Industry experience in the application layer of AI tech stack becomes increasingly important and helps you differentiate yourselves as founders. As an immigrant and a practicing attorney, I don’t just “know” the space—I’ve lived it. The challenges tied to US immigration laws are extensive, and having personally navigated them, I understand the problem on a much deeper level. Combined with my experience of practicing law both at a big law firm and in-house, it showed investors that I knew the space in and out, which enabled our team to generate insights earlier than others. Therefore, even if you don’t have experience in your space, you need to learn a lot from experts and become one in a short amount of time.

Fundraising Is a Full-Time Job

Fundraising requires 100% focus. As the CEO, I made it my sole priority and didn’t let anything else distract me until the round was closed. I didn’t involve my co-founders unless necessary as they were focused on the most important thing - product, and investors would meet them only at later stages of conversations. Keeping the process centralized in one hands ensured clarity, speed, and consistency.

Understand Market Trends and Timing

Market trends and timing can significantly impact fundraising success. We were able to raise quickly because we recognized the tailwinds and capitalized on the momentum around AI. This was the perfect time to pitch our immigration legal tech, as AI Services was the hottest commodity in the market. Investors are also influenced by external factors, so it's crucial to read and react to market conditions accurately.

Be Curious and Ask Questions

Don’t hesitate to ask questions during your meetings with investors. In fact, I found that investors appreciate founders who are curious and confident enough to voice their perspectives. It shows that you’re engaged and thinking critically. As they say, show you can go through the walls, yet you are coachable :)

The Power of the First Term Sheet

Securing that first term sheet can be a game-changer. In our case, we got a term sheet from the VC who had previously turned us down during our pre-seed round. At the time, their concern was the lack of a tech co-founder and a small market. We were able to re-engage with them once we solved both issues and the process from there was super fast. As you all know, VCs unfortunately oftentimes are “FOMO-driven” - if you have a term-sheet, majority of other VCs will take the call with you and feel pressured to move fast. In less than a month, we raised our seed round!

What’s Next for Us

I’m a strong believer in the “Launch and iterate” strategy. As a founder, you have to let go of any fear of imperfection or self-doubt. There is no such thing as a perfect product, especially at early stage startups. Every successful product you use today is the result of countless iterations.

The funds we've raised will be invested in building the future of immigration services in the country. Our team is gradually expanding with some of the best talent out there, and we’re excited about the possibilities ahead. Our product will go through countless iterations, and it still won’t be perfect. But that’s what excites me. We don’t want Alma to be seen just as a digital platform; we want it to be a trusted partner that simplifies the legal immigration process.

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