Stop Selling the TAM. Investors Are Backing Teams, Not Slides.

For many first-time founders, fundraising starts with the pitch deck.

Hours are spent refining market size calculations, perfecting the Total Addressable Market (TAM) slide and explaining how the business could one day serve millions of customers.

But what if that's not what early-stage investors are looking for?

In the latest episode of Investor Circle, Stewart Noakes speaks with Mark Haaksman, founder of Sotavento Angels, an Algarve-based angel investment group supporting pre-seed startups across Portugal. Their conversation offers a valuable reminder that successful fundraising isn't about telling the biggest story. It's about building confidence in the people behind it.

The Team Comes Before the TAM

Mark's advice to founders is refreshingly direct.

"Present yourself as the team that's going to solve the problem."

At pre-seed stage, investors understand that forecasts are uncertain. Markets evolve, products pivot and customer needs change. What matters most is whether the founding team has the capability, resilience and self-awareness to navigate those changes.

Can they execute?

Do they understand the problem deeply?

Do they recognise where they need help?

Those questions often carry far more weight than ambitious projections of global market dominance.

Raise for the Stage You're In

One of the strongest themes throughout the conversation is that fundraising changes as companies mature.

Pre-seed investors want to know whether a startup can survive, learn and generate early revenue over the next couple of years.

Later-stage investors may focus on international expansion, scalability and billion-pound opportunities.

Too many founders optimise their pitch for investors they won't meet for another three or four years.

Understanding what today's investor needs to hear is far more valuable than trying to answer tomorrow's questions.

AI Is Everywhere. Data Is the Advantage.

Artificial intelligence naturally entered the discussion.

Mark believes AI is becoming an expected capability rather than a differentiator. What increasingly matters is access to valuable, proprietary data.

Without quality data, even the best AI models struggle to create sustainable competitive advantage.

For founders building AI businesses, that changes the conversation. Instead of asking, "Which model should we use?", a better question may be, "How do we build access to unique datasets that competitors cannot easily replicate?"

Building an Ecosystem, Not Just a Portfolio

Sotavento Angels isn't simply investing in startups.

The fund is helping build an entrepreneurial ecosystem across Portugal's Algarve by working closely with the University of Algarve, local government, accelerators and experienced entrepreneurs.

Rather than seeing the region's smaller startup community as a disadvantage, Mark sees it as an opportunity to create something lasting.

That philosophy closely aligns with Canopy Community's own mission of leveraging entrepreneurship as a tool for social mobility.

Strong ecosystems don't appear overnight.

They grow because experienced founders, investors and universities choose to collaborate instead of compete.

Three Takeaways for First-Time Founders

If you're preparing to raise your first investment, this episode offers three practical lessons:

• Investors invest in founders first and markets second.
• Build access to unique data if AI is central to your product.
• Focus on reaching sustainable revenue before worrying about global expansion.

These ideas may sound simple, but they represent years of investing experience and countless founder conversations.

Sometimes the biggest improvement to a pitch isn't another slide.

It's telling a clearer story about why your team is the one capable of solving the problem.

If you're a first-time founder or an early-stage investor, this is an episode well worth listening to.

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