Poach

About Poach

Poach is a powerful dealflow intelligence platform designed for venture capitalists and early-stage investors. The core challenge in venture capital is accessing high-quality investment opportunities before the competition, often relying on strained networks for warm introductions. Poach solves this by providing a unique, predictive signal that sits between a warm intro and cold inbound. It does this by algorithmically tracking the social media activity of top-tier VCs, primarily on Twitter (X), to identify the founders and operators they are following. This follow activity is a leading indicator of early interest, often occurring months before a founder officially begins a fundraising process. Poach then enriches this data by matching profiles to LinkedIn, using AI to label individuals (e.g., as unfunded founders, engineers, researchers), and delivers clean, actionable lead lists directly to your inbox. The platform is built for investors who want to systematically expand and qualify their dealflow, identify stealth-mode founders, and gain a multi-month advantage in seeing the next generation of breakout companies.

Features of Poach

VC Social Tracking & Signal Detection

Poach's foundational feature is its continuous monitoring of who leading venture capitalists follow on social media platforms like Twitter. This provides a unique, non-public signal of investor interest. By analyzing these follow graphs, Poach detects promising individuals—often founders—long before they list themselves on pitch decks or fundraising platforms, turning passive social signals into an active, qualified lead generation engine for your firm.

Proprietary LinkedIn Enrichment & Identity Resolution

Raw Twitter handles are not enough for due diligence. Poach employs a proprietary identity resolution engine to accurately match Twitter profiles with corresponding LinkedIn accounts. This process enriches each lead with critical professional data, including full work history, educational background, and career trajectory, transforming a simple username into a comprehensive professional profile for immediate evaluation.

AI-Powered Categorization & Bio Generation

To save investors hours of manual research, Poach uses advanced AI to analyze the combined Twitter and LinkedIn data. It automatically labels each person with relevant tags such as "founder," "funded," "engineering," or "research." Furthermore, the AI synthesizes a concise, informative medium bio for each lead, summarizing their background and current focus, which allows for rapid scanning and prioritization.

Raw Data Delivery & Custom Filtering

Poach empowers investors with full data transparency and control. Users receive daily email digests with executive summaries and, crucially, attached CSV files containing the complete enriched dataset. This allows for powerful custom filtering within spreadsheets or CRMs to find exactly who matches your thesis, such as all "founder" labeled individuals without the "funded" tag, enabling highly targeted outreach.

Use Cases of Poach

Identifying Stealth-Mode, Pre-Raise Founders

The primary use case is for seed and pre-seed investors to discover founders who are building in stealth or are in the very early ideation phase, long before they are visible on traditional scouting channels. By filtering for the "founder" label and excluding the "funded" label, VCs can build a list of high-potential, unfunded entrepreneurs to engage with at the earliest possible moment.

Building a Thematic Pipeline for Specific Sectors

Investors focused on specific verticals like AI, climate tech, or web3 can use Poach's AI labels and bio data to build a targeted pipeline. By tracking VCs known for expertise in a particular sector and filtering leads based on keywords in their AI-generated bios or specific labels like "research" or "web3," firms can efficiently source deals aligned with their investment thesis.

Enhancing Outbound Sourcing & Research Operations

Investment teams and sourcing associates can use Poach to systematize and scale their outbound efforts. The daily CSV exports provide a consistent stream of pre-qualified leads, eliminating hours of manual social media scraping and profile research. This data can be seamlessly integrated into existing CRM workflows for tracking and outreach.

Competitive Intelligence & Market Mapping

Beyond direct sourcing, Poach serves as a competitive intelligence tool. By observing which founders are being followed by competing VC firms, a fund can gauge market interest in certain spaces or individuals. This insight helps in mapping emerging ecosystems and understanding which areas are attracting early attention from savvy investors.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Poach's signal compare to a warm introduction?

Poach provides a high-quality signal that operates in the space between a cold inbound message and a warm intro. While not a direct personal endorsement, a VC following a founder is a strong, public indicator of genuine interest and awareness. This gives you a credible context for outreach that is significantly warmer and more informed than a purely cold contact, as you are acting on a validated signal of potential.

What is the typical lead time or advantage Poach provides?

Based on proven track records highlighted by the platform, Poach can identify founders who go on to raise formal rounds 7 to 10 months in advance. This multi-month head start is the core advantage, allowing investors to build relationships and evaluate opportunities long before a competitive fundraising process begins, thereby increasing the chance of securing an allocation.

How accurate is the AI labeling and LinkedIn matching?

Poach utilizes a proprietary identity resolution system designed for high accuracy in matching social media profiles to professional LinkedIn pages. The AI labeling is based on analysis of both Twitter bios and detailed LinkedIn work history, making it highly reliable for categorizing individuals into roles like founder, engineer, or investor. Users can always verify the underlying raw data in the provided CSV exports.

What does the daily delivery include?

Subscribers receive a curated morning email digest containing an executive summary of the most interesting leads from the past day. Attached to each email is a comprehensive CSV file with the full dataset, including Twitter handles, full names, LinkedIn URLs, the VC(s) who followed them, AI-assigned labels, and the AI-generated medium bio. This format allows for both quick review and deep data analysis.