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The Claude Code Fundraising Team — Setup Guide

A free giveaway. This is the same system used to run investor outreach for a live capital raise: over $5M raised, and 50+ investor meetings in the first 60 days.

Follow this guide end to end and you will have it running on your own machine in about fifteen minutes. No database, no API keys, no signups.


What this actually is

Six agents and nine skills that run every part of a capital raise from your terminal.

The six agents are the team. You talk to them like people.

Agent What it does
investor-researcher Finds family offices, institutions, HNWIs, funds, and strategics. Qualifies them against your thesis.
investor-enricher Finds the decision maker at each firm, verifies contact routes, and cross-references your network for warm paths.
outreach-strategist Segments investors by how strong the real connection is, assigns senders, writes the copy.
fundraising-copywriter Investor memo, one pager, FAQ, follow-ups, data room.
campaign-manager Builds and stages sequences, then classifies and routes every reply.
pipeline-tracker Every conversation, every commitment, every overdue follow-up.

The nine skills are what the agents actually run. You can call them directly too.

lp-discovery · thesis-matching · contact-verification · warm-path-finder · outreach-writer · outreach-sequencer · reply-classification · pipeline-tracker · data-room-prep

Everything runs through conversation. Your data stays in local files on your machine.


What you need

Thing Cost Required?
Claude Code Claude subscription or API usage Yes
A folder on your computer Free Yes
Your LinkedIn connections export Free Strongly recommended
Everything else No

That is the whole list. There is deliberately no database, no MCP server, and no API key to configure. Optional upgrades are at the bottom of this guide, for when you outgrow files.


Part 1 — Install Claude Code

Claude Code is Anthropic's official terminal app for Claude. It runs everything here.

Follow the official instructions at anthropic.com/claude-code. macOS, Windows, and Linux are all supported.

Then check it works:

claude

You should get a welcome screen and a prompt. Type /login and authenticate if you have not already. Exit with Ctrl+C twice.


Part 2 — Install the team

Two steps: clone the repo, then copy the pieces where Claude Code looks for them.

macOS / Linux

git clone https://github.com/corebits-io/fundraising-team.git
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills ~/.claude/agents
cp -r fundraising-team/skills/* ~/.claude/skills/
cp -r fundraising-team/agents/* ~/.claude/agents/

Windows (PowerShell)

git clone https://github.com/corebits-io/fundraising-team.git
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force "$HOME\.claude\skills", "$HOME\.claude\agents"
Copy-Item -Recurse -Force "fundraising-team\skills\*" "$HOME\.claude\skills\"
Copy-Item -Recurse -Force "fundraising-team\agents\*" "$HOME\.claude\agents\"

Keep the repo

Do not delete the cloned folder. The skills read the references/ files from it, and you will copy the templates/ in a moment.

Verify

Start Claude Code and run:

/skills

You should see all nine: lp-discovery, thesis-matching, contact-verification, warm-path-finder, outreach-writer, outreach-sequencer, reply-classification, pipeline-tracker, data-room-prep.

Then:

/agents

You should see all six.

If either list is short, see Troubleshooting below.


Part 3 — Set up your raise workspace

This is where your actual data lives. Keep it separate from the cloned repo.

mkdir ~/my-raise
cd ~/my-raise
cp ~/fundraising-team/templates/raise-profile.md .
cp ~/fundraising-team/templates/investors.csv .
cp ~/fundraising-team/templates/pipeline.csv .

Windows:

New-Item -ItemType Directory "$HOME\my-raise"
Set-Location "$HOME\my-raise"
Copy-Item "$HOME\fundraising-team\templates\raise-profile.md" .
Copy-Item "$HOME\fundraising-team\templates\investors.csv" .
Copy-Item "$HOME\fundraising-team\templates\pipeline.csv" .

Never put this folder in a public repository. It will contain investor names, contact details, and notes from private conversations.


Part 4 — Fill out your raise profile

This is the most important step in the whole guide. Do not skip it and do not rush it.

raise-profile.md is the file every skill reads. It is where the system learns what you are raising, who you are looking for, what is true about your traction, what you are not allowed to say, and who is sending.

Open it and fill it out honestly. Ten minutes here saves hours later.

Three rules while filling it out:

  1. If something does not apply, write N/A
  2. If you do not know yet, write TBD — the agents will ask rather than invent
  3. Never make up a number to fill a blank

Section 1 matters most. It asks which exemption you are raising under. If you are US-based and do not know whether you are 506(b) or 506(c), stop and ask your securities counsel before going further. Under 506(b) you generally cannot cold contact strangers at all, and the system will refuse to build you a cold list. It will point you at your warm network instead, which is the correct behaviour.

If you would rather do this conversationally, just start Claude Code in the folder and say:

help me fill out my raise profile

Part 5 — Your first run

Start Claude Code from your raise folder:

cd ~/my-raise
claude

Find your warm paths first

Always do this before anything cold. It is the highest-converting step in the entire system.

Export your LinkedIn connections first: LinkedIn → Settings & Privacy → Data Privacy → Get a copy of your data → Connections. It arrives by email in a few minutes. Save Connections.csv into your raise folder.

Then:

who in my network can introduce me to investors?

Build your investor list

find investors for my raise

The researcher will confirm your brief, show you a search plan, and then work through several angles. It stops and shows you samples along the way. Aim for 150 to 400 genuinely qualified investors, not thousands.

Qualify them

qualify this list against my thesis

You will be shown a rubric before anything is classified. Read it. The competitor definition and the signal keyword list are the two things that most commonly need correcting, and correcting them here saves a rebuild later.

Get the decision makers

find the right contact at each firm

Write the outreach

write outreach for these investors

You get segments, senders, and three variations each. Every message is checked against the voice rules and the compliance rules before you see it.

Stage the campaign

build me a sequence for the first 30

Nothing sends. The system stages a queue and hands it to you. You send, from your own tool or by hand. This is deliberate and it is not configurable.

Handle replies

here are the replies I got: [paste them]

Check where you are

what needs follow up today?
give me a weekly summary of the raise

Working with the agents directly

You can also call an agent by name for a bigger job:

use the investor-researcher agent to build me a list of family offices
that have backed anything in climate infrastructure
use the campaign-manager agent to process this week's replies

The agents run the skills. Either route works. Talk normally and the right one gets picked up.


The safety rails

These are built in on purpose and they are not configurable.

Nothing sends automatically. Ever. Sequences are staged. You send.

Every irreversible step has an approval gate. You see samples and counts before anything is written.

No fabrication. Not found is the correct answer for anything unverified. Every claim carries a source URL. Email addresses are never guessed from patterns, because a bounce spike on a young domain can end your ability to send email at all.

Compliance guardrails on every message. No projected returns in cold outreach. No guaranteed tax outcomes. No assuming the reader is accredited. Nothing pending described as done.

The solicitation gate. If your raise profile says 506(b), the system refuses to build you a cold list and explains why.

None of this is legal advice. Talk to securities counsel before you send anything.


Troubleshooting

/skills does not show the nine skills

Check they landed in the right place:

ls ~/.claude/skills/

You should see nine folders, each containing a SKILL.md. If you see a single fundraising-team folder instead, the copy command copied the parent rather than the contents. Re-run it with the /* on the end.

Restart Claude Code after fixing.

/agents does not show the six agents

ls ~/.claude/agents/

You should see six .md files. Same fix as above.

"It cannot find my references files"

The skills read references/ from the cloned repo. If you moved or deleted it, tell Claude where it is, or re-clone.

It refuses to build me an investor list

Check section 1 of your raise profile. If it says 506(b), that refusal is correct. Under 506(b) you generally cannot solicit strangers, and building a cold list you cannot legally message would waste your time and put your exemption at risk. Use warm-path-finder instead.

If it says TBD, fill it in.

It keeps saying "Not found" instead of giving me data

That is the system working. It will not invent an email address, a check size, or an investment thesis. A blank field is recoverable. A confident wrong one gets you a bounce, a bad meeting, or a credibility problem.

It is slow

Real research is slow. A 200-investor list built properly takes a few sessions, not one prompt. Speed here comes at the cost of accuracy, and an inaccurate investor list is worse than no list.

Windows path problems

Use forward slashes or quoted paths, and tell Claude your paths explicitly. If something looks wrong, say my raise folder is at C:\Users\me\my-raise and it will adapt.


FAQ

Do I need to pay for anything beyond Claude Code?

No. The whole system runs on Claude Code and local files. Optional paid tools are listed below, and they buy you speed, not accuracy.

Is my investor data safe?

It stays in local files on your machine. Nothing is uploaded anywhere except your conversation with Claude. Keep your raise folder out of any public repository.

Can I use this if I am raising outside the US?

The workflow applies anywhere. The compliance rules in references/compliance.md are written around US exemptions, and every jurisdiction differs, often more strictly. Talk to local counsel and adjust the guardrails.

Can it send emails for me?

No, and it will not be persuaded to. It stages queues, you send. An automated send loop attached to a language model and a securities offering is a bad idea everywhere.

How many investors should I target?

150 to 400 for a first raise. A list of 5,000 unqualified rows is worse than 150 good ones. It costs more to message, damages your sending reputation, and buries the twelve real conversations in noise.

What if I already have a list?

Drop your CSV in the raise folder and say qualify this list against my thesis. It will map your columns and run the rubric.

Can I change the rules?

Yes. Everything is a markdown file. Edit references/voice-and-copy-rules.md to match your own voice, or references/classification-rules.md to fit your market. The compliance guardrails are the ones to think hard about before loosening.

Can I use this for a fund raise, not just a company raise?

Yes. raise-profile.md handles both. Set the raise type in section 1 and the skills adapt.


When you outgrow files

You will not need any of this on day one. Add it when volume actually demands it.

Tool What it adds When
Serper / Exa Programmatic search at volume Past ~500 targets
Hunter / Prospeo Email discovery and verification Before any bulk email send
ZeroBounce / NeverBounce Deliverability verification Before any bulk email send
Neon Postgres Real database Past a few thousand rows
A real CRM Team collaboration When more than one person is working the pipeline
A real data room tool Permissioned document access At first serious diligence

If you move to a database or CRM, keep the CSVs as your source of truth and export from them. Two-way sync between files and a CRM goes wrong quietly.


What's next

Run your warm paths first. Build a small, well-qualified list. Send to 20 or 30, read the replies properly, fix the copy, then scale.

The single highest-leverage habit in the whole system is replying fast to anyone who shows interest. That one is entirely on you.

Good luck with the raise.


This guide covers version 1.0. Source: github.com/corebits-io/fundraising-team