You raised money. Amazing.

Now think about what happens next. Your investors share the news. Your team shares the news. Maybe press picks it up. Ten, maybe twenty people posting about you on the same day.

And all of that traffic lands in one place. Your website.

And the thing is, most startups at this stage have a website they're kinda ashamed of. Built in a weekend, two pivots ago, messaging that talks about feature A when the product is really all about feature B now.

That's a problem. Because you get exactly one moment where investors, press and future hires all look at you at the same time.

I analyzed the best funding announcements out there, and there's a clear pattern. The ones that get 500K+ impressions all get the same things right.

Let me walk you through it. (Or watch the video on YouTube)

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Your website is the landing page for everything

Here's a number that should make you think twice.

According to research from Stanford, 75% of consumers judge a company's credibility based on their website design. And they form that opinion in about 0.05 seconds. Sweor​Design Force​

Now imagine you just announced a $5M seed round. A senior engineer you want to hire clicks the link, sees an outdated hero section and a broken nav. Gone.

For me, the website has two jobs during a funding announcement:

Job one: redirect customers to the right place.
​Job two: redirect potential hires to the right place.

And for both of them, it needs to show that you're a brand worth working with, and working for.

Remember, companies typically put 30-40% of their funding round toward sales and marketing in the first year. If a big chunk of that is hiring, your website is doing the selling for you before anyone even replies to a recruiter.

Rebrand or refresh?

First question you have to answer.

To me, this depends on your stage. If you're seed or Series A, your brand is probably messy. No proper style guide, no consistent visuals. Which is fine. That's normal.

But at minimum, you need a brand refresh. Logos consistent everywhere, colors consistent, and most importantly, your voice. Because between your first go-live and this announcement, you learned a lot about your culture and audience. That changes how you talk about what you do.

Best example I've seen: Lovable. They rebranded from GPT Engineer, and the results were wild. They went from two failed launches to crossing 120K daily signups after the rebrand. The name "Lovable" told you how the product should feel. It even became a cultural thing inside the company, when someone says "this is not lovable" in a meeting, everyone stops. Ashby​Executive Scouting​

The website check nobody does

Before you hit publish, go through every page. Every single one.

Check it on desktop, tablet, and mobile. Look for broken links, broken components, broken navigation. Test every form. If people apply for a job or request a demo, make sure the submission actually arrives somewhere.

Here's one thing almost everyone forgets: the share preview.

Go to LinkedIn, paste your new URL, and look at what shows up. Is the image right? Is it cropped correctly? Is the title correct? This is the open graph image, and it's what everyone sees when your announcement gets shared. If it shows a random screenshot or a broken thumbnail, that's your first impression for thousands of people.

And if you changed your domain together with the rebrand, make sure you have redirects everywhere. People will still use the old link. Search engines will still use the old link. 88% of online users won't return to a site after a bad experience. A broken link counts as a bad experience.

The graphics everyone forgets

Profile pictures. Social media banners. The launch announcement thumbnail. Open graph image. Team photos.

Think about it. Ten to twenty people are sharing your news on the same day. If they all use different visuals, random screenshots, old logos, it looks chaotic.

But if everyone posts with the same clean, consistent graphics? That's when a feed starts to feel like a moment. That's how you get to those big impression numbers. It's not one viral post. It's twenty coordinated ones.

Prepare a folder. Put everything in it. Give it to everyone. Make sharing stupid easy.

Here's a quick list of what should be in that folder:

• Profile picture (consistent across team)
• Favicon
• Social page banner
• Social profile banner
• Thumbnail for launch announcement
• Open graph image

The launch video

Depending on whether you did a rebrand or just a refresh, you create a short animated video. New brand, main features, the team, and the raise. Lots of credibility, lots of hype. Easy to share.

Best example again: Lovable. They eventually ran their first brand campaign, "Earworm," created with Strange Family and directed by Thuan Tran, live across social platforms, YouTube and connected TV. They even used the platform itself to build the app featured in the ad, not as a static mock-up, but as something genuinely live and functional.

Research suggests the sweet spot for these is 60-90 seconds, long enough to tell a transformation story but short enough to maintain engagement. Shiny​

The launch itself

Two things you need:

The company post on LinkedIn. Use the launch video as visual. Short text at the top. Tag everyone who should share: investors, team members, advisors. And put the announcement link in the comments, not in the post body. A link in the post kills your reach.

The investor email. Send it early, with the timing of your LinkedIn post, assets they can use from the folder, a short description of what happened and how much you raised, what they should post about, and a link where they should lead their traffic. If you don't send this early enough, people are not ready and your coordinated moment becomes a scattered mess.

One more thing

As Reid Hoffman said: "If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late."

That's true for products. For your funding announcement, the opposite applies. This is the one moment where you should not be embarrassed. Get it right. Check everything twice.

Then launch.

📋 Download the full Funding Announcement Checklist (free):

​Funding Announcement Checklist.pdf​

The same checklist I use with clients.