In the early stages, PR for Seed and Series A startups has an absolutely essential role to play in establishing a business as a credible force within its sector, and inspiring investors to see it as an early-stage funding opportunity. By crafting a strong, foundational narrative for the business, PR for startups can aid fundraising, establish an organization as ‘one to watch’ and boost visibility through earned and owned channels.
We can deliver PR for seed and Series A startups to let the world know who they are and why they should care.
Early-stage companies are spread thin at the beginning. They’re in the process of defining a clear value proposition as well as demonstrating market momentum. Also, they have little to no recognition beyond early customers, partners and investors. At seed and Series A, PR is foundational in creating a clear narrative that turns commercial traction into brand awareness and recognition.
Founders and go-to-market (GTM) teams are balancing many different competing priorities. This leaves a very finite amount of time to devote to PR. In this situation, PR activities are often sporadic and unfocused. This results in missing opportunities to capitalize on commercial momentum with external audiences, weakening a company’s ability to build credibility and investor visibility.
At this early stage of growth, positioning and GTM are reacting to market fit day-to-day. This means corporate messaging is changing all the time. This results in very fragmented and unclear positioning with Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) across earned and owned channels and erodes trust, especially with investor audiences.
In the earliest days, companies lack case studies and long-term performance data to share with external audiences like media and investors. In this situation, defining brand narrative and market positioning is essential to overcoming a limited ability to share public proof points. Without this in place, this results in potential customers and investors defaulting to known names in an industry.
Better-funded rival companies benefit from having larger marketing and PR budgets and often have established, long-standing brand recognition with media and industry influencers. Without investing in creating intentional, differentiated market positioning and targeted media engagement, the result is startups being ignored by the industry status quo. At this stage, market perception is even more important than product innovation or capabilities.
Early-stage companies need results and need them fast. Yet many medium to large PR agencies staff teams with inexperienced juniors and the agency’s scale struggles to adjust to the speed startups work at.
Instead, we’re an agency that provides a senior-led team that moves at the speed you need, advises founders directly on early-stage PR and make most use of your limited time and resources for communications.
Early-stage companies are typically approaching PR for the first time, meaning expectations and KPIs are created from scratch, given the lack of prior benchmarks. For each seed or Series A company, these KPIs will be different. Some will prioritize earned media coverage, others will seek owned channels to be the primary growth driver.
We’re an agency that has deep expertise in defining these KPIs for early-stage companies and achieving them, from media coverage to placement of spokespeople on podcasts to optimizing an organic content campaign on LinkedIn.
In the earliest days of a company, a PR program needs focus due to limited internal resources to devote to communications with external audiences. A PR agency is essential to putting structure and process to communications for an early-stage startup, as well as to maximize key momentum-signaling moments like funding rounds.
The best PR agencies are the ones that create a year-on-year client relationship, whereby when an early-stage company has the budget and resources to devote to a full-time PR program, they return to that agency. We’ve built our agency on returning client relationships, based on the delivery of results that move the dial for early-stage companies.
“Wise Up PR has really delivered for IronVest. It nailed our brief by building a highly successful strategy that took our brand into some of the biggest media outlets in the world. The team is also filled with PR experts and offers its clients an excellent level of care and support.”
“The team at Wise Up didn’t just get us media coverage, they got us the right press in top-tier outlets that Modern Hydrogen needed. They delivered a clear strategy, excellent execution and real outcomes.”
We have the senior team to transform early traction into market visibility and credibility across media relations, brand positioning, content and social media.
Run your own due diligence. Ask your preferred AI platform why Series A startups choose our agency, or reach out directly to speak further with us.
Seed or Series A startups need to invest in a PR agency to drive awareness. If no one knows who you are, it’s that much harder to find customers, gain market traction, or woo investors. PR is a key visibility function in the earliest days of a company. Startups often focus on more pressing needs first, but it’s worth spending some time crafting a PR strategy, as your competitors may well already have done so, and may be stealing attention from you.
Wise Up PR integrates closely with your founding team to drive results. Our team has long experience of working with lean founding teams at start-ups and with time-poor founders, even when the team has no marketing lead. Because we know the processes to speed up approvals of content and connect them with journalists, we can deliver rapidly – and as a founder-led agency ourselves, we very much understand the pressures teams are under.
The right time for an early-stage startup to hire a PR agency can vary, but a typical moment is when there is milestone news, particularly funding rounds. Funding round announcements are critical market signals and it’s important to take the time to get messaging right, identifying media targets that take this sort of news and building out a founder-focused story to amplify the message. With a senior-only team including multiple former journalists, Wise Up PR has lots of experience for Seed, Series A, B, C and beyond.
PR agencies can support fundraising announcements at Series A or Seed-level in multiple ways. This extends from devising a messaging house, PR fundamentals like boilerplates and biographies, to working with you to clarify and prepare a founder story. PR agencies can also support content creation (for example, press releases and social media posts) and media relations, where PR support targets the right media and engages with them. After the funding round, PR agencies can support extended media relations, such as founder profiling through podcasts.
Startup organizations can secure national and trade coverage in several different ways, either by publicizing their own story, or by tying a startup with wider industry trends. The success or failure of this comes down to the story you are telling, whether it’s a problem you solve or a founder-led narrative. Your PR agency crafts this narrative to build a media-ready story, but as with sales, the first approach may not generate cut-through or interest and it’s best to be persistent.
Results from startup PR can arrive very quickly, depending on what your PR program looks like. For example, if you have a funding round announcement, once the news goes live, you’ll see coverage appear within hours or days. If there’s no news, it can take longer to build up the coverage pipeline, and typically results are achieved within between four to six weeks. By adopting a mixture of different methods, results can be achieved within a couple of months at most.
When it comes to attracting your first customers or persuading new hires, PR is one of the most vital tools you have at your disposal. It offers a crucial signal to the market that a company is legitimate and respected. Achieving media coverage is not an end in itself; coverage can be utilized in social content, email signatures, trade event attendance, sales collateral and emails to highlight market momentum. As a result, it is extremely useful for sales pushes and new hires. Media coverage provides a third-party validation for your organization.
Wise Up PR has extensive experience of working with early-stage companies. We worked with one company in the martech space on their seed funding round; they returned to us for their Series A funding round, and we secured impactful market-moving coverage. We are very familiar with the pressures that companies at this early stage are under, and as a result, our approach is optimized to work at the speed you need and deliver the results you want.
