As a startup, securing funding is one of the hardest things you’ll do. And with global VC investment topping $512 billion in 2025, competition for media attention around funding rounds has never been fiercer. Nearly half of all venture capital is now flowing into AI companies alone, and deal counts are actually declining even as total dollars rise — meaning investors are making fewer, bigger bets. So, once you secure new capital, you still have one critical challenge left: how to get press coverage for your funding round.
To do so, you need to plan and execute a successful PR strategy. And while getting press coverage for your funding round is an essential milestone, the best marketers, communicators, and biz dev folks think about funding PR strategically — rather than only having the desire to see their company’s name in lights (i.e. TechCrunch).
Securing earned media coverage for your announcement can be one goal, but it should only be part of an ongoing startup PR campaign strategy for your brand rather than the finish line. Good media coverage will drive inbound leads, and you want to ensure your company is prepared to capture those visitors — whether through email capture, converting them into customers, or attracting top talent (especially important as AI-powered search and GEO make earned media coverage even more valuable for brand visibility).
Furthermore, once you have a larger captured audience, you must ensure that you have a constant stream of content marketing for your startup that addresses both the top and bottom of the sales funnel. If not, you’ll end up with an audience that isn’t engaged and quickly dissipates. However, before you get to branded content, you need to start by honing in on the overall goals for promoting your announcement and the audiences you are targeting.
What Are the Goals and Target Audiences for Your Funding Round PR?
When planning a startup PR campaign for your funding round, it is essential to define specific goals. A successful PR campaign should first ensure that it reaches the right audience and reflects the desired messaging. Typically, you are trying to get in front of multiple audiences with the announcement.
And often, they can differ in importance based on where you are in a startup’s lifecycle and which type of round you are closing (i.e. seed, Series B, later stage, etc.). These typically include the following, and here are some initial thoughts on messaging positioning for your target audiences and how to reach them.
1. Potential customers: Let’s say, for instance, you are a climate tech startup closing a Series B round. The buyer persona you are trying to reach is Chief Sustainability Officers, so messaging will need to be tailored to them. The announcement should likely include details on how the startup’s product has assisted other CSOs in achieving their goals. And the media outlets you’ll need to target will be a mix of both technology publications and vertical trades, such as GreenBiz, Canary Media, etc. Once you move past the announcement, you’ll need to shift gears toward creating content you can direct toward this buyer that drives lead generation.
2. Current and future investors: Announcing new funding is also one of the best ways to get in front of new investors for future rounds. In 2025, mega-rounds surged 77% while overall deal counts dropped 17% — meaning investors are being more selective than ever, making a strong funding announcement even more critical for standing out. Quotes from current investors will need to be implemented into the announcement and other materials aimed at this audience, and the size and opportunity in the market will need to be calculated. Of course, getting in front of potential investors will also mean making an effort to get coverage in publications such as TechCrunch and funding round-ups read by VCs such as Axios Pro Rata, Fortune’s Term Sheet, and StrictlyVC.
3. Talent/potential hires: Another key goal that typically comes with securing capital is scaling the size of the team. Not only does this need to be signaled within the funding announcement and other materials, but there can also be direct calls to action built into the messaging. Therefore, you must cultivate your ‘hiring brand’ by getting the careers page up-to-date and open positions listed before the announcement. Securing coverage in tech publications will get you in front of engineering talent. But you also want to distribute and share the news in popular communities for engineering talent, such as Hacker News, as well as through LinkedIn and relevant Slack/Discord communities in your industry.
4. Market influencers + analysts (including vertical markets): There are also market influencers and analysts with whom you can build credibility via your announcement. These might be influencers across vertical markets. For instance, for the climate tech startup example above, let’s say they’re finding initial traction in the industrial and manufacturing sector. Therefore, they will also want to get ahead of those who influence this sector. Smaller publications that are more focused on the specific trade should be a focus here. So, in this example, publications like ManufacturingDive, ManufacturingToday, and IndustryWeek should be a focus. Don’t overlook relevant podcasters and YouTube creators who cover your niche — they can often reach decision-makers that traditional media can’t.
How to Write a Funding Round Press Release That Gets Attention
You also want a press release or blog post in place and at close-to-final status to share with the media ahead of your announcement. This will ensure that you can offer to share it with a journalist when you reach out and gives them something to go off of for consideration in covering and to help pull their news story together if they are interested in it. The final press release also serves as the final messaging for the announcement that will be pulled into digital and social assets/posts. Therefore, the release becomes a key aspect of a good funding round PR plan as it feeds into all other tactics.
Here’s what you should look to answer when drafting your funding round press release:
- What is the startup? It’s essential to get this down to as simple of a state as possible – and framing it as a customer value proposition can help: To (prospective target customer), our (product or company) is (concept) that (point of difference).
- Which venture capital firm is leading the round, how much money was raised, and who else is taking part in it? You’ll want a quote from the lead investor, but it’s also worth mentioning other participating investors. Especially if they are following up on a previous investment.
- Can you put a size on the market opportunity, OR are there growth numbers you can point to? Data is important to validate the newsworthiness of the story. This could include utilizing third-party data from analyst firms on the market opportunity OR your own growth metrics to add to a good story.
- Why is the timing right for your startup to disrupt this market? It’s good to call out what is occurring in the industry you are targeting, which makes it the ideal time to tackle the specific problem or challenge you are looking to solve.
- What are you going to use the capital for? Accelerating speed to market with your product? Entering new markets? Hiring more talent? Call out the plans for the capital infusion in your announcement.
- Can you tie the funding to a broader industry trend? In 2026, AI, robotics, climate tech, and cybersecurity are dominating VC interest. If your startup operates in or adjacent to one of these sectors, explicitly connecting your funding to the trend gives journalists a bigger story to tell.
How to Build a Targeted Media List for Your Funding Announcement
Now that you have a close-to-final press release in hand, you can turn to media relations. However, before you pitch your story to the media, you’ll want to research what relevant tech industry outlets might be interested in writing an article on the news and those that can effectively reach your target audiences. Of course, demand for the story will vary based on the stage of the investment, the money invested, the type of technology the startup is working with, and who the investors are leading and taking part in the round. If Andreessen Horowitz is leading your round, you’ll have less of an uphill battle securing attention than if you have a lead investor that is less well-known.
In addition, a funding round for an early-stage startup (seed and pre-seed) can be challenging to get media attention for if you don’t have big-name venture capitalists or serial entrepreneurs participating. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t get coverage — it’s just not likely to be the Wall Street Journal. But you might be working in a sector with massive momentum right now — AI infrastructure, robotics, or climate tech were among the fastest-growing VC categories in 2025. If that’s the case, and you’ve never spoken to the media before, that novelty could be enticing to a publication (even if the round isn’t massive on the monetary side).
Knowing which press outlets and reporters are most relevant to your startup story will significantly boost your PR strategy. In addition, understanding what topics get the most traction and coverage within the outlets you are targeting will help you shape your startup narrative and pitch. When researching relevant media targets, the best advice is to explore all possibilities and strive to make the news an interesting story related to the current news cycle to have the greatest chance of success. And you can also think outside the box.
Today, an influencer, YouTuber, or podcaster might have a specific interest in your startup based on their domain area of interest. They might be a key to your brand reaching the target audience you want. Successful startups and their PR teams typically build a list of 10 or so reporters/influencers/podcasters that you can target before publicly announcing your funding round, which you can work down in hopes of securing interest from a few. Consider tapping into platforms like relevant podcasts in your space as well — a long-form conversation with your founder can often be more impactful than a short news hit.
Don’t forget that some news outlets will cover funding announcements differently, which can help create a range of stories on the funding. For example, Business Insider is known for featuring startup pitch decks that led to funding rounds. This is much different than how other publications cover, which also means they aren’t necessarily competing with TechCrunch and won’t be scared off if you pitch them alongside other tech journalists.
It will help if you give all these journalists you are targeting enough time to consider covering your funding story. In most cases, that means starting your outreach to individual journalists at least two weeks before the news is set to be released. Reporters will often say they need 4-5 business days’ advanced notice in covering a funding round, but given you want to ensure you secure some interest, you need more than a week to work down your list of potential targets. This is especially true given you’ll want to set up a time for your founders to talk to journalists if they are interested.
*You also should be in touch with your legal team or those that are responsible for filing financial documents to ensure you don’t scoop yourself with a Reg D filing going too early and being found by a journalist. Try to plan to come after a formal press release is issued.
How to Pitch Journalists and Secure Funding Round Press Coverage
Suppose you don’t have a warm intro to journalists via your PR agency. In that case, you want to write a short initial email to the first journalist on your list and offer to share the full press release/blog post under embargo for consideration in covering. For instance, you could write a subject line such as “X Raises Series A to Solve X,” and you’d want to start it by introducing yourself and the company.
Note that you’ve seen some of the journalist’s past coverage on the topic and wanted to see if you could talk to them about your company’s upcoming funding. It’s often safe to write/share the approximate dollar figure you’re raising (but not the exact figure), and don’t name all the investors as you don’t want to give all the details ahead of a journalist agreeing to an embargo. There isn’t really anything stopping most journalists from hitting publish if the full information is shared openly.
End by saying you’d be happy to share the full announcement under embargo for their consideration. If you don’t hear back, follow up a few days later to gauge thoughts on the story potential — and if there is still no word — go down the list to pitch other journalists that might be a fit to cover the funding news.
What Materials Do You Need Beyond the Press Release on Announcement Day?
Ideally, while you are securing media attention and interest in covering the news ahead of the announcement day, you also need to be producing and prepping materials to have in place for media, the website, and social media channels. These include:
- Images: They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and they’re imperative in turning good stories into great ones. So, in addition to having your logo, it helps to have headshots of executives, less formal shots of the team, hero/banner images, and screenshots/photos of the product in action. Not only will this help journalists, but it will make the content more engaging to readers.
- Graphics/Visuals: Social graphics with quotes from the founders and VCs can be a nice visual to add to your toolbox. And in general, companies should have a few graphics that they can utilize to promote the news across social channels. Short-form video clips (15-60 seconds) of founders discussing the vision can also be highly effective on LinkedIn and X.
- Social Media Posts: To amplify the visibility of the story, it’s good to have templated social posts and #hashtags for your whole team of employees, investors, partners, and even MVP customers to post and share on the day of the announcement. LinkedIn is typically the highest-impact channel for B2B funding news, but don’t neglect X (formerly Twitter), relevant Threads communities, and even Bluesky if your audience skews toward tech-forward circles.
- Blog Post on Announcement: In addition to the press release, the best advice is to have a blog post from the founder that takes most of the information from the written release and puts it less formally on the company website. Providing additional insight here can be an excellent way to control a piece of the narrative around the funding. It also enables you to publish and share on social media with a link to your company website vs. a newswire.
- Future content in the backlog: As we mentioned previously, much like you do when you launch a new website, you want a backlog of content ready that you can utilize with your newly captured audience in the weeks following the funding announcement. This might be an ideal time to work with a content marketing agency to scale your branded content production.
- Updated careers page with open positions: Many early-stage startups miss the boat when it comes to capturing talent who visit their websites following a funding announcement. Make it straightforward on your homepage that you are hiring and have a link to current open positions.
And when it comes to executing on launch day, you’ll want to follow up with journalists you know are covering and those you haven’t heard from (plus a broader list) to distribute the funding news. Make sure to not reach out to additional journalists until the press release/announcement and the embargoed stories officially come out at the time you have set. From there, it comes down to making sure you also hit all the critical roundup newsletters/columns on funding coverage mentioned above and driving social media content throughout the day.
Should You Offer an Exclusive or Go Wide With Your Funding News?
One of the biggest strategic decisions in your funding round PR plan is whether to offer a single outlet an exclusive or pitch the news broadly under embargo. Both approaches have merits:
The exclusive approach works best for larger rounds or when a specific top-tier outlet (like TechCrunch, Forbes, or Bloomberg) is a realistic target. You give one journalist the story first, which increases the likelihood of a more in-depth piece — often with an interview and detailed coverage. The tradeoff is volume: you’re betting on one strong hit rather than multiple placements.
Going wide under embargo means pitching a select group of journalists and asking them all to hold the story until a set date and time. This can generate multiple stories on announcement day, creating a wave of coverage. However, it requires careful coordination, and there’s always a small risk of an embargo break.
For most Series A and B startups, we generally recommend starting with an exclusive offer to your top-choice outlet. If they pass, you can then go wider. The key is to have a plan for both scenarios before you start pitching.
How to Measure the Success of Your Funding Round PR Campaign
By tracking KPIs like the number of views on social media posts (shared by publications covering the news — as well as via your brand’s handle), likes and shares, and inquiries from potential investors, you can gain reliable insights into the effectiveness of your startup funding announcement. Comparing new inbounds from prospective investors/talent with metrics like brand awareness and sales lifts can give you a more holistic view of success. Setting KPIs from the start will enable you to measure results and adjust plans based on collected data accurately.
You’ll also want to rely on your backend web and content analytics tools, such as Google Analytics and/or HubSpot, and PR analytics/monitoring tools, such as Meltwater and/or Onclusive, to ensure you capture all the results your startup funding campaign is driving. By using these types of tools in tandem, you can see what coverage is driving inbound links and shares and the number of eyeballs seeing the funding news across all channels. This will be key to evolving your communications and content strategy moving forward, as you’ll be able to determine which stories influence your target audiences, as well as how different themes impact positive and negative sentiment within coverage.
In the age of AI search and generative engine optimization (GEO), don’t forget to track whether your funding coverage is being cited in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity when relevant queries come up. Earned media from a funding round can have a long tail of visibility beyond just the day-of traffic spike.
Do You Need a Startup PR Agency to Announce Your Funding Round?
You can certainly try to tackle everything covered in this post internally if you have an internal communications lead, but it can often be better to get an agency to support the long-term scale of this type of program. And a startup PR agency with hundreds of reps driving the PR for funding announcements can be beneficial in these scenarios — particularly when it comes to existing journalist relationships, media list building, interview prep, and the day-of coordination that can make or break a launch. An experienced agency will typically charge $8,000–$15,000+ for a full funding announcement campaign, but the ROI in terms of coverage quality and long-term media relationships often far exceeds the cost.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should you start PR outreach for a funding round?
Start your media outreach at least two weeks before your planned announcement date. Journalists typically need 4-5 business days to consider and write a funding story, but you want buffer time to work through your target list. Begin preparing messaging, press releases, and materials 3-4 weeks in advance.
Should you offer an exclusive or go wide with your funding announcement?
It depends on the round size and your goals. For most Series A and B rounds, starting with an exclusive offer to your top-choice outlet (like TechCrunch or Forbes) can yield deeper, more impactful coverage. If they pass, you can pivot to a broader embargo strategy to generate multiple placements on announcement day.
How much does it cost to get PR for a funding round?
PR agency support for a funding announcement typically costs between $8,000 and $15,000, depending on the complexity of the messaging and the scope of the campaign. Wire distribution services like PRWeb are an additional $200-$500. Some startups handle it in-house, but the media relationships and strategic expertise an experienced agency brings often justify the investment.
What should a funding round press release include?
A strong funding round press release should include: the amount raised and round type (Seed, Series A, etc.), lead investor and participating investors, a concise description of what the startup does, how the funds will be used, relevant growth metrics or market opportunity data, quotes from the founder and lead investor, and a company boilerplate with contact information.
Do you need a PR agency to announce startup funding?
Not necessarily, but it helps significantly. Startups with an experienced internal communications lead can manage the process, but agencies bring established journalist relationships, proven playbooks, and bandwidth that most early-stage teams lack — especially when the founding team is simultaneously closing the round.
How do you measure the success of a funding announcement PR campaign?
Track media placements (quantity and quality of outlets), website traffic spikes on announcement day, social media engagement and impressions, inbound inquiries from investors and potential hires, and backlink acquisition. Tools like Google Analytics, Meltwater, and HubSpot can help quantify the full impact across earned, owned, and shared channels.
