The 5 cold email templates for investors below cover the 5 reasons a founder writes to a crypto VC cold: a first intro ask, a progress update, a warm referral mention, a round announcement with allocation left, and 1 follow-up. NAUT's data shows 558 crypto investors carrying an average round size and at least 3 portfolio deals as of 1 November 2026, and 557 of them sort into 3 buckets, 77 that average under $3M a round, 359 that average $3M to $20M and 121 that average $20M or more, so the bucket a fund sits in decides which of the 5 notes you send and what you ask for in it.
Data note. Every count here was read from NAUT's own database on 1 November 2026, read-only. A fund is counted when its row is a live investor, not archived, not merged into another row, and carries both an average round size and 3 or more portfolio deals, which is 558 rows. The 3 buckets hold 557 of those: Alameda Research sits above the $20M line on NAUT's record and is set aside here, because the firm collapsed with FTX in 2022 and there is nobody at it to email. The 18 funds named below are the 6 with the most portfolio deals in each bucket, so they are the busiest rows in each bucket rather than the biggest cheque writers in the market. The X account of each named fund was checked against the account itself and 1 second page on 1 November 2026: 14 of the 18 confirmed, 2 carry no handle on NAUT's record (Moonwhales Ventures and OIG Capital), 1 (Pantera Capital) carries a handle that was not checked for this article, and 1 is stale, described below. Anyone listed can ask NAUT to remove their page at https://naut.so/legal/data-deletion. NAUT Research wrote it.
What should a cold email to a crypto VC say?
It should say what you are building, 1 number that shows it is working, the round you are raising, and why this fund and not the 556 others. A partner reads the first 2 lines on a phone, so the ask has to survive being the only thing they see. The cold email crypto VC partners answer carries all 4 of those in the first paragraph, and the rest of crypto investor outreach is a question of which fund gets which version.
- Name the round size in the first 3 lines. A fund that averages $2.56M a round, like Moonwhales Ventures, cannot lead a $25M Series B, and a fund that averages $33.41M a round, like Hashed, rarely writes a $500K first cheque. Saying your number early saves both sides the call.
- Give 1 number, not a dashboard. Revenue, users, volume or retention, whichever is your strongest, with the period attached.
- Say why this fund. The portfolio is public. 201 deals sit on Alliance DAO's NAUT row and 180 on Coinbase Ventures', so there is always a specific deal you can point at.
- Ask for 1 thing. A 20-minute call, or a reply to 1 question. Never a deck review plus an intro plus a term sheet.
- Keep it under 150 words and send it on 1 channel. The same note arriving by email, X and Telegram in 1 afternoon reads as a mail merge.
- Make every number checkable. A partner who spots 1 inflated figure stops reading, and the figures about their own fund are the ones they know best.
Which crypto VCs run seed, Series A and growth rounds?
NAUT's data sorts a fund by the average size of the rounds it has joined, which is the number that tells you whether your raise is its size. The 18 rows below are ranked by average round size on NAUT, smallest first, and each bucket holds the 6 funds in it with the most portfolio deals. Because the ranking is the bucket, the first 6 rows are the seed bucket, under $3M a round, the next 6 are Series A and B, $3M to $20M, and the last 6 are growth, $20M and up. The template column is the number of the matching note, listed in full further down.
| Fund | Avg round | Deals | Template |
|---|---|---|---|
 Moonwhales Ventures |
$2.56M | 59 | 1 |
 X21 Digital |
$2.65M | 116 | 1 |
 ZBS Capital |
$2.86M | 86 | 1 |
 OIG Capital |
$2.94M | 47 | 1 |
 ExNetwork Capital |
$2.96M | 78 | 1 |
 Gains Associates |
$2.98M | 33 | 1 |
 AU21 Capital |
$3.15M | 168 | 2 |
 Shima Capital |
$6.64M | 118 | 2 |
 LD Capital |
$6.70M | 121 | 2 |
 NGC Ventures |
$8.57M | 152 | 3 |
 Alliance DAO |
$9.47M | 201 | 3 |
 OKX Ventures |
$9.62M | 135 | 3 |
 Amber Group |
$21.55M | 77 | 4 |
 Polychain Capital |
$24.21M | 83 | 4 |
 Pantera Capital |
$25.07M | 62 | 4 |
 Hypersphere Ventures |
$26.80M | 63 | 3 |
 Coinbase Ventures |
$29.83M | 180 | 4 |
 Hashed |
$33.41M | 67 | 3 |
Across the whole set rather than this shortlist, the 77 seed-sized funds average 13 portfolio deals each, the 359 Series A and B funds average 21 and the 121 growth funds average 20, so a seed-sized fund has usually done less than a third of the deals a Series A fund has. That matters for a cold email: the busier the row, the more pattern the partner is matching you against, and the more a specific portfolio reference earns you.
Average round size of the 18 funds
The gap between the 2 ends of that chart is 13 times, from $2.56M at Moonwhales Ventures to $33.41M at Hashed, which is why 1 cold email cannot be sent to both.
Cold email templates for investors: the 5 to copy
Replace anything in curly brackets, keep the length, and send each on 1 channel. The numbers you drop in are the ones from the table above, so the partner can check them on their own NAUT row in 1 click.
1. The intro ask. Send it to a fund whose average round matches the round you are raising, and that has no connection to you at all. It fits the 77 seed-sized funds when you are raising under $3M.
Subject: {company}, {round} {amount}, {1-line description}
Hi {name}, I am {your name}, {role} at {company}. We do {1 line, plain words}. Since {month} we have {1 number with its period}. We are raising {amount} at {round}, and NAUT puts your average round at {average} across {count} deals, which is the size we are raising. You also backed {1 portfolio company}, and we are the {relationship to it} version of that idea. Open to 20 minutes this week or next? Deck and numbers at {link}.
2. The progress update. Send it to a fund that passed, went quiet, or said "come back later", 6 to 10 weeks after the last note. It fits the 359 Series A and B funds, where a partner is usually tracking a company over several quarters before writing.
Subject: {company} update: {the 1 number, then and now}
Hi {name}, following up on {month}'s note with 1 thing that changed. {Number} went from {then} to {now}, and {1 second fact: a customer, a licence, a launch}. No ask today. If you want the monthly version of this, say yes and I will add you. If this is the wrong number to be watching, tell me which one is.
3. The warm referral mention. Send it when a founder, an angel or an existing backer has already said yes to being named, and you are writing the first note yourself rather than waiting for the forward. The step before it, and how to get that yes, is in how to ask for a warm introduction in crypto.
Subject: {referrer} suggested I write
Hi {name}, {referrer} said you were the right person for this and told me to write directly. We are {company}, {1 line}, and {1 number}. We are raising {amount} at {round}. {Referrer} thought it fit because {the specific reason they gave}. Happy to send the deck, or take 20 minutes, whichever you prefer. {Referrer} is copied in case you want to check.
4. The round announcement with allocation left. Send it when a lead is signed and you have room, which is the only cold note a growth fund tends to answer quickly. It fits the 121 funds that average $20M or more a round.
Subject: {company} {round}: {lead} leading, {amount} left
Hi {name}, we are closing {amount} at {round} with {lead} leading, and {amount left} is still open. {1 line on the company}, {1 number}, {1 line on the use of funds}. We close {date}. Your average round on NAUT is {average}, so this is the size you write. Want the data room? Say yes and it is with you today.
5. The follow-up, and 1 only. Send it once, 7 days after the note it follows, on the same channel as the original. There is no second follow-up.
Subject: re: {the original subject}
Hi {name}, 1 follow-up and then I will stop. Since my last note, {1 new fact}. If this is not your stage or sector, a 1-word no is genuinely useful and I will not write again. If it is, I am free {2 slots}.
Those 5 cover the whole cold path. Anything that is not 1 of the 5 is usually a note with no ask in it, and a note with no ask is the easiest thing in an inbox to leave for later.
Cold email templates for investors, matched to the fund in 4 steps
How to email a VC comes down to 2 answers you can look up before you write: which bucket the fund sits in, and which deal in its portfolio you are pointing at. The matching is the work, and the writing takes 10 minutes once both are on the page.
| Template | Send when | First line |
|---|---|---|
| 1, intro ask | No connection, round size matches | Company, round, amount |
| 2, progress update | A pass or a quiet thread, 6 to 10 weeks on | The 1 number, then and now |
| 3, warm referral | A referrer has agreed to be named | The referrer's name |
| 4, round announcement | Lead signed, allocation left | Lead, amount left, close date |
| 5, follow-up | 7 days after any of the above | Re: the original subject |
Template 1 is the seed note, for the 77 funds that average under $3M a round, template 2 the Series A and B note for the 359 funds between $3M and $20M, and template 4 the growth note for the 121 funds at $20M and up. Templates 3 and 5 fit any bucket.
- Price your roundWrite the number down. $2.56M puts you in front of Moonwhales Ventures, $33.41M in front of Hashed.
- Pick the bucket77 funds average under $3M a round, 359 average $3M to $20M, 121 average $20M or more.
- Open 10 fund pagesEach fund's NAUT page lists its portfolio, so Alliance DAO's 201 deals and Coinbase Ventures' 180 give you the reference line.
- Pick 1 portfolio deal eachThe sentence that says why this fund has to name a company it already backed.
- Send the matching templateTemplate 1 at seed, 2 to a quiet Series A thread, 4 once a lead is signed, 5 exactly once.
What this tells a BD lead selling to funds
A BD lead selling data, custody, legal or market making into funds can use the same 3 buckets, with the ask changed.
- The round size tells you the budget. A fund averaging $2.56M a round is running a small team on a small management fee, and a fund averaging $33.41M a round is not.
- Portfolio count tells you the workload, which is the thing you are selling against. 201 deals at Alliance DAO, 180 at Coinbase Ventures and 168 at AU21 Capital are 3 portfolios that need reporting, monitoring and introductions at a volume a spreadsheet handles badly.
- Template 2 is the one that works here. A fund that passed on your product in March is a fund with 6 months of new portfolio problems in September.
- The 14 of 18 funds whose X account was confirmed on 1 November 2026 are the ones where a public channel is a verified second route, which matters when your email bounces.
What this tells a founder raising a round
- Check the bucket before you write, because a fund can only decline for the reason you handed it. A $12M ask into a fund that averages $2.56M a round is declined on size alone.
- 359 of the 557 funds, 64 percent of them, average $3M to $20M a round. That is where the volume of crypto fund capacity sits, and where most of a Series A list comes from.
- Growth funds are the smallest bucket at 121 and the hardest to reach cold, which is why template 4 leads with a signed lead rather than with the company.
- Seed-sized funds are the most reachable and the least able to carry a round alone. X21 Digital has 116 deals at a $2.65M average, so it is the sort of row that fills a round rather than sets its terms.
How to reach the funds on this list
Open the fund's page on NAUT and read the people on it before you write a word, because the note goes to a named partner rather than to an inbox at the firm. 14 of the 18 funds here had their X account confirmed on 1 November 2026, which gives you a public channel to check the fund is still active before you spend a first note on it.
2 of the 18 carry no X handle on NAUT's record, Moonwhales Ventures with 59 portfolio deals and OIG Capital with 47, so their NAUT page is the route in. 1 handle on the shortlist is stale: NAUT's row for LD Capital still carries the handle @ld_capital, and a check on 1 November 2026 found that account now posting as Liquid Capital, with ldcap.com naming @Liquid_Capital_ as the fund's account, so the stored handle should not be used for outreach. Pantera Capital carries a handle on NAUT that was not checked for this article, so treat it as unverified until you open it.
Related reading on NAUT: How to find crypto investors by round size: 28 funds, 4 steps and How to ask for a warm introduction in crypto: 5 templates.
Can you pull this data through the NAUT API?
Yes. The fund list behind this article comes back from GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors?sort=portfolio&limit=100 with the header Authorization: Bearer $NAUT_KEY, which returns funds sorted by portfolio size, 30 a page and up to 100 with limit; 1 fund's own rounds and team come from GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/alliance-dao, whose portfolio rows each carry the company, round type, amount in USD, announcement date and whether the fund led, which is what the averages in this article were computed from in NAUT's database. Each call costs 5 credits, so the 18 funds here are 1 list call plus 18 fund calls, 95 credits, inside the 3,000 credits a month on Essential at $49; the parameters are documented at https://naut.so/docs/api and the plans at https://naut.so/pricing. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn for the people at these funds unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial if you need the channel rather than the name.
Cold email templates for investors FAQ
What should a cold email to a crypto VC say?
It should name the company in 1 line, 1 number with its period, the round and the amount, and 1 reason this fund specifically, in under 150 words with a single ask. The reason is the part to spend time on, because NAUT's data shows 557 crypto funds with an average round size on record as of 1 November 2026, and a partner's first question is why they are reading about yours.
Which crypto VCs write seed-sized cheques?
NAUT's data shows 77 crypto investors averaging under $3M a round as of 1 November 2026, from the 558 with an average round size and 3 or more deals on record. The 6 of those 77 with the most portfolio deals are X21 Digital with 116, ZBS Capital with 86, ExNetwork Capital with 78, Moonwhales Ventures with 59, OIG Capital with 47 and Gains Associates with 33.
How long should a cold email to an investor be?
Under 150 words, with the ask in the first 3 lines, because a partner reads the opening on a phone between meetings. The 5 templates in this article each run 60 to 110 words with the brackets filled in, and the follow-up is the shortest of the 5.
Where can I find crypto VCs and the people to email at them?
On NAUT. Its investor pages carry the fund's average round size, its portfolio count and the people on its team, which is how the 18 funds in this article were picked from 557, and the same rows come back from the API as GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors?sort=portfolio&limit=100 at 5 credits a call. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn for those people unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial to get the channel as well as the name.
Should I cold email a crypto VC or wait for a warm introduction?
Do both, in that order of effort rather than of time. A warm path is worth more per note, and with 557 funds on NAUT's record carrying an average round size, no founder has a warm path to all of the ones that match their round size, which is what templates 1 and 4 are for.
Sources
- NAUT's own database, read on 1 November 2026, read-only: live investor rows that are not archived and not merged, each with its average round size, capital deployed and portfolio count. The 558 count, the 3 bucket counts and every average and portfolio figure above were computed from those rows at that time. Alameda Research is excluded from the 557 and from the shortlist.
- The X account of each of the 16 shortlisted funds that carries a handle on NAUT, plus 1 second page for each, all read on 1 November 2026. 14 confirmed the account belongs to the fund. The check on LD Capital found the stored handle now in use by another account, and Pantera Capital's handle was not part of the check.
- The second pages used for those confirmations were each fund's own site or profile link, among them exnetworkcapital.com, zbs.capital, ngc.fund, au21.capital, shima.capital, alliance.xyz, okx.com/ventures, ambergroup.io, polychain.capital, hypersphere.capital, coinbase.com/ventures and link3.to/hashed, read on 1 November 2026.
- NAUT API parameters, prices and plans, from https://naut.so/docs/api and https://naut.so/pricing, read on 31 October 2026.