The round starts with six people you already know.

Dana Whitfield — GP at a seed fund she joined in 2025, capping roughly twenty years of funding early-stage software companies, including a founding-team run at a major startup accelerator. She is the warmest investor tie in your entire network: shared calendar history (1:1/small-group events, last 2024-06-21), in your contacts, connected since 2010, and Austin-local. This is a reconnection ask, not a favor ask — lead with catching up, not the deck.

Marcus Lin — Partner at an early-stage fund with an AI and future-of-work thesis, and his summary openly invites founders to write. The buried signal: his own profile lists a board seat, a decade and a half back, at a company you founded — he sat on your board. That's a real working relationship, whatever the thin messaging record says.

Grant Delaney — Partner at a data-driven fund writing seed-through-B checks where SaaS meets applied data. Texas-based, 30+ personal angel checks including several now-public SaaS names. Thesis bullseye and local. In your contacts, connected since 2013.

Neil Prasad — GP at a seed fund whose portfolio reads like a B2B SaaS and devtools index; writes $300k–$1M checks at a pace of dozens a year. Connected since 2011 (connections only — expect a cold-ish reopen).

Owen Marsh — GP at a pre-seed fund built around engineer-founders — well over a hundred checks across B2B AI, data infrastructure, and devtools. In your contacts since 2009.

Ted Kagan — GP at a solo seed fund who publicly invites cold pitches: his profile spells out exactly what to send and promises a read and a reply. Lowest-friction real shot on this list. Connected since 2010 (connections only).

• Paul Reiner — GP at an early-stage firm; two-time SaaS founder (one exit to a major CRM company) turned VC. Contacts since 2013.
• Doug Farrell — Partner at a seed firm whose portfolio is dense with B2B/SaaS wins. Contacts since 2012.
• Carrie Voss — Partner at a pre-seed/seed fund; leads rounds, checks from $500K up to $4M, with dozens of high-conviction seed investments across B2B SaaS. Contacts since 2012.
• Aaron Blume — Runs a vehicle that insists on being the very first money in; several of his earliest checks became household devtools names. Contacts since 2009.
• Kenji Sato — Managing Partner at a formation-stage software/AI-infra fund; founded a widely-deployed developer product himself and still writes small checks. Contacts since 2011.
• Evan Costa — MD at a mid-sized fund leading SaaS and applied-AI investments; also scouts pre-seed for a large network-style fund. Contacts since 2013.
• Victor Nguyen — GP with a deep enterprise-SaaS track record who runs a founder network numbering in the thousands. Contacts since 2008.
• Stuart Denny — GP raising his second fund (first close this spring); 150 angel checks including some of the biggest names in collaboration software. Connected since 2007.
• Wes Chandler — Partner at an early-stage fund with SaaS/AI named in its focus; ~100 personal angel checks. Contacts since 2012.
• Miles Beckett — Partner at an earliest-stage SaaS/devtools fund; a second seat backing emerging fund managers also makes him a map of new funds. Contacts since 2012.

Texas bench: Roy Lindgren (MD at a regional early-stage firm — "SaaS" is literally in his stated specialties), Curt Baylor (micro-VC with an enterprise-software mandate, plus the local angel group), Sam Ostrow (seed-stage software fund), Mara Quinn (pre-seed fund plus personal checks in B2B SaaS), Hank Doyle (devops-tooling founder with an exit, now making select SaaS investments from a personal vehicle).

Also live: Dev Raman (a fund with a long enterprise-SaaS record), Arjun Bose (co-founded a pre-seed B2B fund), Ari Feld (partner at a marquee multi-stage firm), Colin Hayes (left a big-name fund to raise his own; led early rounds in now-major B2B infrastructure companies), Josh Perlman (GP at one of the largest firms in venture, personal angel checks in B2B SaaS), Milan Petrov (first-check fund with early B2B SaaS wins), Lena Brooks & Drew Callahan (two doors into the same first-check pre-seed fund), Nate Corbin (well over a hundred early checks — and a peer from your earliest startup days), Lou Bertram (high-volume angel, roughly 100 checks a year, who takes every pitch through a public application — the relationship helps the application get read).

• Rob Ellison — co-founded one of your city's marquee venture firms; no current fund seat, but the natural door into that community. Contacts since 2008.
• Neal Okafor — your second-warmest tie (5 shared calendar events, last 2025-11-10); GP-in-Residence across corporate VC — a live reopen worth using for CVC and general routing.
• Samir Vora — just stepped from GP to EIR at a top-tier fund; still inside the building. Connected since 2007.
• Toby Alden — spent nearly a decade on the data team at one of the most famous names in venture, through 2024; a path inside.
• Felix Chu — now in senior leadership at a major startup accelerator; connected since 2008. The door here is the application, with the relationship as the nudge.
• Marty Rosen — venture-focused lawyer at a major firm, angel in 150+ startups, LP in a striking number of funds. A one-conversation map of who to raise from.
• Wade Hollis — banks venture funds at a national bank; mentors at a SaaS-focused accelerator; openly offers LP introductions and GP mentorship. Contacts since 2008.
• Gil Foster — his current vehicle buys secondaries rather than writing new early checks — but he's LP- or GP-linked to 50+ funds and one of your oldest ties (2007).

• Alan Pryce (marquee multi-stage fund): his own profile says he's not leading new investments, just sitting on boards — router only.
• Irene Sung: explicitly post-Series A — wrong stage. Same for Ravi Kondur (wants $1–10M ARR), Glen Tovey ($3–13M revenue growth equity), and Dean Acker / Tanya Cole (acquire profitable lower-middle-market companies).
• Willa Hart: "Fund is no longer investing."
• Anup Shenoy, Priya Nair, Cal Redding, Margaux Denis: every angel/fund stint in their profiles carries an end date (2025, 2024, 2015, 2024 respectively) — advisors and alumni now, not open checkbooks. Denis is still a good intro into her old fund's network.
• Hardeep Gill: false positive — "Funded by… several prominent Angel Investors" describes his backers, not him.
• Denny Wolfe: "General Partner" title, but the description is fundraising coaching — no fund or checks in evidence.
• Zev Kaplan: self-described "micro angel investor"; connected one month ago — no basis for a warm ask.
• Wrong mandate for this raise: Orly Shaham and Eitan Bar (funds restricted to founders from one country), Warren Oh and Pat Kearney (web3-only vehicles), Cam Ritchie (sports-only), Ira Stein (visual tech), Ross Whitaker and Angela Yuen (deep tech/frontier), Remy Solis (sustainability/impact), Bianca Moretti (consumer/movement thesis).
• Remaining literal-phrase hits were excluded on capsule evidence: decades-old junior VC stints (e.g. Kyle Renner, Reid Halloran, Ivy Tan, and one now-famous exec whose single GP year was 1999), student funds (Marisol V.), media/consumer-only angels (Eli Granger), or no investing positions at all behind an investor headline (Nadia Ferro, Cole Whitney, Gene Barlow, Robin Wexler — though Whitney maintains a free public directory of thousands of VC firms, a useful raise tool).

• Warmth data is thin across the board. Only Whitfield and Okafor have interaction history on record; everyone else is Google-contacts presence and connection age only. Could not confirm how alive ties like Farrell (2012) or Marsh (2009) actually are — treat connection age as a floor, not a warmth reading.
• Coverage is capped, not complete. The literal passes matched more people than the tool returns ("venture capital": 463 matches, top 40 reviewed; "angel investor": 218/40; "general partner": 118/40). Strong candidates may exist below the cut line.
• Could not confirm current investing status for Grady Nolan (ex-GP at a corporate venture giant; his new solo vehicle shows no fund description) or Art Lum (retired GP whose summary says he still invests personally) — both worth a light touch before ruling in or out.
• Fund stage/thesis claims are from self-described profiles, not verified fund filings.

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