Meeting Brief: Call with Kestrel Ventures

Meeting: Intro call, seed round When: Thursday 29 October 2026, 15:00 to 15:45, video call You: Arjun, founder of Routewise (fictional startup, routewise.example) Them: Kestrel Ventures (fictional fund, kestrel.example) Prepared by: your agent, from your email thread, calendar invite, CRM notes and the fund's public website

Why this meeting is happening

Dana Okafor, a partner at Kestrel, replied to your cold email on 21 October after seeing the Routewise launch post. She wrote that she is "looking at tools for small delivery fleets" and asked for 45 minutes. This is a first call, not a pitch meeting with the full partnership.

Who you are meeting

Dana Okafor, Partner

Joined Kestrel two years ago. Before that, ran operations at a regional courier company.
Leads the fund's logistics and supply chain deals.
Her public posts focus on driver retention and fuel cost, not route software as such.

Possibly joining: an associate (name not in the invite yet). The calendar invite has one extra guest slot.

About Kestrel

Seed and Series A fund. Typical first cheque is between $500k and $1.5M, per their website.
Portfolio includes two logistics companies, neither a direct competitor to Routewise.
They usually take a board observer seat, not a full board seat, at seed.

What they will likely ask

How many fleets are paying, and what does a typical fleet look like?
Why now? What changed that makes this possible?
How do you win against the routing features already in large fleet platforms?
What do drivers think of the app?
How will you use the money?

Your numbers, ready to quote

Metric	Value
Paying fleets	23
Monthly recurring revenue	$11,400
Average fleet size	14 vans
Month-over-month growth, last 3 months	18%, 22%, 15%
Logo churn, last 6 months	2 fleets
Round size you are raising	$1.2M

Points to land

Small fleets of 5 to 40 vans are ignored by large platforms. They plan routes on paper or in spreadsheets.
Setup takes under one hour. Nine of the 23 fleets signed up without a sales call.
Fuel savings average 11% in the first month, measured from customer fuel card data.

Questions to ask Dana

What did she see work and fail at the courier company when new software rolled out to drivers?
What would Kestrel need to see to move to a partner meeting?
How fast does the fund usually decide after a first call?

Things to avoid

Do not share the cap table on this call. Offer to send it after if asked.
Do not quote the pipeline figure from August. It is out of date.

After the call

Your agent will draft a thank-you email with the deck and the one-page metrics sheet, and set a follow-up reminder for 5 November if there is no reply.