Kate McAndrew, General Partner at $100M Baukunst VC, reveals her exact pre-seed investment process: 5-minute founder assessment, collaborative diligence, 2-week close. Why half her portfolio is female founders.
Kate McAndrew spent eight years building the brands of male general partners before realizing it was her time to step into the spotlight. Now as General Partner and Co-Founder of Baukunst, the $100 million fund, she leads pre-seed rounds with $1.3M average checks while maintaining that 50% of her portfolio consists of female founders, without any diversity mandate.
Follow Kate: TikTok | LinkedIn | Baukunst
Kate McAndrew doesn't need elaborate pitch presentations to spot exceptional founders. Her investment philosophy centers on rapid assessment: "We know in the first five minutes whether or not we want to spend more time on this."
The key isn't what founders say in those crucial minutes; it's how they show up. McAndrew looks for founders who demonstrate composure, confidence in themselves and their mission, and crystal-clear purpose about what they're building and why.
"The biggest thing that you can do is really come in composed and confident in yourself, confident in what you're doing, with a real clarity of purpose on what you're trying to build and why. Because you often only have 30 minutes, and in five minutes, you basically have given your elevator pitch, and you've communicated something about who you are."
Unlike many VCs who maintain emotional distance during courtship, McAndrew brings radical transparency to her investment approach. She draws parallels to dating: "In my dating life, no one ever wondered if I was into them. If I'm into it, you're gonna know."
This authenticity extends beyond personal style - it's strategic. Founders spend months in uncertainty with VCs who play hard to get, while McAndrew's direct approach accelerates decision-making and builds stronger relationships from day one.
"I don't play it cool. Some people do, but that's just not my vibe. I think the best thing you can do is like fully be yourself. My style is very transparent. I'll tell you at the end of the call if I'm interested. I'll be like, I'm very interested. Like, I'm excited. Like, I want to dive in here. You won't be guessing."
McAndrew applies a strict market size threshold that eliminates most opportunities before deeper analysis begins. Her fund requires addressable markets of at least $1 billion, but realistically targets $2+ billion opportunities.
The evaluation process combines bottoms-up analysis with legacy player assessment. Rather than relying on top-down TAM/SAM calculations, she works with founders to model user numbers, pricing, and competitive displacement scenarios that validate venture-scale outcomes.
"It has to be at least a billion dollar market, but really a two billion dollar market. That's basically the bottom. Building any business is hard. So if we're going to go on the journey of building the business, we want to make sure that if we're successful, that success is going to look like a venture scale outcome."
The Challenge: Breaking through the noise when VCs receive overwhelming inbound deal flow.
The Solution: McAndrew's attention allocation system prioritizes based on social proof strength:
How to Apply: Map your network to identify paths to Tier 1 introductions. If unavailable, optimize your LinkedIn profile to signal Tier 2 credibility. Never rely solely on Tier 3 cold outreach.
Kate shared five battle-tested frameworks that have guided her through 100+ pre-seed investments. Get immediate access to the remaining frameworks:
✅ The Commitment Test for Pre-Seed Readiness
✅ The Collaborative Diligence Process
✅ The Network-First Fundraising Strategy
✅ The Technical Co-Founder Paradigm Shift
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