Fieldnote — $1.2M pre-seed, fully from Cofounder for Startup

The problem

Rosa Tran had 40 investor names in a spreadsheet and no intros to any of them. Fieldnote — soil-sensor analytics for greenhouse growers — had real numbers ($11k MRR, growing 24% month over month) but no network: no accelerator batch, no angel uncle, no warm path to a pre-seed fund.

Three months of cold emails had produced two replies, both passes. The numbers were never the problem. Getting anyone to look at them was.

What she did on Cofounder for Startup

She filled the standardized traction fields, gated exact revenue to After match, and recorded the 45-second pitch on her phone in the greenhouse — one sentence on the product, the MRR curve, and the ask: pre-seed, agri and climate funds writing $50–250k.

Her filters did the outreach. Eleven investors cleared both filter sets — her thesis fit theirs, their check size fit her round. Seven matched. No cold emails, no gatekeeping, no deck sent into the void.

The outcome

The first call happened within 48 hours of the first match. Six weeks later the round closed with five checks — every one of them from the platform. Two of the five investors never met her in person before wiring.