“I Only Had One Pitch Deck”: How Weaviate Built Relationships First, Raised Money Second

Most founders spend countless hours perfecting their pitch decks. But in a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Weaviate founder Bob van Luijt revealed a counterintuitive approach: he’s only created one pitch deck in his entire fundraising journey. Everything else came through relationships.

“I’ve only had one pitch deck in my life, and that was for our seed round,” Bob explains. “And all the other rounds came very organically.” This isn’t to say investors simply handed over money – rather, it reflects a deliberate strategy of building genuine relationships long before any fundraising conversations began.

Take their latest investment round led by Index Ventures. The relationship didn’t start with a pitch. Instead, it began with conversations about open source and business building, evolving naturally over more than a year. As Bob describes it, “The company or the firm who led our last investment round… we talked about open source, about business building, and it was like over a year before the investment.”

This approach might seem slow, but it offers several advantages. First, it allows for more authentic conversations focused on shared interests and vision rather than immediate transactions. Second, it gives investors time to watch the company’s progress and understand the team’s execution capabilities. Finally, it reduces the pressure and artificiality often associated with formal pitch meetings.

But Bob’s relationship-first strategy comes with an important caveat: “If you need to force it too much, there’s something wrong in that,” he notes. “It can be your product, it can be your go to market, that can be your market. It can be anything. But then there’s something off.”

This observation points to a deeper truth about fundraising: when everything aligns – product, market, team, and timing – the conversations flow more naturally. As Bob puts it, “What starts to happen is you have these conversations, you stay in touch, you communicate with each other, you meet each other to different companies, and then you get to this state where it becomes very logical to work together.”

The effectiveness of this approach becomes clear when you consider Weaviate’s trajectory. They’ve successfully raised multiple rounds while building their vector database technology, transitioning from an open-source project to a commercial product just as the AI boom created massive demand for their infrastructure.

But what about founders struggling to raise money? Bob offers a candid perspective: “Sometimes people go like, hey, I have this great product, but I’m not raising any money. And, well, you know, it’s you. It’s not products. My point is, sometimes you also want to look in the mirror.”

This might sound harsh, but it reflects an important reality: fundraising isn’t just about the pitch or even the product – it’s about building trust and demonstrating execution over time. When investors can see your progress and understand your vision through ongoing dialogue, the formal pitch becomes less critical.

For founders taking inspiration from Weaviate’s approach, the key takeaways are clear:

• Start building investor relationships early, before you need the money
• Focus on authentic connections and shared interests rather than immediate fundraising
• Use ongoing conversations to demonstrate progress and execution
• Pay attention to friction in fundraising conversations – it might signal deeper issues
• Remember that relationships, not pitch decks, often drive successful fundraising

The story of Weaviate’s fundraising success suggests that perhaps the best pitch isn’t a deck at all – it’s a relationship built on shared vision and demonstrated execution over time.