Network not location wins pre-seed
The state of pre-seed in 2024
Early stage fundraising has become much less local, which shifts the bottleneck from physical proximity to network quality. In practice, that means a founder can run nearly the whole process over Zoom, talk to Boston, San Francisco, and New York investors in the same week, and close a round before meeting most backers in person. Location still shapes who makes the first intro, but it no longer controls who can get funded.
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In this case, more than 95% of meetings were digital, the lead investor was based in Boston with distributed partners, and other investors were split across San Francisco and New York. Most were not met in person until after investing. That is a concrete example of geography mattering far less during the actual raise.
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What still matters is the network behind the calendar. The founder did not rely on cold outreach, and instead used years of prior work, relationships, and reputation to get warm introductions. Geography now acts more like a rough signal for where that network was built than a hard limit on who can participate.
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Programs like On Deck Founders, Pioneer, and South Park Commons matter in this environment because they help founders manufacture network density without already living in a major tech hub. They function less like office space and more like a trust layer that helps outsiders meet co-founders, early angels, and super connectors.
This pushes pre-seed toward a more national, and often global, market where the winners are founders who can create fast credibility online. The next edge will come less from being in San Francisco, and more from building a strong referral graph, clear story, and enough traction to make a Zoom meeting convert into a term sheet.