In 2025, Pre-TGE fundraising has become more structured, more selective, and more founder-led. Capital is still available, but it flows toward teams that understand what the investors are watching for.

Before you pitch, publish, or ask for introductions, you need to build confidence that you are ready to raise. Here’s what that actually means.

1. Show You’re Solving a Real Problem

The easiest way to kill interest is to pitch a product that no one wants. Especially in pre-TGE stages, you need to make a clear case that you’re solving a real pain point, and that the market for that pain point is large enough to matter.

You do not need to chase the loudest narrative, but aligning your product within an existing momentum or vertical helps. Investors are more inclined to pay attention to founders building within trends they already believe in. Projects that sit at the intersection of relevant market narratives and real infrastructure needs gain earlier traction.

Strong indicator: you’ve validated demand through early pilots, pre-signups, waitlists, or ecosystem grants. Even anecdotal usage can count if it’s paired with credible analysis of what people are doing with your product.

Strong community growth is another proof point. Track metrics like number of active wallets, early token distribution stats, Discord and Telegram growth, or user retention over early cohorts. Share percentage growth over 30- to 90-day periods, or activation rates across cohorts to indicate traction. Usage is what convinces, not just vision.

Floki is a notable example. While it started with a strong meme presence, its recent growth has leaned heavily on building real GameFi and utility tools, expanding into staking, education, and metaverse integrations. The project gained traction because of its ability to convert hype into structured ecosystems with growing user bases.

2. Publish Proof Before You Pitch

Investors have gotten faster at filtering between real builders and teams that just want quick capital. Your follower count alone does not impress serious funds. What matters is whether you’ve de-risked the execution from their end.

Before reaching out, you should have these items in your utility belt to demonstrate product maturity and readiness to raise. These materials often make it into pitch decks or investor discussions, and signal that you’ve built with discipline:

• Recordings of key workflows that show the product is either launched or very close to launch
• A vision that solves a real-world problem, and metrics from any product-market fit experiments or user interviews
• Tokenomics previews that include emissions, unlock schedules, and liquidity plans
• A clear roadmap that connects milestones to incentive designs and ecosystem timelines

Lighter, a new modular rollup infrastructure layer, exemplified this approach. Before raising publicly, they had already outlined a clear vision, built an MVP with key differentiators in modular infra for APAC, and shared a high-context plan for scalability. That preparation led to participation from top funds and over $13 million in strategic investment.

What You Should Share Publicly

Investors also look for signs that your target audience is genuinely engaging with your work. Credibility, domain fluency, and delivery consistency are easier to prove when you make key information public:

• GitHub activity, testnet usage, or private demo footage that proves consistent technical progress
• Community traction across Telegram, Discord, dApp or protocol TVL growth, with an emphasis on contributor involvement, activation, and retention
• Insightful public content from the team showing vertical-specific thinking : educational threads, counter-narratives, or frameworks tailored to your niche
• Proof of ecosystem alignment like audits, grants, hackathon placements, campaign results, or inclusion in vertical reports

Use content and metrics that back up the product story. This could be growth in waitlist signups, wallet activity, smart contract interactions, DAU/WAU ratios, or usage from partner integrations. Don’t just publish stats - explain what the numbers mean and how they align with your overall roadmap.

These assets do not need to be part of a viral campaign. But they should be discoverable. Visibility is about leaving a footprint that shows you’re building consistently, learning from user behavior, and sharing proof with the market.

If an investor sees your product update, user numbers, and public roadmap before you ever reach out—they are already halfway through their due diligence.

3. Align Your Story With the Current Narrative

You do not need to ride every trend. But you do need to position your project within a believable story. What makes this the right time to build what you’re building? Why now? Why here?

Aster DEX is a timely example. Their recent momentum came not just from product quality but from alignment with rising DEX narratives and the growing demand for hyper-efficient trading infrastructure. Aster gained traction through narrative tailwinds from the Hyperliquid ecosystem, ecosystem support from CZ Binance’s network, and strong timing around Solana’s resurgence. The story made sense in the market.

4. Build a Team That Reduces Execution Risk

The most consistent pattern across successful pre-TGE raises is team credibility. Investors back people before they back products.

If you’ve built a real company, launched something people use, or shipped infrastructure at scale, even outside of crypto, your name builds trust. Past success becomes the due diligence. It gives investors confidence that you can execute again.

"It is not about potential anymore. It is about reducing risk."

Avantis, a new derivatives protocol, gained immediate traction in part due to its founder being ex-Coinbase. The pedigree of shipping at a high-stakes company gave investors a reason to trust the new product, even in its earliest stages.

5. Structure the Round Clearly

Lastly, before you pitch, you should already have clarity on:

• How much you are raising
• What stage and valuation range you’re targeting
• What unlock schedules or emissions you’re offering
• How this capital maps to roadmap and runway

When founders pitch without these basics, it signals a lack of planning. Many strong raises fall apart here.

You do not need to lock all details before conversations start but you do need to show you’ve modeled the raise against market reality.

Conclusion

Pre-TGE fundraising is still very much alive but only for teams who meet the bar.

This is not a market where narrative alone closes rounds. You need proof, preparation, and positioning.

Show traction. Publish clearly. Structure your ask.

The capital will follow.

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