> We're growing our active user base 40% monthly and are currently receiving about 250,000 measurements per day I think it's a stretch to call these people "us

> We're growing our active user base 40% monthly and are currently receiving about 250,000 measurements per day I think it's a stretch to call these people "users," in any sort of monetary-potential way. Nonetheless, definitely use that number in any pitches you give. > 1.5 years That is a big red flag, and I hope you never mention that to investors. > are now waiting on 3 VCs / incubators to get back to us This is fairly standard in the VC community. "Yes" means maybe, and "maybe" means "no." And "no" means "hell no." VCs are notorious for saying no very politely and in a way that doesn't burn bridges, while leaving you hanging. > We plan to apply to three funding sources per week, every week. Will that be enough? Clearly that is not enough. You need to be out networking. > To be clear, I have extremely high confidence that we will find funding. It's obvious to me that we need it and that others will be excited by us and want to invest. But since we want to gather springtime and summertime thunderstorm data in the USA, we're running out of time fast. I want to be brutally honest with you. I have a fairly high confidence you won't find funding. Looking at this from a VC perspective, the only way you are going to make money, it seems, is selling the data to weather companies. That's not exactly a huge business. Most VCs do not know anything about the weather/meteorological business. Even if a VC thought your idea was interesting, they would not invest because they don't have domain experience. VCs are very conservative. VCs want to minimize risks (paradoxically). Why do you feel others will be excited by what you do? Why do you feel it's obvious that others will be excited? Because it's not obvious to me. I don't want to seem pessimistic, but why would I feel excited about this? I check the weather maybe once a week, to figure out if it'll rain in the next few days. That's it. I agree with staunch. Give yourself a deadline (6 months?) for either finding funding or becoming ramen profitable, and if you don't make it, pivot or shut down. Applying through online forms is the worst way to apply. Those forms get passed to Associates, who have no power to make the deal happen (only Partners have that power). Even cold-emailing partners at VC firms is a better path than that path. You need introductions. Go out and network. Go to meetups. Maybe even come down to the Bay Area and try to meet people and pitch what you're doing. The startup investing climate down here is much warmer (for better or for worse) than any other place in the world.