Capitalize.io, the software platform designed to help founders streamline their fundraising process from pitch to close, has just announced new funding from investors including Lerer Hippeau, Sway Ventures, FJ Labs, and Treasury. While the amount remains undisclosed, insiders say the round is enough to aggressively scale product development and go-to-market.

Co-founded by Luke Morris and Soren Craig, Capitalize is tackling one of the most frustrating, fragmented, and emotionally draining experiences in startup life: raising capital. With its clean UX, modular tools, and deeply integrated workflows, Capitalize aims to give founders the leverage, structure, and insight that investors have long held over them.

This round solidifies Capitalize.io’s position as a category-defining player in fundraising infrastructure, not just another startup CRM.

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Where Fundraising Tech Fails Founders

The irony? The tools that claim to help founders fundraise often create more work than they solve.

Typical solutions are either:

• Generic CRMs repurposed for fundraising
  
• Point tools like pitch deck analytics, with no real workflow integration
  
• Or worse - manual Notion templates trying to act like systems
  

Capitalize.io flips this by creating a fully integrated fundraising command center:

• Investor pipeline CRM purpose-built for managing conversations, stages, intros, and notes
  
• Automated data room creation with smart permissions and real-time version tracking
  
• Pitch deck analytics that go beyond opens - tracking engagement down to slide dwell time
  
• VC matching algorithms that pair your stage, vertical, and traction with aligned investors
  
• Fundraising progress dashboards for both internal team visibility and external advisors
  

It’s the modern stack founders should’ve had from Day 1.

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Where Most Founders Leave Leverage on the Table

Here’s a game-changing insight buried in Capitalize’s approach - something many founders overlook.

Fundraising is not just a sales process. It’s a momentum game.

Investors don’t just invest in ideas. They invest in signals: how fast your round is filling, how prepared you are, how other firms are engaging. And most founders? They broadcast none of it. They pitch reactively, manually update decks, and lose steam between calls.

Capitalize turns the process into a tightly run signal engine, allowing founders to:

• Control the narrative across multiple conversations
  
• Time communications with tactical precision
  
• Show momentum through analytics, not anecdotes
  
• Use engagement data to double down on interested leads
  
• Avoid repeating themselves across 40+ email threads
  

Founders, take note:
The round doesn’t close because your pitch is perfect - it closes because your process is tight.
Fundraising infrastructure is strategy. And most of the battle is lost in the backend chaos.

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Why Lerer Hippeau and Sway Ventures Backed It

Capitalize’s value prop is not just sexy software - it’s a bet on a power shift in early-stage fundraising.

For years, founders were expected to navigate opaque VC processes with little transparency and even less support. Now, with the rise of rolling funds, syndicates, data-rich investing, and faster rounds, the founder has become the market-maker.

Capitalize isn’t just helping them keep up - it’s giving them the tools to run the table.

Investors like Lerer Hippeau and Sway Ventures understand that the next billion-dollar companies will be led by operators who move fast, communicate well, and command process control. That’s what Capitalize is enabling, and that’s why it’s getting early institutional backing.

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Founders with Ops DNA

Co-founders Luke Morris and Soren Craig are not just visionaries - they’re former operators who’ve lived the chaos of fundraising. Their background spans both sides of the table: early-stage startups, venture firms, and syndicate groups. This gave them a unique lens on what’s broken and how to build real tooling that doesn’t just feel good - it closes rounds.

They’ve also taken a measured, feedback-driven product roadmap - working with YC founders, pre-seed teams, and growth-stage operators to test and validate every feature before scaling.

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Industry Outlook: The Future of Fundraising Is Productized

The fundraising tech landscape is heating up. According to PitchBook, more than $1.2 billion has been invested in tools aimed at improving private market transactions, from cap table platforms to LP dashboards.

But where most tools focus on investors (like Carta, AngelList, etc.), few are founder-first.

This is Capitalize.io’s moat.

As VC rounds become faster, remote pitching becomes standard, and more solo capital emerges, founders need infrastructure that can keep up. Not Excel sheets. Not air-gapped tools. But real-time systems that mirror the pace and psychology of venture capital.

Stats that prove the trend:

• 62% of founders say fundraising takes longer than planned (CB Insights, 2023)
  
• 71% of pre-seed and seed rounds involve more than 20 investor conversations
  
• Nearly 50% of early-stage startups lack any formal CRM or data room management system
  

Capitalize is positioning itself as the operating system for raising capital - no matter your stage, round type, or location.

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What’s Next for Capitalize.io?

With fresh funding, Capitalize plans to:

• Roll out automated investor intro workflows and founder community referrals
  
• Deepen integration with tools like DocSend, Notion, and Google Drive
  
• Launch fundraise coaching modules using in-product nudges and templates
  
• Expand founder-focused content on deal dynamics, negotiating tactics, and storytelling
  
• Grow the team across product, partnerships, and founder success
  

They’re also working on confidential syndicate-sharing tools that allow founders to manage rolling closes and SPVs with compliance in mind.

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Final Thoughts: The Most Underrated GTM Tool Is a Better Fundraise Process

Capitalize.io isn’t just helping founders organize - it’s helping them win. In a world where speed, clarity, and momentum matter more than ever, the startups that fundraise with precision will pull ahead.

If you’re a founder building something ambitious, don’t let outdated workflows cost you time, capital, or conviction. Fundraising is hard enough - your tools shouldn’t make it harder.

Capitalize.io is the stack that finally understands that.