Most warm-intro emails are too long. The person you're asking to forward — your former colleague, an advisor, a friendly founder — has to read your email, write a forwarding note, and put their reputation on the line. Make it easy.

The template:

Hi [Forwarder],

Hope you're well. [One specific personal line — recent project, last conversation, mutual friend update.]

Quick ask: would you be open to forwarding the short note below to [Partner Name] at [Firm]? We're raising our seed and they're a thesis fit. Totally fine if not a good time — no need to explain.

Thanks,

[You]

---

For forwarding:

Hi [Partner],

[Forwarder] suggested I reach out. We're building [one-sentence company description]. Recent traction: [one concrete metric or signal]. We're raising a [size] seed in the next [timeframe] and would love 30 minutes to share what we're seeing in the market.

Deck: [link]. Happy to send more if helpful.

Best,

[You]

Four sentences for the forwarder. Four sentences for the investor. The forwarder copies the bottom block into a fresh email; their job is done in 60 seconds.

The two mistakes

Mistake 1: Asking the forwarder to write the intro themselves. "Could you send me a sentence or two to [Partner]?" puts the work back on them. They'll procrastinate; the intro dies in their drafts folder.

The forwardable block solves this — they paste it, add one line of personal context if they want ("worked with [you] at [previous company], extremely sharp"), and send.

Mistake 2: A long forwardable email. If the email below the divider is six paragraphs, the forwarder won't forward; they'll try to summarize it. They'll either summarize badly or not respond. Keep the forwarding block to four sentences max.

What to put in the company description sentence

The single hardest sentence in your fundraising. Test against three criteria:

  1. Names a category an investor recognizes. Not "an AI-first analytics platform" — but "[X-style] analytics for [Y-stage] [Z-segment]."
  2. Includes one specific noun that signals you've thought about who buys it. "PE fund CFOs" beats "finance teams."
  3. Doesn't depend on the rest of the email to make sense. A partner reading just that sentence in a forwarded chain should know what you do.

Rewrite this sentence five times before you send any intro emails. It's the line that goes everywhere — into investor inboxes, into hiring pipelines, into your own marketing. Sharp is non-negotiable.

The recent-traction sentence

This is your second-most-important line. Pick the most concrete signal:

  • Revenue: "$240K ARR growing 25% MoM with two enterprise pilots in flight."
  • Pre-revenue: "10 design partners signed, including [recognizable logo], and shipped our beta in [month]."
  • Pre-product: "Spent 6 months as [domain expert role] watching [problem]; have 3 LOIs from teams who'd switch tomorrow."

If you don't have a concrete sentence here, you might not be ready to raise yet — or you need to spend a week building a stronger artifact (LOIs, design partner commitments, demo videos) before opening the funnel.

After they forward

When the forwarder sends, you should hear back from them ("sent it!") and from the investor (a yes, a polite no, or silence). Track each in your investor pipeline as a forwarded intro.

If the investor doesn't respond within 5 business days, send one nudge with a fresh hook ("noticed your tweet about [topic] — relevant to what we're doing"). If they don't respond to the nudge, move them to passed and stop spending energy.

The intro that converts

Across a 60-investor target list, expect roughly:

  • 60% of forwarders agree to forward.
  • 50% of forwarded emails get a reply.
  • 60% of replies lead to a first meeting.

That's about 11 meetings from 60 forwarders — assuming you've picked the right forwarders. Make those numbers count by writing the template well from the first attempt.