How to tell if a VC is actually still deploying
A fund can look open for business and be completely shut. The website's live, the partners still tweet, but the chequebook closed eighteen months ago. Pitching a dormant fund wastes the scarcest thing you have: time. Here's how to tell active from quiet before you spend a meeting on it.
Read their recent Companies House filings
When a UK fund makes an investment, the portfolio company files an SH01 (return of allotment of shares) within a month of issuing the new shares. So a steady run of SH01s across a fund's known portfolio, plus fresh companies appearing where that fund's people sit as directors or persons of significant control, tells you cash is moving. A fund whose last associated filing was fifteen months ago is telling you something too. Filings don't lie the way a homepage does — they're dated, public, and impossible to fake.
Check the date of their last announced round
Active funds announce. Look at their news page, their LinkedIn, and UK trackers. You want to see a new deal in the last three to six months, ideally a first cheque into a brand-new company rather than only follow-ons into existing winners. A fund that's done nothing but top up its 2022 portfolio for a year is in triage, protecting what it has, not hunting new bets. If the most recent 'news' is a hire or an award, not a deal, treat that as a quiet signal.
Work out where they are in the fund's life
A typical UK VC fund deploys its main capital over the first three to four years, then reserves the rest for follow-ons. So a fund that closed in 2021 is probably near the end of its first-cheque window in 2026, while one that closed in late 2024 is hungry. Find the fund's vintage from press releases or the manager's filings. If they haven't raised a new fund in five-plus years and haven't announced one, they may have nothing left to deploy, however warm the partner sounds in the room.
Look for dry-powder and fundraising cues
Dry powder is the committed capital a fund hasn't spent yet. You can't see the exact figure, but you can read the cues. A freshly announced fund close ('we raised £75m') means money to spend. LP-facing posts about 'a strong new vintage' say the same. The opposite signal: a fund publicly talking up its 'reserves strategy' or going quiet on new fund-raising usually means the tank is low. No new fund in years plus no new first cheques is the clearest tell that the well has run dry.
Track partner moves
Funds run on individual partners, and partners move. If the partner who led every deal in your sector left six months ago, that thesis may have walked out with them. Check the team page against LinkedIn and Companies House director appointments and resignations. A wave of departures, or a partner quietly dropping from active boards, signals a fund winding down or repositioning. The reverse is bullish: a new partner hired for your exact sector is a fund actively building a thesis they want to deploy against right now.
How SeedPilot flags active versus quiet
Checking all of this by hand, fund by fund, is a weekend you don't have. SeedPilot reads Companies House filings continuously and flags each investor as actively deploying or gone quiet, based on real allotment activity and recent backing of companies like yours, not on how polished their site looks. You skip the dormant funds entirely and spend your meetings on people whose money is actually moving. That alone can shave weeks off a raise.
Don't pitch a fund that's quietly closed — get matched only to UK investors whose Companies House filings prove they're still writing cheques into companies like yours.
Now find the investors who'll actually back you.
SeedPilot matches you to UK investors who actually fund companies like yours, on verified data rather than what their website claims. Free, 90 seconds, no email.
Editorial guidance for UK founders — not legal, tax, or financial advice.